JENNIE

There's two things I need you to see.

One lives in you and the other in me.

~ Romeo's Quest


Monday marked the first day of classes of senior year. Nayeon drove Mingyu and me to school, and Richard promised me that he would do his best to not cross my path. When we pulled into the parking lot, Mingyu jumped out and tossed his backpack on.

I climbed out, backpack straps on, and held a novel close to my chest. The plan was to always hold a book to my chest. Then maybe the guys wouldn't look at me the way they had at my other school.

It was a lot easier to feel comfortable in my own skin when I had a built-in twin always at my side. Now I only felt lonely.

"Toss me your schedule, Chicago." Mingyu nudged me in the side with a smile. I guessed that was my new nickname from him. I handed it his way and he unfolded the paper, his eyes darting back and forth. "Ohh, you have Ms. Gain for first-hour chemistry. Harsh."

Nayeon frowned. "Ms. Sweaty. Her classroom smells like a horse's butt."

"And she grades like we are all supposed to be Harvard students." Mingyu rolled his eyes. "I'll be lucky to get into community college." It seemed like he was mostly saying that to himself so I didn't comment. "At least you have third hour with yours truly. AP English with Ms.M. Easy A." Why did he think he wouldn't get into college if he was taking AP courses?

"That's because he's new. New teachers are always easy A's." Nayeon smirked before hurrying off to find her locker.

Mingyu handed me my schedule back and rushed off to class. I took a deep breath and looked up at the school building. So many people were moving around as if they knew exactly where they were going. Exactly what the next step was.

I moved slowly, searching, exploring, and hoping to get out with as little harm as possible. The first-hour class crawled by, and my new house buddies hadn't been wrong. Ms. Gain's room did smell like a horse's butt.

"All right, students. Welcome to chemistry. I'm glad to see you all appear to be comfortable in your seats. Too bad. Assigned tables starting now. These will be your partners for the rest of the semester. So once you move, I welcome you to get comfortable again."

The room was in an uproar with moans and annoyance, but I couldn't care less. I already didn't know anyone, therefore it wouldn't matter who she sat me next to.

"Jennie Kim next to Taehyung Kim at table five." I picked up my books, moved over to my table, and watched as a boy sat in the chair next to me. He gave me a friendly smile, but I noticed when his eyes traveled to my chest.

Their eyes always found my chest.

"Hi. Jamie, right?" Taehyung extended his hand my way and smiled.

"Jennie," I corrected. Taehyung was a good-looking guy, kind of built—as far as high school boys could be built I guess. Dark hair, brown eyes.

"Well it's nice to meet you, Jennie." He put the stress on my name and that got a smile from me.

"You too."

"So you're the new girl everyone's been talking about? The principal's daughter?"

Everyone'd been talking about me? The thought of that sent a rumble through my stomach and I shrugged. "Assistant principal's daughter. Everyone's been talking about me? It's the first hour of the first day."

"You'll learn fast… People talk here. That's pretty much all they do." He nodded, his eyes roaming over my body once more. "You look nothing like Mr. Kim."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I smiled shyly and adjusted my chair a small bit away from him.

He noticed my move and chuckled lightly before he turned to face the teacher. "Trust me, it is."

The class continued on, and afterwards, Taehyung asked me if I needed help finding my next class, which I declined with a smile. The next hour went by just like the one before—slowly.

Walking in the hallway, I felt trapped. My eyes darted to the clock on the wall. The loud ticks reminded us students that we must hurry along or we might blink and miss out on our lives. Six more hours. Six more long, dreadful hours before I would be able to escape the imprisonment of the building.

While I was walking, I saw Richard standing down the hallway giving me a halfway grin. I sighed and turned the other way, running directly into a person. My books and schedule went flying and I rolled my eyes.

"Watch where you're going, melons."

I looked up just in time to see that I'd managed to run into a guy wearing a letter jacket. A football player, and from how the followers huddled around him, I was sure he was the head of the team. I glanced over and noticed Taehyung standing amongst them, giving him a wary smile.

He shrugged with an apologetic grin and walked off. Thanks for the help, chemistry partner. A few of the guys remained near me as I started picking up my books from the run-in.

"Those aren't just melons. Those are watermelons. I love my watermelons big and juicy," a boy laughed as he walked past me, mocking the size of my chest.

After I picked up the books, I held them even tighter to my chest. I couldn't even raise my head to look the bullies in the eyes.

One of the downsides to wearing Irene's dresses was the way they showcased my body. But for some reason, I had to wear them.

"No need to read when you got a rack like that. I can teach you all kinds of things," the head bully said. One of the others called him June. I felt his eyes roaming across my body and I shifted myself away from him which made me run into another. Didn't they have better things to do on the first day of school? Like, maybe going to class?

"Just one taste," one of the guys muttered as he moved close to my ear and rubbed his hands against my shoulders before the rough sound of a teacher's voice filled all of our ears.

"All right, all right. That's enough. Get to class." The voice ran through my ears as my head was still down. I watched as all of the feet of the assholes scurried away. A hand came near me and I flinched.

The need for a shower washed over my skin. Violated. The boys' words and rubs had violated me and made me feel as if I'd just been touched all over in the most callous way. I wanted to go crawl back to Chicago, where at least I knew who the bullies were. I wanted to go home.

"You dropped this," the voice said, handing me my schedule. When I looked up, the paper in her hands floated to the ground and she gasped. "Jennie."

Beautiful.

Breathtaking.

Brilliant.

Brown eyes.

At first, a weird sense of comfort washed over me from knowing she was the one who'd dismissed the assholes. But then the facts sank in. She'd dismissed the assholes.

"What are you doing here, Lisa?" She looked so…grown up. So different than when I'd seen her at Joe's bar.

Her tan pants were attached to a brown belt that matched her shoes. A light-blue button-down shirt covered her toned body, and her hair wasn't free. It was tamed, combed back, held in place.

"Don't," she hissed. Her lips frowned. I watched as she glanced down the hallways and the back of her right hand found her neck. "Don't call me that, Jennie," she whispered.

A locker slammed nearby, and I jumped out of fright. Everything twisted inside of me, and I fought back the tears that were pushing their way to the fronts of my eyelids.

How could this be?

Lisa cleared her throat and picked up my schedule once again. This time, she studied it, her eyes growing more and more worried. "You're a student." Her hand formed a fist and she repeatedly tapped it against her mouth. "You're my student."

My eyes widened in confusion and horror. Mostly horror. The bell rang loudly, the noise rocketing through the hallways.

"And you're late."

She placed the schedule in my hands, and I looked up and saw Mingyu jogging down the hallway toward us. He smiled. "I'm here, I'm here. Don't throw a fit, Ms. M. My gym class is all the way across the building and shit." He paused. "I mean, crap."

He scooted past Lisa and me as we were both frozen in time and space. Mingyu turned around, gave me a wide, toothy grin, and nodded my way. "You coming, Jennie?"

My lips tightened together as I looked up to Lisa—Ms. Manoban. I edged my way into the classroom and sighed as I heard the door slam behind me. Mingyu smiled to me and tapped the seat directly across from him, and I mouthed, "Thank you," to him.

When I looked up, I saw a disjointed Lisa trying to pull her thoughts together. She faced the class and I swore she stared each student in the eyes except for me. There was not one moment where we locked eyes. All I needed was a look to let me know that this was okay, that we could figure this weird situation out.

Not one look.

I felt nauseated.

She went on teaching the class, pulling out a dry-eraser marker and writing all across the board about what we would be covering in the semester. Flash Fiction. The Odyssey. Macbeth. I didn't care. The air was thick and dirty—filled with misunderstanding. I couldn't breathe.

"Okay, so for tomorrow, I'm looking for a one-to-two-page paper answering these three questions. Three questions that will pretty much shape our semester. We'll be referring to these a ton, so think hard about them."

The classroom groaned. I blinked my eyes to look up to Lisa's words. She had written three questions on the board that made me even more ill.

1. Who are you today?

2. Where do you see yourself in five years?

3. What do you want to be when you grow up?

My feet wanted to run, and I didn't know how to stop the feeling of wanting to escape from overtaking me. I shot up from my desk and stood still. Lisa's voice froze mid-sentence and all eyes turned to me.

Lisa arched an eyebrow and closed her dry-eraser marker. She gave me a baffled stare. "Yes, Jennie?"

"I…" I what? I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop wanting her to hold me. I what?! "I-I need to use the restroom."

The bell rang, and I could hear the snickers throughout the classroom at my sudden burst from my chair. Lisa gave me a strained smile and nodded toward the door.

"All right, everyone. That's it for today."

My eyes shut and I listened to everyone shuffle around me. Only I would declare that I had to use the restroom in front of the whole class exactly before the class ended. My hand ran across my face as I sighed heavily.

Mingyu playfully slapped me on my back and grinned. "Rumor has it that people are calling your boobs watermelons."

My mouth hung open. "How is that even a rumor?! It just happened before class!"

He held his cell phone showing me a picture of me and my chest. "Technology is a bully's newest bitch. Maybe you shouldn't wear such sexy dresses every day that show off your chest and legs."

I frowned at the picture of me frowning. How embarrassing. "The dresses were Irene's."

Mingyu grimaced. He shoved me in my shoulder. "Come on… Don't let them get to you. Besides, it's a pretty great rack." He gave me another kind smile and tossed his backpack on. "You're not a part of Edgewood high school until someone tags you as something you're not."

"What were you tagged as?"

"Womanizer who has too much sex," he said effortlessly.

"And that's not you?"

"Well no. Not exactly." He paused. "There's no such thing as too much sex."

He was pretty handsome. He was wearing a plain gray t-shirt that lay across his body paired with dark jeans that hung perfectly at his hips. His black Chucks shoes and cross necklace tied his easy-but-sexy look together. I wasn't surprised that the girls were attracted to him.

Mingyu reached into his pocket and pulled out his cardboard box again. What was the deal with this guy? "We eat at the table in the corner by the tennis trophies. Right across from the lunch ladies."

"You want me to eat with you?" I had already planned to spend my first lunch in the bathroom crying.

He narrowed his eyes. "No. I just tell people where I eat lunch." Sarcastic. Cute. "Of course you're eating with us. Don't ever bring the cafeteria's meatloaf to the table—it makes Nayeon itch and it will probably give you diarrhea. And"—he reached up toward my ponytail and pulled out the band holding it up—"since your hair is so long that, if you wear it down, it brings less attention to your watermelons. See you at lunch."

"Okay. See you then."

"Oh, and Jennie?" Mingyu smiled bright. "Keep wearing the dresses until you don't want to anymore, okay?"

With that, he disappeared down the hallway off to his next class. I stared at Lisa, who was sitting at her desk, pretending that she hadn't been eavesdropping on my conversation with Mingyu.

The last student disappeared from the class. I put on my backpack and lifted my books into my arms. Standing in front of her desk, I gave her a pathetic chuckle. "So I guess this means we're off for tomorrow night?"

Every curve of her facial features seemed to express a fine, harsh intensity. For a moment, I couldn't tell if she was pissed off at me or our situation. Maybe a little of both.

She conversed with a colorless fluency. "That's not funny, Jennie."

No. It wasn't.

"You said you were nineteen," she spoke so softly I almost didn't hear her.

"I am! I am!" I said it twice, raising my voice an octave. I didn't know if it was to remind her or myself of the sincerity of the fact. I hunched my shoulders. "I was sick…" I paused. "My mom held me back a year." I felt as if I were apologizing for being me. For being born the year I was born. For going to school the year I went to school. No students were wandering into her classroom, so I figured it must have been her free period. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Old enough to know better," she muttered, rubbing her fingers against the back of her neck.

My throat dried out and I coughed lightly. "But young enough not to care?"

A deep-rooted growl left her lips. "No." She formed a fist and slammed it against her desk in irritation. "Just old enough to know better." She paused, her brows frowning. "I'm twenty-two."

It wasn't right, but hearing her age didn't scare me. Not in the least. If the situation and timing were different, we could have given this thing between us a real go. Three years wouldn't be a deal breaker for many relationships. It wasn't the age that was stopping us—it was the occupation.

The tears were on the surface, but I refused to release them. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Don't you think we should talk…about this?"

Her eyes softened a bit and her head gestured toward the door. "If you want me to talk to those guys bothering you, I can."

Tilting my head toward her, I huffed, annoyed with her offer. If I couldn't cry in front of her, I would get mad in front of her. "You'll talk to them?" My head filled with a cloud of anger. "Ohhh! You'll talk to them. Please, Ms. Manoban. Please talk to them. That's exactly what I need to make my life one hundred percent better." I slammed my books on her desk and stared into her eyes. "Because my sister is dead. My mother doesn't want me. My father is my assistant principal with his own family. I'm already an outcast in school. The guys are already mocking my body. And the cherry on top? My AP English teacher made out with me a few days ago and can't even look my way now. So yes! Talk to them. That will make everything perfect."

I saw her face strain and she rubbed the back of her neck. "Jennie…" she whispered, care in her tone. Then she looked up with worry. "Wait, Richard is your dad?"

My heart broke at her biggest concern of the moment. "Out of everything I said…that's what you chose to take in?"

She frowned. "You should get to your next class."

I didn't move right away, even though the silence was intolerably irksome. Shifting my weight around, I nervously ran my fingers through my locks of hair. I stared at her for a moment longer before I turned to walk away.

She wasn't the beautiful woman who'd awakened my spirits a few nights ago with her romantic vocals. She wasn't the womab who'd made me laugh and allowed me to cry into her. She wasn't the woman who'd reminded me that I was still alive when her lips had triumphantly found mine.

No, she wasn't Lisa anymore.

She was Ms. Manoban.

And I was her naïve student who she'd frostily dismissed.