JENNIE

So she kissed me with her eyes

And then with those hips.

And good God, could her hips kiss.

~ Romeo's Quest


The next few weeks were filled with secret excitements. Lisa and I spoke mainly through text messages. In the hallways, we would accidently bump into each other—which was never accidental. She would ask me to stay back after class sometimes to steal small kisses. I liked the secretive relationship. I felt as if I were a spy trying my best not to get caught.

When I walked into class one Friday, there were three daisies sitting on my desk. Mingyu walked into the room and noticed the flowers. "Are the bullies now giving you gifts?"

I grinned and held the daisies up to my nose. Breathing them in, I smiled. "You know bullies—they're complicated."

He laughed and slid into his seat. "Aren't we all? Anyway, Nayeon told me about this bucket list of yours." I wasn't surprised. He continued. "And from what I found out from snooping through your bedroom while you were in the shower…this Irene girl sounded like a real babe."

I smirked at his comment.

"I mean, if she were here, I would probably give up Tonys with a Y to have Tonis with an I."

"You would date my sister," I frowned jokingly, "but not me?"

"Uh, did you die and leave your twin sister letters for every occasion?"

"No."

"Then of course I wouldn't date you. There's something so sexy about ghosts leaving notes for their loved ones."

Giggling, I nodded in understanding. "So you only get turned on by ghost girls, not alive girls."

"Ohhh, I love when you say that. Say it again…"

I cocked an eyebrow. "Say what? Ghost girls?" He shivered with delight, loving the sound of it. I lowered my voice and moved in closer to him. "Ghost girls, ghost girls, ghost girls!" I whispered over and over again.

He closed his eyes and ran his hand up and down his chest as if he were extremely turned on. "Mmm! That's how I like it."

"You're an idiot," I chuckled.

"You love this idiot." I did. "But back to the important things. Jungkook is having another party soon and I…" He grinned widely and reached into his back pocket. A plastic card came out and his smile grew bigger. "Have a fake ID."

I snatched it from his hands and smiled. "Where the heck did you get this?!"

His eyes shifted back to Avery. "I know people who know people."

"Burt Summerstone?" I asked, reading his name off the card.

He took it back from me and slid it into his pocket. "It's not about the name, baby girl. It's about the date. I am officially a twenty-one-year-old high school student. And we are officially getting drunk and crossing that item off of your bucket list. Bow down, bitches." He pulled out a fake ID for me and I grinned.

Summer Burtstone. How creative.

"But I hate Jungkook," I frowned. He had been the biggest jerk to Nayeon.

"Even more reason to show up and give him a big middle finger," Mingyu smirked. "I do it all the time."

Mingyu had a way of always making people smile. It was a natural gift of his. I felt lucky enough to have moved to Wisconsin and be living with Nayeon and him. I didn't know if I would've made it if it hadn't been for my built-in housemates.

I remembered back on how mean and harsh I'd been to Richard when I'd first arrived into town. How much I hadn't wanted to be here in the first place. I hadn't called it home since I'd arrived, but lately I'd thought it could be my home. Because maybe home wasn't a location. Maybe it's simply the people who you were surrounded with that made you feel as if you could be whoever you wanted to be.

Maybe home was friendship.

After class ended, I smiled at Ms. Manoban—who was really just Lisa in a suit. My Lisa. My brown-eyed, beautiful handsome, loving Lisa. She grinned back at me. The class filed out and I slid all of my books into my backpack. Tossing the bag onto my back, I stood from my desk.

"You're not wearing one of her dresses?" Lisa asked, moving to sit on the front of her desk. Her eyes traveled over my body until she met my stare and I felt warm all over. I loved the way she looked at me. As if each and every part of my being were perfect. As if I were imperfectly perfect for her.

"Nope, not today." I was dressed in blue jeans and an oversized sweater that hung off my left shoulder. For the first time this school year, my outfit was actually mine…and it felt good to be me.

"This is my favorite look," she said.

I glanced down at my outfit and grinned. "Mine too."

"My roommate's gone tonight."

I chuckled. "Thanks for the random bit of information."

"I want to make you dinner."

Raising an eyebrow, I laughed. "You cook?"

"I cook." Her words were simple yet so dreamy, and I realized I would eat anything she would make. "I do a lot more than cook though…" My eyes fell to her lips. I loved those lips. I loved so much about her.

I bit my bottom lip and glanced toward the classroom door to make sure no one was walking by. "Are you trying to seduce me, Ms. Manoban?"

Her thumb brushed against her bottom lip and she eyed me up and down. "I guess you'll have to wait to find out, Ms. Kim."

"Meet me behind the library after school?" I suggested.

"I'll be there."

The way her eyes danced across my body made me feel at ease, comfortable. What I loved the most was that she'd never looked at me the way she had today. Today she'd seen me for who I really was, and the way both her lips and eyes smiled toward me made me realize that she liked me the most when I was myself.

I was one hundred percent Jennie Kim.

And I was one hundred percent her's.

I'd never been to her house before. I'd never been in her Jeep before either. It was a day filled with firsts. I had to admit that lately my mind had been thinking about other things we had never done together. We'd never gone out on a date. We'd never danced. We'd never had sex. We'd never said 'I love you.'

I stepped into her Jeep and my breath caught when I saw Lisa. She was wearing a baseball cap, and I blushed alone at my thoughts. I'd never seen her in a baseball cap until now. There were so many sides to her, looks to her, characteristics of her, that I hadn't yet discovered. She smiled my way, took my hand, and kissed my palm. My eyes shifted to the floor mats and I chuckled lightly.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

My head rose and I shook it back and forth. "Nothing. It's just—there's so much to look forward to with us, isn't there?"

"Yeah, I think there is." She didn't let go of my hand after she kissed it. She held it as she pulled away from the curb of the library.

"Tell me the boring facts," I said, growing comfortable in my seat. "Tell me the things that would put most people to sleep."

She arched an eyebrow. "The boring facts?"

"Your favorite color, your favorite ice cream, your favorite movie. You know, the boring things."

"Ah, of course. My favorite color is green. Um…" She furrowed her brows, deep in thought. "My favorite ice cream is the one with the waffle cone chunks in it and the chocolate pieces. Don't ask me if I've ever eaten an entire container in one sitting—you don't want to know the answer. And my favorite movie is a tossup between Lethal Weapon and The Hangover."

"I love the waffle cone ice cream, too," I said breathlessly.

She squeezed my hand. "What else? What else do you love? What's your favorite animal, your favorite season, your favorite breakfast food?"

"Panda bears. I watched a show on Discovery Channel once, and I guess there's a place in China where you can pay a crap-ton of money and pet baby pandas. My favorite season is spring. I get some of my best writing done during thunderstorms, I think. And if you were to put a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal mixed with marshmallows in front of me, I would probably orgasm from the sight."

She laughed, and I felt her finger tracing the inside of my palm. "That's the dirtiest thing I've ever heard you say," she muttered.

"What? Orgasm?" I bit my bottom lip and tugged on it.

Her brown eyes shifted over to me. "No. Petting baby pandas." I pulled my hand away from her and smacked her hard, but I was laughing harder. "Ow!" she huffed dramatically as if I'd really hurt her, but I knew I hadn't. She held her hand out toward me again, and I took her hold.

We pulled up to her house, which she told me was her parents place, and I gasped at the beauty of the property. The lake house looked as if it had been very much a home to someone, rather than just a house. There was a lot of love put into the property.

The front porch was crafted from earth-toned stones, with pebbled steps. On the porch rested two oak chairs and a matching rocking-bench. Lisa didn't allow me too much time to study the home. She walked me around to the backyard and I sighed at the view. The sun glistened off the lake. I walked across the dock and ran my fingers through the chilled water.

"It's beautiful," I said, looking out into the distance. I sat down on the edge of the dock and took off my shoes and socks. My toes trailed through the water, making slight ripples.

"Yeah," Lisa said softly. She sat down by my side. "It is."

Shw took off her shoes and socks, rolled up her slacks, and put her feet in the water, too. We both waved our feet back and forth, creating big waves.

"Tell me the awkward facts," she said. "Your worst date. Your oddest favorite book. Your weirdest turn-on."

"Hmm…" I inhaled the fresh smells of autumn by the lake. "I haven't dated a lot, but my last boyfriend took me to the movie theater for our first date. He thought it would be romantic to show me his..." I blushed. I couldn't believe I was saying this to her. "His penis. And I giggled and asked him for his 3D glasses to magnify it, because it definitely wasn't coming to life."

"Ouch," Lisa whined, grabbing her chest. "You're brutal!"

"He showed me his penis! On the first date!" I cried.

"Note to self: don't show Jennie my penis tonight."

I blushed and gave her a coy smile. "We kind of already had our first date at Joe's bar. You can pretty much show me anything."

A wide, toothy grin landed on her face. She flicked some of the water toward me. "Continue."

"My oddest favorite book is a random one about zombies. In the end, the zombies just turned out to be corporate America, and the people they were trying to turn and corrupt were the creative individuals of the world.

"They turned Steven Spielberg into one of them, and he documented his whole transformation before letting the pull of the Zom overtake him. Then they turned Ellen Degeneres, but the joke was on corporate America because she was just as funny being a zombie as she was being a human. And she made the other zombies laugh, too. Sometimes they laughed so hard they would lose their noses and their arms would fall off due to how funny she was. It was actually a beautiful coming-of-age book that explored the realms of truth, acceptance, and being comfortable in your own skin—even if it was rotting."

"Wow," Lisa sighed, listening to my story.

"Yeah. I know right?" I paused. "They all died though."

She inched closer to me, our legs lying against one another. "The Neighborhood Zombie."

"No way," I breathed. "You've read it?!"

"Junior year of college. Best book ever." She smiled. I swooned. "Now. Your biggest turn-on?"

"Oh, that's easy. My biggest turn-on is someone who reads to me."

Her finger brushed against the side of my face. "I read."

"You turn me on, I guess."

Her hand wrapped around my waist and she lifted me into her lap. "You guess?" She took my bottom lip between her teeth and lightly tugged on it. My body responded instantly to her touch. My hands fell against her chest, and when she released my lip, I gave her a soft kiss.

"Well, you haven't read to me yet."

She smirked, and as she lifted both of us up from the dock, my legs wrapped around her. "Let's go make dinner."

I shook my head back and forth. "I'm not making dinner. You are."

Her hands wrapped under my ass as she carried me toward the house. I secretly wished that she would never put me down, but when she did, it was on top of the kitchen counter. She went digging through the kitchen, pulling out her ingredients for the 'dinner of a lifetime,' as she called it.

I giggled when I saw a box of mac and cheese sitting next to the stove. She pulled a pocketknife out of her back pocket and used it to open the box. "You always use pocketknives to open macaroni and cheese?"

"My dad always did. He carried this knife everywhere, saying you never knew when you might need it. So he pretty much made up excuses to use it. Opening boxes, envelopes, water bottle cases." She laughed to herself. "I guess when I got the knife, his quirks rubbed off on me."

She paused for a moment. Remembering her dad.

"Tell me the saddest fact," I whispered, watching her fill up a pot to boil the water in. She sat the pot down on the stove and turned on the burner.

Moving over toward me, she spread my legs and stepped in between them. "That's some heavy dinner conversation."

"We aren't eating yet."

The room was silent. Lisa stared at me, and I at her. She moved my hair behind my ear. "March twenty-second of last year." Her eyes moved to the window above the sink and she stared out toward the backyard. Her voice cut like a knife. "My mom died in my arms." My hands moved to her face and I pulled her closer. "And my dad watched it happen."

My eyes bled with sorrow for her, and her bled out remorse. I kissed her intensely, filling her up with all my apologies for her worst day ever, wishing I could make the pain dissipate.

Her brown hair fell to her face and I combed it back for her. When our lips separated, I missed her taste. I imagined that she missed mine, too, based on how she came back to rest her mouth against mine.

"How do you get over something like that?" I asked.

She shifted around and shrugged. "Easy. You don't."

"Do you know who did it?"

She shifted again. Not only her body, but her personality. It grew darker as she stepped backward, turning away from me.

"That doesn't matter. It doesn't bring her back." She moved to the kitchen sink and stared out into her backyard.

"But it can bring her justice."

"No!" Her shout sounded like a clap of thunder shaking sparrows from the tree branches. My skin crawled by her sudden outburst. A gasp ran from my lips. When she turned to me, her face was reddening with anger—or was it guilt?

"Come here," I instructed.

Lisa's shoulders fell and her eye twitched. "Sorry," she muttered, walking over to me. "I don't talk about her. I don't want to think about who did it to her. I want to move on." I didn't reply, but I pulled her back between my legs. "Can we talk about you instead of me?" she asked quietly.

She never wanted to talk about the accident, which made me sad.

I wanted to know everything.

Yet I didn't want to scare her off. After I nodded my head, she sighed with relief.

"What is your saddest fact?" she whispered, placing her hands on my hips.

"Leukemia." It was only one word. But it was a powerful one. One word that had put a time limit on Irene's and my relationship. One word that had made me cry each and every night for months. One word that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies. A tear rolled down my cheek and she kissed it away. She gave me the same intense kiss I'd delivered her. Her kisses tasted like forever soaked in always.

"What is your happiest fact?" she questioned.

I placed my hand in the air and she placed her against mine. "This," I whispered, staring at our touch.

Her other hand went up and I placed mine against it. We laced our fingers together. "This," she smiled.

I inched my hips closer to her, and she began kissing my neck slowly, lovingly. "Lisa," I closed my eyes as her kisses trailed down my shoulder.

"Yes?" she muttered against me.

"That feels good," I sighed as her tongue slowly ran up and down my shoulder.

"I always want you to feel good." Her brown eyes looked up to me and her smile stretched far and wide. Her lips landed on my forehead. "I'm crazy about you, Jennie Kim."

I inhaled deep and released my air. "I'm crazy about you, Lisa Manoban." We stared at each other, laughing and laughing at the craziness of our situation. Was I dating my English teacher? Was what we were doing truly unethical? Falling in love? Could falling in love ever be wrong? "We're insane, aren't we?"

She leaned against me and I wrapped my arms around her neck. "Fucking insane."

Fucking insane. That might have been my favorite fact about us both that night.

We were both so fucking insane.