Chapter Nineteen

Jennie

Be still, heart. Please, be still.

I don't want her to be standing here in front of me. I don't want her to be looking at me, wearing the expression that mirrors my own feelings. I don't want her to hurt like I'm hurting. I don't want her to miss me like I'll miss her. I don't want her to be falling for me like I've been falling for her.

I want her to be with Irene right now. I want her to want to be with Irene right now, because it would make this so much easier knowing our feelings were less a reflection of each other's and more like a one-way mirror. If this weren't so hard for her, it would make it easier for me to forget her, easier to accept her choice. Instead, it makes my heart hurt twice as much knowing that our good-bye is hurting her just as much as it's hurting me.

It's killing me, because nothing and no one could ever fit my life the way I know she could. I feel as though I'm willingly forking over my one chance for an exceptional life, and in return, I'm accepting a mediocre version without Lisa in it. My father's words ring in my head, and I'm beginning to wonder if he had a point after all. A life of mediocrity is a waste of a life.

Our eyes remain in their silent embrace for several moments, until we both break our gaze, allowing ourselves to take in every last thing about each other.

Her eyes scroll carefully over my face as if she's committing me to memory. Her memory is the last place I want to be.

I would give anything to always be in her present.

I lean my head against my open bedroom door and stare at her hands still gripping the doorframe. The same hands I'll never see play a guitar again. The same hands that will never hold mine again. The same hands that will never again touch me and hold me in order to listen to me sing.

The same hands that are suddenly reaching for me, wrapping themselves around me, gripping my back in an embrace so tight I don't know if I could break away even if I tried. But I'm not trying to break away. I'm reciprocating. I'm hugging her with just as much desperation. I find solace against her chest while her cheek presses against the top of my head. With each heavy, uncontrolled breath that passes through her lungs, my own breaths try to keep pace. However, mine are coming in much shorter gasps, thanks to the tears that are working their way out of me.

My sadness is consuming me, and I don't even try to hold it in as I cry huge tears of grief. I'm crying tears over the death of something that never even had the chance to live.

The death of us.

Lisa and I remain clasped together for several minutes. So many minutes that I'm trying not to count, for fear that we've been standing here way too long for it to be an appropriate embrace. Apparently, she notices this, too, because she slides her hands up my back and to my shoulders, then pulls away from me. I lift my face from her shirt and wipe at my eyes before looking back up at her.

Once we make eye contact again, she removes her hands from my shoulders and tentatively places them on either side of my face. Her eyes study mine for several moments, and the way she's looking at me makes me hate myself, because I love it so much.

I love the way she's looking at me as if I'm the only thing that matters right now. I'm the only one she sees. She's the only one I see. My thoughts once again lead back to some of the lyrics she wrote.

It's making me feel like I want to be the only one that you ever see.

Her gaze flickers between my mouth and my eyes, almost as if she can't decide if she wants to kiss me, stare at me, or talk to me.

"Jennie," she whispers.

I gasp and clutch a hand to my chest. My heart just disintegrated at the sound of her voice.

"I don't . . . speak . . . well," she says with a quiet and unsure voice.

Oh, my heart. Hearing her speak is almost too much to take in. Each word that meets my ears is enough to bring me to my knees, and it's not even the sound of her voice or the quality of her speech. It's the fact that she's choosing this moment to speak for the first time in fifteen years.

She pauses before finishing what she needs to say and it gives my heart and my lungs a moment to catch up with the rest of me. She sounds exactly as I imagined she would sound after hearing her laughter so many times. Her voice is slightly deeper than her laughter, but somewhat out of focus. Her voice reminds me of a photograph in a way. I can understand her words, but they're out of focus. It's as if I'm looking at a picture and the subject is recognizable, but not in focus . . . similar to her words.

I just fell in love with her voice. With the out-of-focus picture she's painting with her words.

With . . . her.

She inhales softly, then nervously exhales before continuing. "I need you . . . to hear this," she says, cradling my head in her hands. "I . . . will never . . . regret you."

Beat, beat, pause.

Contract, expand.

Inhale, exhale.

I just officially lost the war on my heart. I don't even bother verbalizing a response to her. My reaction can be seen in my tears. She leans forward and presses her lips to my forehead; then she drops her hands and slowly backs away from me. With each move she makes to pull apart from me, I feel my heart crumbling. I can almost hear us being ripped apart. I can almost hear her heart tearing in two, crashing to the floor right next to mine.

As much as I know she should leave, I'm a breath away from begging her to stay. I want to fall to my knees, right next to our shattered hearts, and beg her to choose me. The pathetic part of me wants to beg her just to kiss me, even if she doesn't choose me.

But the part of me that ultimately wins is the part that keeps her mouth shut, because I know Irene deserves her more than I do.

I keep my hands to my sides as she backs away another step, preparing to turn through my bedroom door. Our eyes are still locked, but when my phone sounds off in my pocket, I jump, quickly tearing my gaze from her. I hear her phone vibrate in her pocket. The sudden interruption of both of our phones is only obvious to me until she sees me opening my cell phone at the same time as she pulls hers out of her pocket. Our eyes meet briefly, but the interruption of the outside world seems to have brought us both back to the reality of our situation. Back to the fact that her heart belongs with someone else, and this is still good-bye.

I watch as she reads her text first. I'm unable to take my eyes off of her in order to read mine. Her expression quickly becomes tortured by whatever words she's reading, and she slowly shakes her head.

She winces.

Until this very moment, I'd never seen a heart break right before my eyes. Whatever she just read has completely shattered her.

She doesn't look at me again. In one swift movement, she grips her phone tightly in her hand as if it's become an extension of her, and she heads straight for the front door and swings it open. I step out into the living room, watching her in fear as I walk toward the front door. She doesn't even shut the door behind her as she takes the stairs two at a time, jumping over the edge of the railing to shave off another half a second in her frantic race to get to wherever it is she desperately needs to be.

I look down at my phone and unlock the screen. Irene's number shows as the last incoming text message. I open it and see that Lisa and I were the only recipients. I read it carefully, immediately recognizing the familiar string of words she's typed out to both of us.

Irene: "Irene showed up last night an hour after I got back to my room. I was convinced you were going to barge in and tell her what a jerk I am for kissing you."

I immediately walk to the couch and sit, no longer able to support my body weight. Her words knocked the breath out of me, sucked the strength from my limbs, and robbed me of any sense of dignity I thought I had left.

I try to recall the medium through which Lisa's words were initially typed.

Her laptop.

Oh, no. Our messages.

Irene is reading our messages. No, no, no.

She won't understand. She'll only see the words that'll hurt. She won't be able to see how much Lisa has been fighting this for her.

Another text shows up from Irene, and I don't want to read it. I don't want to see our conversation through Irene's eyes.

Irene: "I never thought it was possible to have honest feelings for more than one person, but you've convinced me of how incredibly wrong I was."

I turn my phone on silent and toss it onto the couch beside me, then start crying into my hands.

How could I do this to her?

How could I do to her what was done to me, knowing it's the worst feeling in the world?

I've never in my life known this kind of shame.

Several minutes pass, full of regrets, before I realize the front door is still wide open. I leave my phone on the couch and walk to the door to shut it, but my eyes are drawn to the cab pulled up directly in front of our complex. Irene is stepping out, looking up at me as she closes the door. I'm not at all prepared to see her, so I quickly step back out of her sight to regain my bearings. I don't know if I should go hide in my room or stay out here and try to explain Lisa's innocence in all of this.

But how would I do that? She obviously read the conversations herself. She knows we kissed. She knows Lisa admitted having feelings for me. As much as I can try to convince her that Lisa did everything she could not to feel that way, it doesn't excuse the fact that the person she's in love with has openly admitted her feelings for someone else. Nothing can excuse that, and I feel like complete shit for being a part of it.

I'm still standing with the door open when she makes it to the top of the stairs. She's looking at me with a stern expression. I know she's more than likely here for anything other than me, so I take a step back and open the door wider. She looks down at her feet when she passes me, unable to continue the eye contact.

I don't blame her. I wouldn't be able to look at me, either. In fact, if I were her, I'd be punching me right now.

She heads to the kitchen counter, and she drops Lisa's laptop onto it without delicacy. Then she heads straight to Lisa's room. I hear her rummaging through stuff, and she eventually comes out with a bag in one hand and her car keys in the other. I'm still standing motionless with my hands on the door. She continues to keep her eyes focused on the floor as she passes me again, but this time, she makes a quick movement with her hand and wipes away a tear.

She walks out the door, down the stairs, and straight to her car, never speaking a word.

I wanted her to tell me she hated me. I wanted her to punch me and scream at me and call me a bitch. I wanted her to give me a reason to be angry, because right now, my heart is breaking for her, and I know there isn't a damn thing I could say to make her better. I know this for a fact, because I've recently been in the same situation that Lisa and I have just put her in.

We just made her a Jennie.

Lisa

The third and final text comes through when I pull up to the hospital. I know it's the final text, because it's pulled from the conversation I had with Jennie less than two hours ago. It's the very last thing I messaged her.

Irene: "Don't thank me, Jennie. You shouldn't thank me, because I failed miserably at trying not to fall in love with you."

I can't take any more. I throw the phone into the passenger seat and exit the vehicle, then sprint into the hospital and straight up to her room. I push open the door and rush inside, preparing to do whatever I can to persuade her to hear me out.

When I'm inside her room, I'm instantly gutted.

She's gone.

I press my palms against my forehead and pace the empty room, trying to figure out how I can take it all back. She read everything. Every single conversation I've ever had with Jennie on my laptop. Every single honest feeling I've shared, every joke we've made, every flaw we've listed.

Why was I so damn careless?

Twenty-four years I've lived without ever experiencing this type of hatred. It's the type of hatred that completely overwhelms the conscience. It's the type of hatred that excuses otherwise inexcusable actions. It's the type of hatred that can be felt in every facet of the body and in every inch of the soul. I've never known it until this moment. I've never hated anything or anyone with as much intensity as I hate myself right now.