LISA
This apartment is so goddamned empty.
I hate sitting here without her. I miss her legs resting on my lap as she studies and I steal unnoticed glances at her while pretending to work. I miss the way she would obnoxiously poke my arm with her pen until I snatched it from her and held it above her head, and then she'd act so annoyed, but I knew she was only bugging me to get me to pay attention to her. The way she would climb on my lap to retrieve the object always led to the same thing, every time, which was obviously a good thing for me.
"Fuck," I say to myself and set my binder down. I haven't gotten shit done today, or yesterday, or the past two weeks really.
I'm still pissed that she didn't respond to me last night, but more than anything I just want to see her. I'm pretty sure she'll be at my father's house, so I should just go by there and talk to her. If I call her she may not answer and that will make me more anxious, so I'll just stop by.
I know I'm supposed to be giving her space, but, really . . . fuck space.
It's not working for me and I hope it's not working for her either.
By the time I get to my father's house, it's almost seven and Jennie's car isn't here.
What the fuck.
She's probably at the store or library with Jisoo or some shit. I'm proven wrong when I see Jisoo sitting on the couch with a textbook on her lap. Great.
"Where is she?" I ask her as soon as I enter the living room.
I almost sit down next to her but I decide to stand. That would be weird as fuck to just sit down with her.
"I don't know, I haven't seen her yet today," she responds, barely looking up from her studies.
"Have you talked to her?" I ask her. "No."
"Why not?"
"Why would I? Not everyone stalks her," she says with a smile. "Fuck off," I huff.
"I really don't know where she is," Jisoo tells me.
"Well, I'll wait here . . . I guess." I walk into the kitchen and take a seat at the counter. Just because I sort of like her a little more now doesn't mean I'm going to sit there and stare at her while she does her homework.
There's a blob of chocolate on a plate in front of me with candles reading thirteen. Is this thing supposed to be someone's birthday cake?
"Who's shit cake is this in here?" I yell. I can't make out the name, if that's what the white icing was supposed to be.
"It's your shit cake," Karen answers me. When I turn around, she's giving me a sarcastic smile.
I didn't even see her come in. "Mine? It says 'thirteen.'"
"Those were the only candles I had and Jennie really got a kick out of them," she tells me. There's something behind her voice that sounds off. Is she mad or something?
"Jennie? I'm confused."
"She made that for you last night while she was waiting for you to get here," she says, then turns her attention to the chicken she's now carving.
"I didn't come here."
"I know you didn't, but she was expecting you." I stare at the hideous cake and feel like a complete ass. Why would she make me a cake without even asking me to come over? I'll never understand that girl. The longer I stare at the cake she made, the more charming it becomes. I'll admit it's not easy on the eyes, but it may have been yesterday before it sat out all night.
I can picture her laughing to herself as she pushed the wrong- numbered candles in the top of the chocolate cake. I can picture her licking the cake batter off of the spoon and scrunching up her nose as she wrote out my name.
She made me a fucking cake and I went to that party. Could I be more of an asshole? "Where is she now?" I ask Karen.
"I have no idea, I'm not sure if she'll be here for dinner." "Can I stay? For dinner?" I ask her.
"Of course you can, you don't have to ask." She turns around with a smile.
Her smile is a true testament to her character; she must think I'm an asshole, but she still smiles and welcomes me to stay for dinner.
BY DINNERTIME I'm going fucking crazy. I'm fidgeting in my seat, looking out the window every few seconds, about to call her a thousand times until she answers. Fucking crazy.
My father is talking to Jisoo about the upcoming baseball season and I really wish both of them would shut the fuck up.
Where the hell is she?
I pull my phone out to finally text her as I hear the front door open. I'm on my feet before I realize it and everyone looks up at me.
"What?" I snap and head to the living room.
Relief washes over me when she practically stumbles in with books and what looks like a poster board in her hands.
As soon as she sees me, the objects begin to topple to the floor. I rush over to help her pick them up.
"Thanks." She takes the books from my hands and starts to walk up the staircase.
"Where are you going?" I ask her.
"To put my stuff away . . ." She turns to answer but then turns back around.
I would normally start cussing at her, but I'm hoping to find out what's wrong with her without yelling, for once. "Are you going to eat dinner?" I call after her.
"Yeah," she answers simply, without turning around. I bite my tongue and head back to the dining room.
"She'll be down in a minute," I say, and I swear I catch Karen smiling, but it disappears when I look at her.
Minutes feel like hours before Jennie finally takes a seat next to me at the table. Hopefully her sitting next to me is a good sign.
A few minutes later, I realize it's not a good sign, since she hasn't spoken to me once and she's barely eating the food on her plate.
"I got all my paperwork squared away for NYU. I still can't believe it," Jisoo says, and her mum smiles with pride.
"You won't be getting the family rate," my father jokes, but only his wife actually laughs.
Jennie and Jisoo—both being the polite suck-ups they are—smile and attempt fake laughs, but I know better.
Once my father brings the conversation back to sports, I find my opening to talk to Jennie. "I saw that cake . . . I didn't know . . ." I begin to whisper.
"Don't. Not right now, please." She frowns and gestures to the other people in the room.
"After dinner?" I ask and she nods.
It drives me insane as she picks at her food; I really just want to shove her forkful of potatoes into her mouth. This is why we have issues, because I daydream about force-feeding her. The dining room is filled with my father trying to bring us all together through small talk and shitty attempts at jokes. I ignore him the best I can and finish my dinner.
"It was really good, honey," my father praises Karen as she begins to clean up the table. He looks at Jennie, then back at his wife. "When you're done with that, why don't I take you and Jisoo out to Dairy Queen. Haven't been there in a while . . ."
Karen nods with false enthusiasm, and Jisoo pops up to help her. "Can we talk, please?" Jennie surprises me by asking when she stands up.
"Yeah, of course." I follow her upstairs and into the room she's been staying in.
I can't tell if she's going to scream at me or cry when she closes the door behind me.
"I saw the cake . . ." I decide to speak first.
"Did you?" She sounds almost uninterested and she takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah . . . it was . . . nice of you."
"Yeah . . ."
"I'm sorry for going to the party instead of asking you to spend time with me."
She closes her eyes for a few seconds and takes a deep breath before opening them again. "Okay," she says in a monotone voice.
The way she's staring out the window with no emotion on her face gives me the chills. She looks as if someone has sucked the life out of her . . .
Someone has. Me.
"I really am sorry. I didn't think you wanted to see me; you said you were busy."
"How could you think that? I waited for you as 'I'll be there in thirty minutes' turned into two hours." She still sounds so emotionless, and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up from it.
"What are you talking about?"
"You said you said you'd be here, and you weren't. Simple as that." I really wish she'd scream at me.
"I didn't say I'd be here. I asked you if you wanted to come to the party and then I even texted and called you last night, but you didn't answer to either."
"Wow. You must've been really drunk," she says slowly, and I move to stand in front of her.
Even though I'm right here, she doesn't look at me. She stares off into space, and it's really unsettling. I'm used to her fire, to her stubbornness, to her tears . . . but I'm not used to this.
"What do you mean? I called you—" "Yeah, at midnight."
"I know I'm not as smart as you, but I'm really fucking confused right now," I tell her.
"Why did you change your mind? What made you not come?" she asks. "I didn't know I was supposed to be here. I texted you and said 'hey,' but you never responded."
"Yes, I did, so did you. You said you weren't having fun and you asked if you could come over."
"No . . . I didn't." Was she drunk that night?
"Yes, you did." She holds her phone in the air and I grab it from her.
Lame. Can I come over?
Yeah, how long until you'll be here? Thirty minutes.
What the fuck?
"I didn't send those, that wasn't me." I try to replay the night. She doesn't say anything, she only picks at her fingernails. "Jennie, if I had thought for a second that you were waiting on me, I would have been here with you."
"You're honestly telling me you didn't text me, when I just showed you proof that you did?" She almost laughs.
I need her to yell at me; at least when she's yelling I know she cares. "Did I not just say that?" I bark.
She stays silent. "Who did, then?"
"I don't know . . . shit, I don't know who . . . Rosé! That's who it fucking was—it was Rosé." That fucker handed me my phone from where she was sitting on the couch; she must have been texting Jennie acting like she was me so she would be waiting on me.
"Rosé? You're really trying to blame Rosé for this?"
"Yes! That's exactly what I'm doing. She sat down on the couch right after me and handed me my phone. I know it was her, Jennie," I tell her.
Her eyes flash with confusion and for a second I know she believes me, but she shakes her head. "I don't know . . ." She seems to be talking to herself.
"I wouldn't tell you I was coming and not show, Jen. I've been trying hard, so damn hard, to show you that I can change. I wouldn't stand you up like that, not anymore. That party was so fucking boring anyway, and I was miserable without you there—"
"So, were you?" She raises her voice and stands from the bed. Here we go.
"Were you miserable while there were strippers there?" she yells.
Fuck. "Yes! I didn't even stay after they got there! Wait . . . how do you know about the strippers?"
"Does that matter?" she challenges me.
"Yes! It matters; it was her, wasn't it? It was Rosé! She's filling your head with all this bullshit to make you turn on me!" I yell back at her. I fucking knew she was up to something. I just didn't know she'd stoop that low. She texted Jennie from my phone and then deleted the messages. Is she really that fucking stupid that she would fuck with my relationship again? I'm going to find that little shit—
"She is not!" she yells, interrupting my rage.
Oh my fuck. "Okay, then, let's call your precious fucking Rosé and ask her." I grab her phone again and pull up her name . . . in her favorites list. Goddamn, I want to smash her phone against the goddamn wall.
"Do not call her," she growls at me, but I ignore her. She doesn't answer. Of fucking course.
"What else did she tell you?" I am fucking fuming. "Nothing," she lies.
"You're a terrible liar, Jennie. What else did she tell you?"
She glares at me with her arms crossed, and I await her answer. "Huh?" I press.
"That you were hanging out with Hanbin the night I was at her house." My anger is threatening to get the best of me. "You wanna know who hangs out with Hanbin, Jen? Fucking Rosé, that's who. They hang out all the time. I went there to ask him about you two since you want to fucking shack up with Rosé all of a sudden."
"Shack up with Rosé? I wasn't shacking up with anyone! I stayed there those times because I like her company and she's always so kind to me! Unlike you!" She steps toward me.
I wanted her to yell at me and now she won't stop, but it's much better than her sitting there like she didn't give a shit.
"She's not as sweet as you think she is, Jennie! How can you not see that! She's feeding you all this bullshit to get to you. She wants to fuck you, that's all. Don't flatter yourself and think she . . ." I stop myself. I meant the part about Rosé but not the rest. "I didn't mean that last part," I say, trying to stoke the anger in her instead of the sadness.
"Sure you didn't." She rolls her eyes.
I can't believe we're having this fight over Rosé. This is such bullshit; I told her to stay away from her, but being the stubborn girl she is, she doesn't listen to shit I say.
At least she said she wasn't shacking up with Rosé when she stayed with her those times . . . times?
"How many times did you stay at her house?" I ask her, praying I heard her wrong.
"You already know this." She's getting angrier as the seconds pass, and so am I.
"Can we just try to talk about this calmly, because I'm this fucking close to losing my shit and that won't be good for anyone." I pinch my fingers together to prove my point.
"I tried that, and you—"
"Would you just shut up for two seconds and listen to me!" I yell and run my fingers through my hair.
And surprisingly, she does the exact opposite of what I thought she was going to do when she walks over to the bed, sits down on it, and shuts her damn mouth.
I DON'T REALLY KNOW what to say or how to begin, because I didn't expect her to actually listen to me.
I move toward her and stand in front of where she's sitting on the bed; she looks up at me with an unreadable expression, and I pace back and forth for a few seconds before stopping to talk.
"Thank you." I sigh in relief and frustration. "Okay . . . so this is all just twisted around and fucked up. You thought I asked to come over and then I stood you up; you should know by now that I wouldn't do that."
"Should I?" she interrupts.
I don't know how I expect her to know that by now, when I have done so much shit. "You're right . . . but be quiet," I say, and she rolls her eyes.
"My party fucking sucked, and I wouldn't have even gone if you didn't want me to. I didn't drink at all—well, actually I did have one drink, but that's all. I didn't talk to any other girls, I barely spoke to Nancy, and I sure as hell wasn't hanging out with strippers. Why the fuck would I want anything to do with a stripper when I have you?"
Her eyes soften slightly, and she's no longer glaring at me like she wants to chop my fucking head off. It's a start.
"Not that I have you . . . but I'm trying to have you again. I don't want anyone else. More importantly, I don't want you to want anyone else either. I don't know why you would run to Rosé, anyway. I know she's nice to you blah blah blah . . . but she's full of shit."
"She hasn't done anything to make me think that, Lisa," she insists. "She texted you from my phone pretending to be me, she purposely told you about the strippers—"
"You don't know that she texted me, and I'm actually glad to have learned about the strippers."
"I would have told you if you'd answered when I called you. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know you made me a cake or that you were waiting on me. It's already hard enough to get you to see that I'm trying here, but then she has to come in between us and plant these ideas in your head."
She stays silent.
"So where do we go from here, Jen? I need to know, because this back- and-forth shit's killing me and I can't give you space any longer." I kneel down in front of her, and her eyes meet mine as I wait for an answer.