JENNIE

Hey hey, don't you forget

The way I moan your name or

The taste of my lips.

~ Romeo's Quest


After school, I headed straight to the library and stayed there until late into the evening reading. I found a table that no one ever traveled by in the back corner of the library. It was slowly becoming my personal safe haven.

I didn't always read though. Most of the time, I wrote out reasons why Lisa and I could somehow make it work. Why, if we started as friends, by the time school let out, we could transition into more than friends. There were only about one hundred and twenty-some days left in the school year.

One hundred and twenty-four to be exact.

Not that I was counting.

So mainly I wrote out my dreams. Fantasies I wished would someday come true. I was stuck with only my creative daydreams and hopes of something more.

After picking up a few new books, I headed home. I should've worn a sweater over my teal sundress. I was freezing. It was clear that autumn's warmth of Wisconsin was slowly being taken over by a chilled winter. The streetlights were shining bright, and the sky was slumbering.

While walking past the cemetery on May Street, I paused when I looked through the gated area. First I saw her car parked all alone in the parking lot. Then I saw her. My heart skipped a beat, yet it felt as if it were beating faster, too. Lisa made my once fixed heart do crazy things.

She was standing there alone, staring down at two gravestones.

Still a new kind of hurt.

"Oh…" I whispered to myself, placing my hands on my chest.

She looked like she had just gone for a workout in her shorts, plain black shirt, and running shoes. Was she a runner? I wished I knew. I wished I knew so much more about her.

She bent her knees, lowering herself closer to the stones. Her lips were moving, and she brushed a finger across her upper lip before she chuckled. She laughed, yet it looked like she was frowning, too.

Those were the most painful—the sad laughs.

I glanced down the streets to see if anyone else was watching her. They weren't. Of course they weren't. Why would anyone watch someone standing in a cemetery? My hands twitched and I started rubbing them against my new book.

I should've kept walking. I should've pretended I hadn't seen her.

But I had seen her.

No one should have to stand in a cemetery alone.

Especially Lisa.

Within a few seconds, I was standing by her side. I wasn't quite sure how I'd even arrived next to her. It felt like floating, my feet gliding me her way. She made me soar.

"Hey," I whispered, making her turn toward me.

"Jennie," she said, surprise in her tone as she looked up to me. I almost forgot how much I loved how she looked at me.

I blinked and shook my head. "I'm sorry to bother you. I just saw you standing here and thought…" Thought what? "Thought nothing," I muttered.

"Nobody ever really joins me out here."

"I'm nobody," I whispered.

She studied my face for a few seconds before she lowered herself down to the ground and the tiniest smile found her lips. "You look like somebody to me."

I looked back and forth, noticing the darkness surrounding us. I wasn't sure if I should stay or go. But my feet were telling me that they had no plans to backtrack.

"Why do they call you watermelons?" Lisa asked.

I smirked when she looked up at me. I took it as an invitation to stay. Lowering myself down, I sat next to her. I glanced down at my chest and laughed. "Is that a serious question?"

The corner of her lips turned up. "No, I get it. I do." Her fingers ran through the blades of grass surrounding us and she picked up a few strands. "Your body is beautiful. That's not a secret. But how are they compelled to pick up on that small detail of you and not talk about those damn eyes? Or that fucking incredible brain of yours?"

I looked down at her hands, which were rolling the grass through her fingertips, and I didn't reply.

She continued. "I get so pissed off whenever someone looks at you wrong. Or says the wrong thing to you. Or posts pictures all over your locker. Or if they smile at you. Or call you beautiful. Or…anything!" She released a breath and took a deep inhale. "Anything they do to hurt you or make you smile makes me want to attack." She exhaled. "And that doesn't really make for great ethics."

My teeth ran across my bottom lip. I was uncertain of what to say to her.

She noticed the look in my eyes and ran her hands across her face. "I'm sorry, Jennie. I shouldn't verbally say the crap that runs through my mind."

"I'm working on my friendships," I said, turning so I was facing her straight on. I reached into the inside of one of my books and pulled out a piece of paper. Placing it in her hand, I smiled. "I did a little research on Wikipedia."

She unfolded the paper and read it out loud. "Four important foundations to making a friend." She stopped reading. "You're such a nerd."

She wasn't wrong. "I'm a nerd-stud. What can I say? Keep reading."

"Number one. Proximity, which means being near enough to see each other or do things together."

I puckered my lips up and rubbed underneath my chin. "Well, seeing how I sit in your second row during third hour, that's kind of being in the same proximity, right?"

She narrowed her eyes on me and moved on to step number two "Repeatedly encountering the person informally and without making special plans to see each other."

"Holy crap. That's like, I don't know—running into you behind the bar. Or running into you at school. Or…running into you in a cemetery. It wasn't planned at all. I have to admit the last one is kind of a downer."

The way her smile stretched made me think I was somewhat charismatic, even though I just felt silly. "Number three, opportunities to share ideas and personal feelings with each other."

"Hmph. Well, to be honest, I think we're still working on that one. What's the last one?"

"Jennie," she groaned, reading the final step. "Wikipedia said this?" She raised an eyebrow and I nodded. "Promise, promise?"

"Oh come one, what's with the double wording though?" I ask.

"well… when i was a kid My mom always had a double problem."

"A double problem?"

She laughed lightly, rubbing the palm of her hand against her jawline. "A double problem is when you have one of something you really love, so you go out and get the same thing, just in case the first one breaks or something."

My smirk reappeared as I bit my bottom lip. "Oh I guess, I'll promise, but no double promises. Come on, just read it."

Clearing her throat, she sat up straight. "Last but not least, number four. Be named Lisa Manoban and Jennie Kim." He folded the paper and placed it back inside my book.

"What?! It says that?! Well, crapballs. That's three out of four steps we have. I think that's pretty good."

"But it's not perfect," she argued. Her fingers ran through her hair, making it a bit messy. She didn't look like Ms. Manoban anymore. Just Lisa. Just beautiful, talented Lisa.

"Humans weren't made to be perfect, Lisa. We were made to screw up, fuck up, and learn new things. We were made perfectly imperfect."

She narrowed her eyes and moved in closer to me. Her fingers brushed my hair behind my ear. The small touch awakened anything that might have been sleeping within me.

"Why did you have to be my student?"

A smile crept on my face. "Because God has a sick sense of humor." My eyes moved to the flowers Lisa must have bought for her mom. They were a bouquet of daisies. My favorite flower. "I love those ones, too," I said, gesturing toward the flowers.

"Mom would have liked you a lot. I just know it. Dad would have thought you were too smart for me."

I grinned. "He sounded like a wise man."

I shivered a bit from the chilled breeze and she frowned. "You're cold."

"I'm okay."

She took my hands into her and started rubbing them, warming me up. I wondered if she knew how much her touch meant to me. How much I missed that touch.

"Can I tell you a secret without this getting weird?" I whispered as I watched her chest rise and fall with each breath she took.

"Yes," she muttered.

Her face softened, and when she turned to look at me, I felt my heart set on fire. Those undeniable strong feelings of desire, those evident urges I had… All I wanted to do was kiss her. I wanted to kiss her so much that if it never led to anything else, I would be fine with that. Her lips alone had the power to make me live forever. How could I never be more than your friend?

"I like holding your hand," I said. "I really like holding your hand. It makes me feel…important."

"You are important." Her words were so raw that it made me almost shatter into a million pieces.

Her thumb started circling the inside of my palm and my brain went into shutdown mode. I felt her hands travel under my legs, and she lifted me, placing me in her lap. My legs wrapped around her waist.

I fit perfectly against her. So perfectly that I was almost certain that we both had been created for one another. She was my missing puzzle piece. Our faces remained so close that I couldn't tell if our lips were connected as one or not. Her words made love to the air as she repeated herself.

"You are so fucking important."

I wondered if she knew how she controlled my heartbeats.

A breath released from my lips. I placed my hands on her chest and laid my head against her shoulder, where I lightly kissed he neck. I felt her hands around my back pull me even closer. She rested her chin on the top of my head. Her heart beats increased against me. I loved the idea that I made her heart race.

"Tell me about them, friend."

A deep inhale was felt against her. "Mom was a music teacher. Dad was an English professor."

"You're a mix of both."

"I'm a mix of both."

"I know what happened to your father…but what happened to your mom?"

She lowered her shoulders and took a deep inhale. "She was murdered."

I gasped. I looked up and ran my fingers through her hair, and then I stilled myself. "I'm so sorry." I said, not knowing what else could be said.

She gave me a sad smile and shrugged. Her brown eyes made love with mine and I placed my mouth against her full lips, giving her a gentle peck.

"I think you're beautiful," I whispered, echoing what she'd said to me in a text message many weeks back. "And I don't mean your looks. I mean your smarts, your protectiveness, your brokenness. I think that's beautiful."

Her hand wrapped around my neck and she pulled me closer, her taste covering my lips, her body heat warming every inch of my body. "I don't want to be your friend," she said. We breathed in together and exhaled in harmony. "I want to be yours, I want you to be mine, and I hate that we can't be us. Because I think we were meant to be us."

"How is it that we never get to spend time together, but I feel like you know me better than anyone? How is it that I keep falling for you?"

The look of wonder in her eyes was beautiful. It was as if she had been wondering the same thing about me. "I don't know. Maybe because when hearts are set on fire, no complications can extinguish the flame."

"It can be a secret," I softly promised. "Our secret—one hundred percent ours."

Her lips pressed against mine, and everything in the world shut up. Everything in the universe stopped. She brought me to a place of pure emotion, lifting all sadness and replacing it with comfort.

Her lips were softer than I remembered yet filled with more passion, more intensity. My hands ran across the hem of her shirt and I slid it up, feeling her tight physique under the cotton material. "Jen," she muttered. Her tongue parted my lips and began to become well acquainted with mine.

My mouth gaped opened as my breaths sped up. Her mouth traveled to my neck, where she began sucking and running her tongue in a circular motion. I felt my nipples harden under my dress as a breeze brushed across our bodies and she laid her mouth against mine again. Her fingers slid to my spaghetti strap and she lowered it off my shoulder, giving me gentle kisses all the way down. I felt her hands cup my breasts through the dress, and I moaned lightly, loving the way she held me, the way she touched me, the way she knew me.

"We shouldn't," she warned, but I wasn't certain if she was warning herself or me.

I covered her lips before she could try to stop it from happening. I'd never been so sure about anything in my life. I couldn't pinpoint why, but I'd never felt as safe as I did right there in the darkness with someone who was hurting just like me. Whenever I was near her, there was a profound sense of security and comfort. Lisa Manoban felt like home.