JENNIE

Snow falls soft.

I love you slowly.

~ Romeo's Quest

Those few days in Chicago, Mom and I didn't figure things out. We didn't work on our issues.

We mourned the first Christmas without Irene. On New Year's Eve, we cleaned out the bedroom, too. Mom lifted up Irene's guitar and smiled toward Lisa. "You can have it."

She frowned. "I can't."

"Please," Mom whispered, running her fingers over the guitar strings. "It deserves to be played."

Lisa looked over to me and I smiled, nodding.

"Thank you," she said, taking the guitar into her hands. As Mom and I folded up the last of the clothes to send the Goodwill, Lisa played Irene's guitar.

"Do you know any Beatles?" I asked her. Mom looked up toward her and smiled, waiting for her answer.

She played Let It Be, singing quietly. Her voice was smoother than I'd ever heard it before. It gave me the best kinds of chills. Outside the window, snow fell at a tamed speed, falling against the tree branches, falling against every inch of Chicago.

And when the clock struck midnight, everyone cried.

"What do you think?" I asked Lisa as we arrived back at the train station in Edgewood. "Do you think she'll be able to stop drinking?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But I hope she does."

"Me too." I looked around and smiled at Lisa. We stood in a hidden corner by the payphones in the Amtrak station. "She wants me to come back to live with her…to work on our relationship."

Shw nodded slowly. "I know."

My voice whispered with the next topic. Mom had given me the letter from the college of my dreams on the way out. "I got into the University of Southern California."

"I know," she repeated. "Of course you did." Her head lowered to the ground. "No matter what, no matter how hard we try…why do I feel like I'm going to lose you?"

I felt it, too. But I couldn't voice it. "Okay, well, Richard is going to pick me up soon. I'll call you later? Otherwise I'll see you at school this week." I stood on my tiptoes and kissed her on her lips, trying to give her ease to her doubt. She lightly tugged on my bottom lip and I sighed against her mouth. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

As I watched her walk toward the door, my heart tightened. After our final exams in a few weeks, there was a whole new semester where Lisa and I would have to pretend to not be in love. Only this time, I wouldn't be in her class. The idea of going through that again was painful. I wanted to be selfish. I wanted her to quit her job. I wanted her to run away with me, but I knew she couldn't. She loved teaching. She loved her band. Her home was here in Edgewood.

And what about college? I'd gotten into the University of Southern California. My dream school. That would be four years away from Lisa—four more years of separation.

We had gone one semester with being surrounded by each other and it had almost been the end of me. A raw truth was settling into my head as I studied her outside the building. I'd fallen in love with the right person at the wrong time.

"Hey, Jennie."

Jumping out of my skin, I turned around at the sound of my name. "Taehyung, you scared me. What are you doing here?"

"Just got back from my grandparents'…" He gave me a grimace look. "Were you just kissing Ms. Manoban?"

My mouth dried up and I coughed. "What?"

"You were just kissing Ms. Manoban." He said it as a fact, but it hit my ears as a question.

I studied him intensely as he rotated his body toward the exit, pointing to Lisa, who was standing outside waiting for a taxi. I could feel the vomit climbing up my throat.

Laughing nervously, I yanked up my suitcase handle and started to roll it away from him. My legs felt like Jell-O. My mind felt like mush. "I gotta meet Richard…" I muttered.

We messed up.

We'd gotten too comfortable. We'd touched too much. We'd slipped.

Footsteps were following me, and I frowned at the sound of them. "Jennie! Listen, you're a smart girl. But hooking up with your teach—" Taehyung's mouth was yapping and yapping.

My hand flew to his lips, shutting him up. "Shut up, Taehyung! Shut up!" I was going to cry. No, correction—I was crying.

"Oh my gosh, it's true," he muttered, stepping back. "She's the one, Jen?! She's the one?! Oh my gosh, Jennie!"

He was pacing back and forth. I looked toward the exit and saw Richard's truck parked in the front of the station. My fingers ran across my eyes, and I tried my best to pull my panicked self together.

My entire body shook, my hands trembling.

"Don't say anything…" I whispered.

Taehyung gave me a harsh look of disbelief.

I walked away, not looking back once. But I could feel his eyes still staring at me. Judging me. Losing all respect for who he thought he could someday love.