How could she tell them about my mom?
The question's still circling in my head the next day, over and over. Jennie's filled me with questions. About her. About myself. About the world and my heart's capacity for everything: hate and love and jealousy and spite and anger.
Oh God, I'm so angry at Jennie, but even more, I'm angry at myself.
I shouldn't have trusted her. That's what this means, doesn't it? But I did; I told her everything. I spilled my fears and my truth and the gnawing wound and wondering inside me, that terrible "what-if" that I'll never be able to shake. And she turned around and told her friends like it was gossip. Somehow, this feels like I've betrayed my mom just as much as Jennie betrayed me. I was stupid and careless, lost in the whirl of Jennie, and now I'm here. Where everyone knows I'm the girl whose mom killed herself.
How fucking dare she?! I want to tear her hair out. I want to scream at her. I want to fall on my knees and cry and ask why while she holds me.
That's the worst of it: I still want her. How can I still want her when she's so cruel?
My mouth flattens as I jerk up in bed, my mind made up. She may not want to see me, and at this point, I don't know if I want to see her. But I need to get my mom's jacket back. So I grab my stuff and head toward the front door. The soft strumming from the living room should've clued me in—but I almost don't notice Marco sitting on the couch, playing one of his guitars.
"Hey, Lis."
I stop halfway toward the front door. "Hey, I'm just heading out."
"Where are you going?" he asks. "You've been busy lately. In and out of the house. Not that that's a bad thing," he adds. "I'm glad you're making friends. But I was hoping we could have dinner together at least once a week."
"Sure," I say distractedly. "But I left my jacket at Jennie's," I say. "You know, Mom's jacket? Or, I guess, your jacket."
He smiles. "It's your mom's jacket," he says. "She had it way longer than I did. And it looked way better on her. And on you. Why don't I drive you?"
It's not ideal. "I can bike—" I start to say.
"No, this way we can go to dinner. There's this great hibachi restaurant that I've been meaning to take you to. I like to eat there on Fridays."
"So I've been messing up your routine?" I ask.
His face falls, but then he smiles determinedly, which makes me feel like a total ass.
"More like giving me reasons to create a new one," he says, putting away his guitar.
"How many of those do you have?" I ask, gesturing to it while he grabs his keys.
"A few," he says. "A lot fewer than I had when I was younger. I sold some. And my motorcycle."
"You had a bike?" I ask, suddenly a lot more interested.
"I did," he says. "An old Harley. Do you like bikes?"
"Mom always said they were too dangerous," I say, following him into the car. "Jennie lives on Kingsley Street," I tell him.
"That's a fancy neighborhood," he remarks, pulling out of the driveway.
"Your mom was right: motorcycles are really dangerous. I don't want you riding them."
"That's totally hypocritical."
"I'm finding that being responsible for a kid is kind of all about that," he says.
It startles a laugh out of me. "I don't think you're supposed to admit it," I tell him.
He shrugs. "I want to be honest with you, Lisa. That seems like the best method here, doesn't it?"
I'm quiet. I didn't realize we were going to have a heavy talk. I've just walked into it like a trap, because it's not like I can get out of the car. Well, maybe at a stop sign. But he'd probably get angry if I just ran from the car to avoid a conversation like a big coward.
"I'll be honest with you if you're honest with me," Marco continues.
"Okay," I say slowly.
He smiles, relief obvious in his face. "Good."
We're quiet as he pulls up to Jennie's house.
"I'll just be a second," I tell him. "She's really busy getting ready to leave for dance camp."
I get out of the car and ring the doorbell. As the chimes fade, I hear it: the sound of laughter. It grows louder as someone comes toward the door.
"Someone get the cupcakes," I hear Jennie's voice call before she opens the door, half-turned away from me. She's wearing a ridiculous headband that says BON VOYAGE. Her smile snaps off her face when she sees me, and she snatches the headband out of her hair.
"Hi," I say through numb lips. Shit. Shit.
"Is that Rosie?" I hear Jisoo's voice call. "Tell her I want my chicken burger!"
She appears in the hall from the back room, Irene hurrying behind her, and they're wearing the same headband that Jennie had been wearing.
The world fades in and out, my ears ringing as it hits me: Jennie's not busy packing like I thought she'd be. She's busy having a goodbye party with her friends.
She just didn't want me anywhere near it. Near her.
She can't even look at me. She's staring at the ground.
"I'm here for my jacket," I say.
She finally looks up. Her face is like ice. "Oh?"
"Yeah. I left it. In your room." I don't add when we were half a second away from making out again, but it's implied. The swift rise of red to her cheeks makes a vicious sort of pleasure twist inside me. She feels it. I know she does.
"You can go get it, I guess," she says with a shrug, like she doesn't care.
"Could you come?" It's me at my bravest, forcing those three words out.
"I guess." She looks to Jisoo and Irene. "Sorry, girls, just a second. If Kai and Rosie come, let them in. I'll be right back."
I walk up the stairs, acutely aware of her just two steps behind me. The whole way, we don't talk, and when she closes the door behind us, it's nothing like before. It's not a secret bubble, just the two of us; now it feels like a trap. One we both lured each other into.
"It's around here somewhere," Jennie says awkwardly, going over to her bed and looking around. She finds it in her laundry basket, which makes no sense unless she tossed it in there.
"Here." She thrusts it out to me, but when I grab it, she holds on to it. She uncurls her fingers slowly, like it hurts to let go, but when she looks at me, her face is so smooth. Like glass. "Is that all you need?"
No, I think. I need a lot more from you. Starting with a fucking explanation about everything.
"Yes," I say, like a coward, as my anger simmers and scorches me instead.
Jennie just keeps standing there, statuelike. I remember, suddenly, what she'd drunkenly told me that day on the tracks. How her mom didn't want her to twirl around in her dresses when she was little. How she used to always tell Jennie to be still when she wasn't dancing. Is that what's in her head right now? Is she pulling her real self inside her skin so tight she'll never let her
out again, now that she knows what happens when she does?
I want to hug her. I want to scream at her. I want to tell her that it's okay. I don't know if it is; I don't know if that's a lie.
But if I touch her, if I open my mouth, it'll come out: the anger, the confusion, the everything that swirls in me when it comes to her. My entire body vibrates like I'm a plucked guitar string and she's the one who just keeps picking at me. I have to get away. I have to leave. If I don't ...
I don't know what I'll do. I don't know who I'll become.
I want to find out. But I'm scared. Of me. Of her. Of this.
This push and pull. This buzz that fills me every time I'm near her. Who knew you could literally vibrate with need? Not just want. Need. There's a difference.
She taught it to me.
I force myself to walk past her toward the door, and as I do, our arms brush and the hitch in her chest is loud and it's like my entire body feels it and it echoes through the room and through my body and through my soul, because it's not just a sign. It's another in a series of confirmations, stacking up in my head.
And I just break.
"Lisa." She whispers my name like it's a sweet sound she wants to taste. I lean in to let her taste me, unable to resist her pull. Helpless. I am always helpless when it comes to her.
Her eyes flicker down to my lips as she licks her own. I lean closer, my hand slides up her arm, soft skin, warm girl. We're a heartbeat away from each other....
She snaps her head back, that icy expression back on her face.
"What are you doing?" she asks, calm as you please as she spins me in yet another direction, whirling too fast to know which way is up.
I latch on to the first thing I think I know: "I know you like me," I say, almost like a reassurance. She has to know I feel the same after everything.
She's just scared.
But she's not saying anything. She's just standing there, getting colder by the second.
I keep talking, to fill the silence gaping between us.
"You kissed me," I say, and there: she flinches. She's not made of ice.
The girl I know. The girl who kissed me and danced zigzag across those train tracks. The girl who loves to twirl. That girl is in there, dying to get out and shine.
"You spent all your time with me," I continue, because she's standing there so still, like she's trying to turn into a statue. "You basically said you loved me."
She laughs. Small and uncomfortable and crawling up my spine like something slimy. "I don't know what to say."
"Really?"
Her eyes flare, irritation crackling in the space between us.
"You're being silly, Lisa. I'm like this with all my friends. Some girls are touchy-feely. It doesn't mean anything. Especially not what you're thinking." She shakes her head, and it's almost scolding, the way she does it.
The embarrassment hits me with a bewildered rush. I want to protest. I want to fight for—I don't know—us? But she's saying there isn't any us. That there never was an us. That I'm imagining it.
I'm not. I'm fucking not!
"I know you told your friends about my mom."
Jennie's fingers curl into fists, and even from here, I can see her nails digging into her palms. Does she want to hurt me? Or herself?
"Are you even going to apologize?"
Her chin tilts up and when she says nothing, I'm the one who wants to wound her.
"You're making really shitty choices," I tell her. "And I'm not even talking about whatever it is between you and me. What you did—you had no right. Only a really terrible person doesn't apologize when they've done something that bad. That was fucking unforgivable." The last words come out like a snarl as I try to hold back the tears. I leave without even waiting for a response, trying to breathe around the burning hurt in my chest.
I hurry down the stairs, walking right past Jennie's mom, who says, "Lisa, aren't you staying?"
"No, sorry, I was just picking up my jacket. My dad's waiting for me. Bye!" I call, waving behind me as I bolt to the front door and tear out toward where Marco's waiting.
"What's wrong?" he says instantly when I get in the car, trying to rub the tears off my cheeks before he sees them. Fuck. Another thing I've failed at.
"Please just take me home," I beg him.
"Of course," he says. "We can do dinner another night." And to my relief, he doesn't ask any more questions. He drives me home without saying a word and lets me fiddle with the radio and play my choice of songs, and he doesn't even complain, though I can see his mouth twitching at my music like he wants to say something.
When we get home, I can't even make it to my room. I just collapse on the couch and turn on the TV, desperate for some kind of distraction. I can't think about her denial. I can't think about being crazy—I know I'm not. I know it was real.
It is real. When we brushed together, I wasn't the only one to feel it.
Maybe it's just physical for her. Maybe it's not emotional. Maybe that's why she doesn't think it's real. But it is. If I could just get her to open up—
Oh God, I need to stop. I need to breathe. I switch the channel, landing on some animal show. I watch the lions prowl the savanna, trying to lose myself in the narrator's description of their lives and how the pride survives.
I hear Marco order delivery in the kitchen, and when it arrives, he settles down next to me.
"What are you watching?"
"Some lion thing," I say, taking the container of lemon chicken from him when he offers it.
We eat and watch in silence, and maybe for the first time, I don't feel angry at him.
I just feel glad I have someone.