JENNIE
When Lisa and I enter the living room, her mother is sitting on the couch with her wet hair pulled into a bun. She looks so young for her age, so stunning. "We should rent some movies, and I'll make dinner for all of us!" she exclaims. "Don't you miss my cooking, dumpling?"
Lisa rolls her eyes and shrugs. "Sure. Best cook ever." This couldn't possibly be more awkward.
"Hey! I'm not that bad." She laughs. "And I think you just talked yourself into being chef tonight."
I shift uncomfortably, unsure how to behave around Lisa unless we're together or fighting. This is an odd place for us, though I suddenly realize this is a pattern of ours: Karen and Marco had been under the impression that we were dating before we actually were.
"Can you cook, Jennie?" Chit asks, breaking my thoughts. "Or is it Lisa, too?"
"Um, we both do. Maybe more 'preparing' than cooking, really," I answer.
"I'm glad to hear that you're taking care of my girl, and this apartment is so nice, too. I suspect Jennie does the cleaning," she teases.
I'm not "taking care of her girl" since that's what she's missing out on for hurting me the way she did. "Yeah . . . she's a slob," I answer.
Lisa looks down at me with a small smile playing on her lips. "I'm not a slob—she's just too clean."
I roll my eyes. "She's a slob," Chit and I say in unison.
"Are we going to watch a movie or pick on me all night?" Lisa is pouting.
I sit down before Lisa does so I don't have to make the uncomfortable decision about where to sit. I can see her eyeing the couch and me, silently deciding what to do. After a moment, she sits right next to me, so I feel the familiar heat from her proximity.
"What do you want to watch?" her mother asks us. "It doesn't matter," Lisa replies.
"You can choose." I try to soften her answer.
She smiles at me before choosing 50 First Dates, a movie I'm sure Lisa will hate.
And right on cue, Lisa groans as it begins. "This movie is old as shit." "Shhh," I say, and she huffs but stays quiet.
I catch her staring at me several times while Chit and I laugh and sigh along with the movie. I'm actually enjoying myself, and for a few moments I almost forget everything that has happened between Lisa and me. It's hard not to lean into Lisa, not to touch her hands, not to move her hair when it falls onto her forehead.
"I'm hungry," she mumbles when the movie ends.
"Why don't you and Jennie cook, since I had such a long flight?" Chit smiles.
"You're really milking this long-flight thing, aren't you?" she says to her. She nods with a wry smile that I've seen on Lisa's face a few times.
"I can cook, it's okay," I offer and stand up. I walk into the kitchen and lean against the counter. I grip the edges of the marble countertop harder than necessary, trying to catch my breath. I don't know how long I can do this, pretend that Lisa didn't destroy everything, pretend that I love her. I do love her, I am miserably in love with her. The problem is not my lack of feelings toward this moody, egotistical girl. The problem is that I've given her so many chances, always dismissing the hateful things that she says and does. But this time it's too much.
"Lisa, be a gentleman and help her," I hear Chit say, and I rush over to the freezer to pretend like I wasn't having a mini breakdown.
"Um . . . I can help?" Her voice carries through the small kitchen. "Okay . . ." I answer.
"Popsicles?" she asks, and I look at the object in my hands. I had meant to grab chicken, but I was distracted.
"Yeah. Everyone likes Popsicles, right?" I say, and she smiles, revealing those evil dimples of her.
I can do this. I can be around Lisa. I can be nice to her, and we can get along.
"You should make that chicken pasta that you made for me," I suggest. Her green eyes focus on me. "That's what you want to eat?"
"Yes. If it's not too much trouble." "Of course not."
"You're being so weird today," I whisper so our houseguest doesn't hear. "No, I'm not." She shrugs and steps toward me.
My heart begins to race as she leans in. As I move to step away, she grabs the door to the freezer and pulls it open.
I thought she was going to kiss me. What the hell is wrong with me?
We cook dinner in almost complete silence, neither of us knowing what to say. My eyes watching her the entire time, the way her long fingers curl around the base of the knife to chop the chicken and the vegetables, the way she closes her eyes when the steam from the boiling water hits her face, the way her tongue swipes the corners of her mouth when she tastes the sauce. I know that observing her like this isn't conducive to being impartial, or healthy in any way, but I can't help it.
"I'll set the table while you tell your mom it's ready," I say when it's finally done.
"What? I'll just call her."
"No, that's rude. Just go get her," I say.
She rolls her eyes but obeys anyway, only to return seconds later, alone. "She's asleep," she tells me.
I heard her, but I still ask, "What?"
"Yeah, she's passed out on the couch. Should I just wake her up?"
"No . . . She had a long day. I'll put some food away for her so whenever she gets up she can eat. It's sort of late anyway."
"It's eight."
"Yeah . . . that's late."
"I guess." Her voice is flat.
"What is with you? I know this is uncomfortable and all, but you are being so weird," I say as I put food on two plates without thinking.
"Thanks." she says and grabs one before sitting down at the table.
I grab a fork from the drawer and opt to stand at the counter to eat. "Are you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what?" she grabs a forkful of chicken and digs in. "Why you're being so . . . quiet and . . . nice. It's weird."
She takes a moment to chew then swallow before she answers. "I just don't want to say the wrong thing."
"Oh" is all I can think to say. Well, that's not what I expected to hear.
She turns the tables on me then. "So why are you being so nice and weird?"
"Because your mother is here and what happened, happened—there's nothing I can do to change it. I can't hold on to that anger forever." I lean against the counter on my elbow.
"So what does that mean?"
"Nothing. I'm just saying that I want to be civil and not fight anymore. It doesn't change anything between us." I bite my cheek to keep my eyes from tearing up.
Instead of saying anything, Lisa stands up and throws her plate into the sink. The porcelain splits down the middle with a loud crack that causes me to jump. Lisa doesn't flinch or even turn back around as she stalks off to the bedroom.
I peer into the living room to make sure that her impulsive behavior hasn't woken up her mother. Fortunately, she's still asleep, her mouth slightly open in a way that makes her resemblance to her daughter all the stronger.
As usual, I'm left to clean up the mess that Lisa made. I load the dishwasher and put away the leftovers before wiping down the counter. I'm exhausted, mentally more than physically, but I need to take a shower and go to bed. But where the hell am I going to sleep? Lisa is in the bedroom and Chit is on the couch. Maybe I should just drive back to the motel.
I turn the heat up a little and switch off the light in the living room. When I walk into the bedroom to get my pajamas, Lisa is sitting on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She doesn't look up, so I grab a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and panties from my bag before exiting the room. As I hit the doorway, I hear what sounds like a muffled sob.
Is Lisa crying?
She isn't. She couldn't be.
On the off chance that she is, I can't leave the room. I pad back to the bed and stand in front of her. "Lisa?" I say quietly and try to remove her hands from her face. She resists, but I pull harder. "Look at me," I beg.
The breath is knocked out of me when she does. Her eyes are bloodshot and her cheeks are soaked with tears. I try to take her hands in mine, but she jerks away. "Just go, Jennie," she says.
I've heard her say that too many times. "No," I say and kneel down between her opened legs.
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. "This was a bad idea. I'm going to tell my mum in the morning."
"You don't have to." I've seen her let out a few tears before, but never full-on, body-shaking, tears-streaming-down-her-face crying.
"Yeah, I do. This is torture for me to have you so close but so far. It's the worst possible punishment. Not that I don't deserve it, because I know I do, but it's too much," she sobs. "Even for me." She draws in a deep, desperate breath. "When you agreed to stay . . . I thought that maybe . . . maybe you still cared for me the way I do for you. But I see it, Jen, I see the way you look at me now. I see the pain I've caused. I see the change in you because of me. I know that I did this, but it still kills me to have you slip through my fingers." The tears come much faster now, falling against her black T-shirt.
I want to say something—anything—to make this stop. To make her pain go away.
But where was she when I was crying myself to sleep night after night? "You want me to go?" I ask, and she nods.
Her rejection hurts, even now. I know I shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be doing this, but I need more. I need more time with her. Even dangerous, painful time is better than no time. I wish I didn't love her, that I had never met her.
But I did. And I do love her. "Okay." I swallow and stand up.
Herbhand grips my wrist to stop me. "I'm sorry. For everything, for hurting you, for everything," she says, goodbye thick in her tone.
As much as I resist this, I know deep down that I'm not ready for her to give up on me. On the other hand, I'm not ready to easily forgive her either. I've been in a constant state of confusion for days, but today takes the cake.
"I . . ." I stop myself. "What?"
"I don't want to go," I say so low that I'm not sure she even heard me. "What?" she asks again.
"I don't want to go. I know I should, but I don't want to. Not tonight at least." I swear I can see the pieces of the broken girl in front of me slowly come back together, one by one. It's a beautiful sight, but terrifying deep in my soul, too.
"What does this mean?"
"I don't know what it means, but I'm not ready to find out either," I say, hoping to be able to get at this feeling by talking about it.
Lisa looks at me blankly, her earlier sobs nowhere to be find. Robotically, she wipes her face with her shirt and says, "Okay. You can sleep on the bed, I'll take the floor."
As she grabs two pillows and the throw blanket from the bed, my mind can't help but entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, all those tears were for show. Still, somehow I know that they couldn't have been.
