Jennie's POV
I scramble backward with my hands as Lisa lifts June's head, her hands still wrapped around his neck, and slams it down into the grass. For a second I wonder if Lisa would have done the same were we on the concrete porch or near the fire pit stones, and I feel like my answer comes in the form of Lisa raising one fist high and slamming it into June's jaw.
"Lisa!" I scream and climb to my feet. Everyone else just stares, Hanbin seeming amused and even Mino entertained.
"Stop her!" I beg, but Hanbin shakes his head as Lisa's fist connects again to June's already bloody face.
"This has been coming for a while; let them hash it out." He smirks at me. "Want a drink?"
"What? No, I don't want a drink! What the hell is wrong with you!" I yell.
A crowd has now gathered around and people are cheering on the fight. I have yet to see June hit Lisa, for which I'm glad, but I definitely want Lisa to stop hurting June. I'm too afraid to try to stop her myself, so when Rosé appears in the yard, I yell for her. Her eyes find me immediately and she jogs over.
"Stop her, please!" I yell. Everyone seems excited about this except me.
If Lisa keeps hitting him, she will kill him. I know it.
Rosé gives me a quick nod and takes a few steps over to Lisa. She wraps her fist into Lisa's shirt and pulls her backward. Lisa is caught off guard, so she's easily separated from June's prone body. Enraged, Lisa takes a swing at Rosé, but Rosé dodges her fist and puts both of her hands on Lisa's shoulders. She says something to Lisa that I can't make out and then nods her head toward me. Lisa's eyes are blazing, her knuckles bloody and her shirt ripped from Rosé's grip. Her chest is pumping up and down rapidly, like she's a wild animal after a kill. I don't make a move to walk toward her; I know how angry she is at me. I can tell. I am not afraid of Lisa the way I probably should be. Even though I just witnessed her completely losing her temper in the worst way possible, I know that she would never physically hurt me.
With the excitement winding down, almost everyone begins to move back inside the house. June's crumpled body lies on the ground and Hanbin leans down to help him up. He stumbles to his feet and lifts his shirt up to wipe his bloody face off, spitting out a mixture of blood and saliva that makes me look away.
Lisa's head turns to look where June is and she tries to take a step toward him. Rosé holds Lisa tight to stop her.
"Fuck you, Manoban!" June yells. Hanbin steps between them. Oh, now he wants to do something. "Just wait until your little—" June shouts.
"Shut the fuck up," Hanbin snaps and June's mouth closes.
June looks at me and I take a step back. I wonder what Hanbin meant by "this has been coming for a while." Lisa and June seemed fine together a few minutes ago.
"Go inside!" Lisa yells, and I immediately know that she is talking to me.
I decide to listen to her, for once, and turn around and run into the house. I know that everyone is staring at me but I don't care. I push my way through the crowded house and rush up to Lisa's room. I must have forgotten to lock it when I left, and, to add to my horror, there is a big red spot on the carpet. Someone must have stumbled in here and spilled a drink on the tan carpet. Great. I hurry to the bathroom and grab a towel and turn the sink on. I lock Lisa's door once I step inside and furiously wipe the stain, but the water only spreads the spot and makes it much worse. The door clicks and I try to stand before she enters.
"What the hell are you doing?" Her eyes move to the towel in my hand then to the spot on the floor.
"Someone . . . I forgot to lock the door when I went downstairs," I say and look at her. Her nostrils flare and she takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry," I say.
The anger is radiating off her and I can't even be angry with her because all of this is my fault. If I would have just listened to her and stayed in the room, none of this would have happened.
She runs her hands over her face in frustration and I take a step toward her. Her fingers are busted and bloody, reminding me of her fight at the stadium. She surprises me by grabbing the towel from my hands and I reflexively jump back a little. Her eyes flash with confusion and she tilts her head slightly as she uses the nonstained portion of the towel to wipe her knuckles off.
I expected her to barge through the door and break things while screaming at me; instead I am granted with her silence, which turns out to be much worse.
"Could you please say something?" I beg.
Her words come even slower than usual. "Trust me, Jennie, you don't want me to speak right now."
"Yes, I do," I tell her. I can't stand her angry silence. "No, you don't," she growls.
"Yes, I do! I need you to talk to me, tell me what the hell happened down there!" I wave my hands toward the window and she clenches her fists by her sides.
"Goddamn it, Jennie! You always have to push and push! I told you to stay in my fucking room—multiple times—and what the fuck did you do? You didn't listen, as usual! Why is it so damn hard for you to listen to what I say?" she yells and slams her fist against the side of her dresser, cracking the wood.
"Because, Lisa, you don't just get to tell me what to do all the time!" I yell back.
"That isn't what I am doing. I was trying to keep you away from shit like what just happened. I already warned you that they aren't a good group of people, yet you prance out there with Hanbin and then volunteer yourself to play that fucking game! What the fuck was that?" The deep veins in her neck are straining against her skin so tightly that I fear they may break through.
"I didn't know what the game was!"
"You knew I didn't want you to play, and the only reason you wanted to play was because Nancy's name was mentioned because of this crazy obsession you have with her!"
"Excuse me? Crazy obsession? Maybe I don't like the fact that my girlfriend used to sleep with her!" My cheeks flame. My jealousy and dislike toward Nancy are a little crazy but Lisa just choked a guy for almost kissing me.
"Well, sorry to break it to you, but if you're going to have a problem with everyone that I slept with, you may want to transfer schools," she exclaims and my mouth falls open. "You didn't have a problem with the girls downstairs," she adds and my heart goes frantic.
"What girls?" My breath catches. "Those three that were playing with us?"
"Yeah, and just about every other girl in this place." Her voice holds no emotion as she glares at me.
I try to come up with something to say but I am at a loss for words. The fact that Lisa has slept with all three of those girls and basically the entire female population at WCU makes me nauseous—and the worst part is how she just threw it in my face. I must look like such a fool hanging around Lisa when everyone else figures I'm just one of the many girls she's slept with. I knew she would be pissed-off, but this is too far, even for Lisa. I feel like we have gone back in time to when I first met her and she would purposely make me cry on an almost daily basis.
"What? Surprised? You shouldn't be," she says.
"No." And I'm not surprised, not one bit. I'm hurt. Not about her past, just the way she treated me out of anger. She said it that way just to hurt me. I blink rapidly to stop the tears from coming, but when it doesn't work I turn away and wipe my eyes.
"Just go," she says and walks toward the door. "What?" I ask and turn to face her.
"Just go, Jennie." "Go where?"
She doesn't even look at me. "Back to your room . . . I don't know . . . but you can't stay here."
This is not at all what I thought would happen. The pain in my chest grows with every second of silence that passes between us. Part of me wants to beg her to let me stay, and to argue with her until she tells me why she reacted the way she did downstairs, but a bigger part of me is embarrassed and hurt by her cool dismissal. I grab my bag off the bed and sling it over my shoulder. When I reach the door, I look back at Lisa and hope that she will apologize or change her mind, but she turns to the window and completely ignores me. I have no idea how I will get back to the dorms, since Lisa drove me here and I had every intention of staying the night with her. I don't remember the last time I stayed alone in my room, and the thought unnerves me. The drive to this house seems like days ago, instead of hours.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, someone tugs at the back of my sweatshirt, and I hold my breath as I turn around, silently praying that it isn't Hanbin or June.
It's Lisa. "Come back upstairs," she says, her voice desperate and her eyes red.
"Why? I thought you wanted me to leave." I stare at the wall behind her.
She sighs and grabs the bag from my shoulder and walks back up the stairs. I think about just letting her have the bag and leaving anyway, but my stubborn attitude is what got me in this situation in the first place.
I huff and follow her back to this room. When the door closes she turns around and backs me up against the door.
She looks into my eyes. "I'm sorry." She pushes her hips against mine and puts one of her arms against the door close to my head so I can't move.
"Me, too," I whisper.
"I just . . . I lose my temper sometimes. I didn't really sleep with those girls. Well, not all three of them."
I feel a little relieved but not completely.
"My first instinct when I get angry is to come back even harder, to hurt the other person as much as I can. But I don't want you to leave, and I'm sorry for scaring you by beating the shit out of June. I am trying to change, change for you . . . to be what you deserve, but it's hard for me. Especially when you do things to purposely piss me off," she says. She brings her hand to my cheek and wipes the drying tears left there.
"I wasn't scared of you," I say.
"Why not? It seemed like you were when I grabbed the towel."
"No . . . well, I was a little when you grabbed the towel, because of the stain on the floor. But really I was more afraid for you when you were fighting June."
"Afraid for me?" She puffs her shoulders up a little and brags, "He didn't get a hit on me."
I roll my eyes. "I meant that you would end up killing him or something. You could get in a lot of trouble for assaulting him," I explain.
Lisa chuckles. "Let me get this straight: you were worried about the legal repercussions of our fight?"
"Stop laughing. I'm still mad at you," I tell her and cross my arms. I'm not exactly sure what I am upset about except her telling me to leave.
"I am still pissed at you, too, but you're very amusing." She presses her forehead against mine. "You drive me crazy," she says.
"I know."
"You never listen to me and you always fight me on everything. You are stubborn and borderline intolerable."
"I know," I repeat.
"You provoke me and cause me a shitload of unnecessary stress, not to mention you almost made out with June right in front of me." Her lips touch my neck and I shiver.
"You say the most annoying things and you act like a child when you're mad." Despite the insults she is throwing at me—complaints about things that, deep down, I think she really enjoys about me—my stomach is fluttering as she kisses my skin and continues her light verbal assault. She pushes her hips against mine again, more forcefully this time.
"But all that being said . . . I also happen to be vigorously in love with you," she says and sucks harshly on sensitive skin below my ear.
I push my hands through her hair, making her groan, and she puts both of her hands on my waist, pulling me to her. I know there are more things to be said, more problems to be solved, but right now all I want is to get lost in Lisa and forget about tonight.