Chapter 27

Jennie

I scan the radio stations in search of a song I can sing to. I'm in the mood to sing. My windows are down, the weather is gorgeous, and it occurred to me on my way home from work that I haven't been in the mood to sing at the top of my lungs in my car in a long time. I don't know if it's because of the trajectory my life took over the past year, or if it's college, or a combination of both. But something shifted this past week. It's as if my life was a roller coaster, speeding through dark tunnels and spinning through loops with my entire body being jerked left to right and front to back and then…whoosh. The emotional roller coaster is coming to a smooth, slow, comforting part of the ride where I can just release a breath and know that I'm safe and everything inside of me is beginning to settle.

That's what this feels like. My life is finally beginning to feel settled.

After helping move Irene in on Sunday, we were all exhausted. We sprawled out on her living room furniture, me and Lisa on one couch, Irene and Sorn on the other, and Bobby on the floor. We all watched the season finale of The Bachelor—a show none of us has seen a single episode of all season, but we couldn't find the remote and no one felt like changing the channel. Bobby got really into it and started arguing with the TV when he felt the guy picked the girl Bobby would have bet against if Bobby had money.

When it was over, Lisa and I walked back to her apartment and crashed for the night. I was too exhausted to drive home, and we were both too exhausted to even shower. We walked straight to the bed and fell on top of it. We must have fallen asleep right away without even removing our clothes, because I woke up in the middle of the night to her slipping off my shoes and pulling the covers over me.

It's been three days since then, and it's all just felt so right. So good. It's strange how I don't even have my shit together yet, being a college student living paycheck to paycheck. But I feel like I would be happy with my life if it stayed this way forever. It goes to show that a person really doesn't need much if they're surrounded by the right people. Loved by the right people.

If I could bottle up the love I have for my life today, I would. It's a love worth saving.

I pull into my complex and grab my phone to check it as I exit my car. There's still no text from Lisa. She told me she'd text when she finished up with work today, but it's after seven and I haven't heard from her.

Me: You coming over tonight?

Lisa: Do you want me to?

Me: I always want you to.

I insert my key into the lock and open my apartment door. I'm staring down at my phone, waiting for Lisa to text me back, when someone grabs me from behind. I scream, but realize almost immediately that it's Lisa, just by the feel of her arms wrapped around me. I spin in her arms, and she's smiling down at me.

"I'm glad you didn't say no, because I'm already here."

I laugh. My heartbeat is erratic. I wasn't expecting anyone to be here, but I couldn't be happier to see her right now. She kisses me, and it somehow makes this day even better.

I can't even stand myself right now. I don't recall ever being this in love with my life before today, and I don't know how to get used to this new version of myself. I got so used to being so full of gloom for so long, it's like I'm discovering a part of me that didn't exist before this month.

Or maybe it always existed…I just never had anyone who could pull out the best parts of me like Lisa does.

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss her. Her hands cradle my cheeks and she kisses me back, walking me until my back meets the counter. We kiss for a good minute before I recognize that my entire apartment smells like a restaurant. I pull away from her and turn around to find dinner prepared on the stove. When I look back at Lisa, she's smiling at me. "Surprise. I cooked."

"What's the special occasion?"

"There doesn't need to be a special occasion for me to want to make you happy. I'll be treating you like this for the rest of your life."

I like the sound of that.

Lisa leans in and plants quick kisses down my neck before pulling away and walking to the stove. "It'll be ready in five minutes if you want to change."

I smile on my way to my bedroom. She knows me too well. She knows that no matter what time of day it is, as soon as I walk through the door, I like to be comfortable. That means getting rid of my bra the minute I get home. It means getting out of my jeans and pulling on a pair of pajama pants and one of her T-shirts. It means pulling my hair up in a knot and having absolutely zero care about anything but being as comfortable as I can possibly be.

I love that she loves that about me.

When I walk back into the kitchen, she's setting the table. She made baked chicken and vegetables with a side of risotto. I honestly don't know that my kitchen has ever experienced this kind of meal before. I rarely cook full meals because it's just me. Sometimes Lisa and me. But it's rare that we go all out and do something as drastic as use the oven. Microwave, sure. Stovetop, maybe. But oven means a serious meal, and we haven't had much time for that. I sign and tell her it looks delicious, and then proceed to eat half of it without stopping. It tastes even better than it looks.

"Seriously, Lisa. It's delicious."

"Thank you."

"I can't cook like this."

"Yes, you can. It just tastes better to you because you didn't make it. That's how cooking works."

I laugh. Hopefully that's true. "How was work today?"

She shrugs. "Played catch-up. But Bambam texted and said he needs me to play a show with him because they're short a guitarist next weekend."

"Where at?"

"Dallas. You want to come? Make a weekend of it?"

I nod. Watching Lisa on stage is my favorite thing. "Absolutely. Will Sadie be there?"

Lisa gives me a look to let me know she doesn't know who I'm talking about.

"Sadie the singer," I clarify. "The girl who started opening for Bambam. I think he likes her."

"Oh, yeah. I'm sure she will be." She grins. "That should be interesting."

From what I've learned about Bambam, he doesn't get crushes on girls very often, which makes me invested in seeing how this turns out. I hope I get to meet her.

That thought leads me to my next thought. I can't visit Dallas without stopping to see my parents. "Since we'll be in Dallas…do you want to have dinner with my parents?"

Lisa answers immediately. "I would love to meet your parents, Jennie."

I don't know why, but that sentence made my heart melt a little. I smile and take a drink.

"Have you told your parents about me?" she asks.

"I told my mother I have a girlfriend. She asked me twenty questions."

She grins. "Only twenty?"

"Maybe twenty-five."

"What did you say? How did you describe me?"

"I said you're very talented. And very cute. And good at pranks. And good in bed."

Lisa laughs. "I'm sure you did." She leans back in her chair, casually bumping my knee with her. She's staring at her plate, scooting around the rest of her risotto. "Did you tell them I'm deaf?"

I didn't tell them, but for no other reason than it just didn't come up, and I honestly didn't think about it. "Should I have?"

Lisa shrugs. "Might be worth mentioning. I don't like to catch people off guard if I can avoid it. I like for them to have a heads up."

"You didn't give me a heads up."

"It was different with you."

"How?"

She tilts her head and contemplates her answer. Then she picks up her phone, which means she wants to explain something that she feels she can get across better in text than if she were to verbalize.

Lisa: In most cases, I like to warn people before we meet. It makes for less of an uncomfortable moment when they find out. I didn't warn you because it felt like…I don't know. It was just different with you.

Jennie: A good different?

Lisa: The best kind of different there can possibly be. My whole life I've been deaf. It comes first with every person I ever meet. Being deaf and how a person will react to that is my first thought in every new conversation I have. It's most likely the first thought of the person I'm having the conversation with. It defines how they treat me, how they react to me, and how I react to them. But with you, I sometimes forget that part of myself. With you, I forget the one thing that defines me to everyone else. With you…I'm just me.

I'm glad she texted all that, because it's one more thing she's said to me that I want to keep track of and remember forever.

"My parents are going to love you just as much as I do."

Lisa smiles for a moment, but the smile is fleeting. She tries to hide it as she reaches for her drink, but I saw the split-second conflict in her eyes. It makes me wonder if she's only agreeing to meet them to appease me. What if she isn't ready to take that step? It's not like we've been dating long at all.

"You okay?" I sign.

She nods, reaching for my hand. She rests her on top of it on the table, brushing her thumb across it. "I'm good," she says. "It's just that sometimes you make me wish I had better parents. Parents who could meet you and know you're perfect for me. Parents who could love you."

Her words make my heart ache for her. "You have Bambam. He loves that you're happy."

"Yeah," she says, smiling. "And Bobby."

"And Sorn."

Lisa makes a face. "Oddly enough."

"Right? I really like her," I say with a laugh. "If someone would have told me six months ago that me and Sorn would eventually be good friends, I would have bet my life savings against it. It's only five hundred dollars, but still."

Lisa laughs. "If you would have told me six months ago that me and you would be dating and spending an entire day helping Irene move into my complex, I would have bet your life savings against it, too."

"Life is strange, isn't it?"

Lisa nods. "Beautifully strange."

I smile at her, and we finish eating in comfortable silence. I clear the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher. Lisa hooks her phone up to the Bluetooth on my stereo and turns on one of my Spotify playlists.

This is how I know she truly loves me. She does things that don't have an impact on her at all, like making sure there's always music playing, even though she can't hear it. She knows I like it, so she does it to make me happy. It reminds me of the first time she did this. We were in her car, driving home from the club, and she turned on her car radio for me.

It's the small things people do for others that define the largest parts of them.

Lisa folds her arms over the bar and leans forward, smiling at me. "I got you a present."

I grin as I turn on the dishwasher. "You did?"

She reaches out for my hand. "It's in your bedroom."

I have no idea what it is, but I grab her hand with both of mine and pull her to the bedroom because I'm excited. She pulls me back so she can walk through the door first. She lets go of my hands so she can sign what she's speaking. "We were writing a song together once when you mentioned how you wish you had one of these."

She pushes open the door and walks to my bed, then pulls a huge box out from beneath it. It's an electric keyboard, complete with a stand and a stool. I recognize the brand immediately. It's the same ones we use in my music classes, so I know exactly how much she spent on this gift, and I immediately want to tell her I can't accept it. But at the same time, I'm so excited about it, I rush over to it and run my hand over the box.

I throw my arms around her and kiss her all over her face. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

She laughs, knowing how happy she just made me. "Is it the right one?"

I nod. "It's perfect."

I had a piano growing up at my parent's house, but it's too big to travel with. I grew up playing it, which started my love for music. I've slowly been integrating other instruments, but the piano is where my heart is. Lisa sets the keyboard up against the wall. I sit down and start playing a song, and Lisa sits down on the bed. She watches my hands with the same appreciation as someone who would be able to hear what they're creating.

When I finish playing the song, I run my hand appreciatively over the keys. I can't believe she remembered one comment I made a long time ago about wishing I had a piano like the ones we use at school. "Why did you get me this?"

"Because. You're good at songwriting, Jen. Really good. You deserve an instrument that can help you create music."

I crinkle up my nose at her because she knows I'm weird with compliments. Just like she is, I guess. I crawl onto the bed with her and wrap my arms around her, looking her in the eyes. "Thank you."

She brushes my hair back, sliding her hand to the side of my head. "You're welcome."

I'm inspired. By her, by her gift, by the feeling I had on my way home when the windows were down and the music was blaring. "Let's write a song right now. I got an idea on the way home from work." I lean over to the nightstand and grab the pad of paper and pens. We both sit up against my headboard, but the guitar she leaves here is against the wall. She doesn't retrieve it, and instead, we decide to start with lyrics first.

On the way home, I had the thought that I wanted things to feel this way forever. I wanted to bottle up her love and save it forever. As soon as I had that thought, I knew I wanted to write a song that revolved around that feeling. At the top of the page, I write the potential title, "Love Worth Saving." I write the first few lines of lyrics as they come to me.

Got a little money

Enough to get us by

Our house ain't pretty honey

But baby it keeps us dry

Our friends ain't rich or famous

But we pretend on the weekend

I tap the page as I move my fingers across the lyrics to give Lisa an idea of the pacing of the song. She pats her hand on her knee in time with mine and then reaches for the pen and writes, "Chorus," then follows that up with a few lines of her own.

Even if our clothes are fading

They'll always look new on you

Even when the times are changing

Nothing's gonna change my view on you

You know we got a love worth saving

As soon as I see the lines, "Even if our clothes are fading, they'll always look new on you," I smile. Last week we were having a conversation about my possibly changing degree paths. I still don't know what I want to do, but she was supportive of whatever I decide, even if it means we'll struggle financially a little longer. She said those words to me, that clothes would look new on me, even if they're faded, and I told her she better put it in a song. It's almost as if she's been waiting for this moment and already had those lyrics prepared. It's incredible how seamlessly we work together. Writing music is such a solitary thing, much like how I assume writing a book would be. But when we're together, it just works. It's like we're better together than we are alone.

She's tapping through the beat of the chorus, but I'm still stuck on the lyrics she wrote. I draw a heart next to them to let her know I love them. Then I pause for a moment until I can come up with the next few lines of lyrics.

Don't need no gold or diamonds

Got the glow right in your eyes

If it's your love you're selling

You know I'm gon' keep on buyin'

We can make something outta nothing

Just keep that feel good coming

Lisa hops off the bed and grabs her guitar. I decide to use the record feature on the keyboard, so I move over to the bench and she sits next to me on the bed. She spends the next fifteen minutes working out the song on her guitar, and I use what she's creating on the guitar to match it with the piano.

She adds a few more lyrics and another chorus, and within an hour, the song is mostly worked out. We just need to give it to Bambam for a rough recording this week to see how it sounds. This was one of the easier ones we've written together. I record us playing through it again and then hit play on the keyboard so I can listen to it. It's more upbeat than most of the songs we write together.

I love writing with two instruments. The options to add more variations using the keyboard makes the song sound more polished than ones we've sent Bambam in the past just using Lisa's guitar. I'm so excited about the song and the gift Lisa gave me that it makes me want to dance as it's playing back.

Lisa sets her guitar aside and watches me dance around the room as the song plays. I laugh every time our eyes meet because I'm in such a good mood. At one point, when I glance at her, she's not smiling. I pause, wondering what just changed in her.

She signs, "I wish I could dance with you."

"You can. You have."

She shakes her head. "Not to a slow song where I just stand there. I mean like this." She waves her hand toward me. "To a faster rhythm."

My chest tightens with her words. I step toward her and hold out her hand, pulling her up. "Lisa Manoban, you can do anything you want."

I wrap one hand around her neck, and she places her hands on my waist. I start tapping against her shoulder along with the beat of the song. I move left to right to the rhythm, and she starts to follow my lead. I sing the lyrics so she can watch my mouth and know where we are in the song. When the song ends, I reach over and hit play again so we can keep going.

Lisa starts to fall in line with the rhythm, and I laugh when it finally happens. She laughs, too, as she starts to take over and keep up with a beat she can't even hear. She leads me around the room as I sing and tap against her. At the end of the final chorus, she spins me and then pulls me against her as we both come to a slow stop.

She holds me there, staring down at me as I look up at her. We're both smiling. Looking in her eyes, I can see the complete appreciation she has for me like I've never seen before. Like I just gave her something she thought she would never experience.

For me, it was a simple dance—something I do all the time and take for granted. For her, it was a breakthrough. Something she's never done before that she believed she couldn't do.

How she's probably feeling right now is how she makes me feel every time she turns on the stereo for me. It's the little things like these that create the biggest moments between us.

She takes my face in her hands, preparing to say something to me. But instead of speaking or signing, she just drags in a speechless breath as she stares silently at me. She lowers her mouth to mine, kissing me gently on the lips. Then she meets my eyes, conveying more with one look than she's ever conveyed through any other form of our communication.

"Jennie," she says quietly. "Everything we've gone through to get here. Right here. It was all worth it."

There isn't a thing I could signs or words I could say that could top the meaning in what she just spoke to me.

I reach over and hit play on our song again. She grins as I clasp my hands behind her neck. She presses her forehead to mine, and we dance.