JENNIE

As Lisa reaches the door, I ask, "What did you do about June?"

I want to know more about last night, even if Kai can hear us talking. As we pass him in the hallway, Lisa doesn't so much as look at him. Kai glares, though, unsure of what to do, I assume.

"June. You said Nancy told you. What did you do?" I know Lisa well enough to know that she went after him. I'm still surprised by Nancy's help—I was far from expecting it when she walked into the bedroom last night. I shudder at the memory.

Lisa half smiles. "Nothing too bad."

I didn't kill June when I found him; I only kicked him in the face . . .

"You kicked him in the face . . ." I say, trying to dig through the mess in my head.

She raises a brow. "Yeah . . . Did Rosé tell you that?"

"I . . . I don't know . . ." I remember hearing the words, I just can't remember who said them.

I'm Lisa, not Rosé, Lisa said—her voice in my mind feels so real.

"You were here, weren't you? Last night?" I step toward her. She backs into the wall. "You were; I remember it. You said you were going to drink and you didn't . . ."

"I didn't think you remembered," Lisa mutters.

"Why wouldn't you just tell me?" My head aches while I struggle to separate drug-induced dreaming from reality.

"I don't know. I was going to, but then everything got so familiar and you were smiling and I didn't want to ruin it." She shrugs one shoulder, and her eyes focus on the large painting of the golden gates of Heaven on my mother's wall.

"How would you telling me that you drove me home ruin it?"

"I didn't drive you home. Rosé did."

I remembered that earlier, sort of. This is so frustrating.

"So you came after? What was I doing?" I want Lisa to help me put together the sequence of events. I can't seem to do it on my own.

"You were lying on the couch; you could barely speak."

"Oh . . ."

"You were calling out for her," she adds quietly, venom laced through her deep voice.

"For who?"

"Rosé." Her answer is simple, but I can feel the emotion behind it.

"No, I wasn't." That doesn't make sense. "This is so frustrating." I sift through the mental mud and finally find a lump of sense . . . Lisa speaking about June, Lisa asking me if I can hear her, me asking her about Rosé . . .

"I wanted to know about her, if you had hurt her. I think." The memory is fuzzy, but it's there.

"You said her name more than once; it's okay. You were so out of it." Her eyes drop to the carpet and stay there. "I didn't expect you to want me anyway."

"I didn't want her. I may not remember much, but I was afraid. I know myself enough to know that I would only call for you," I admit without thinking.

Why did I just say that? Lisa and I broke up, again. This is our second actual breakup, but it feels like there have been so many more. Maybe because this time I haven't jumped into her arms at the slightest sign of affection from her. This time I left the house and the gifts from Lisa; this time I'm leaving for Seattle in less than twenty-four hours.

"Come here," she says, holding her arms open.

"I can't." I take a page from her book and run my fingers over my hair.

"Yes, you can."

Whenever Lisa is around me, despite the situation, the familiarity of her always seeps into every fiber of my being. We either scream at each other or we smile and tease. There's never any distance, no middle ground between us. It's such a natural thing for me now, an instinct really, to let myself find comfort in her arms, laugh at her stale attitude, and ignore the issues that caused us to be in whatever terrible situation that we're in at the time.

"We aren't together anymore," I say quietly, more to remind myself.

"I know."

"I can't pretend that we are." I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and try not to notice the way her eyes dull at the reminder of our status.

"I'm not asking you to do that. All I'm asking is for you to come here." Her arms are still open, still long and inviting, calling for me, pulling me closer and closer.

"And if I do, we'll only fall back into repeating the cycle that we both decided to end."

"Jennie . . ."

"Lisa, please." I back away. This living room is much too small for me to avoid her, and my self-control is faltering.

"Fine." She finally sighs and her hands tug at her hair, her usual sign of frustration.

"We need this, you know that we do. We have to spend some time apart."

"Some time apart?" She looks wounded, pissed off, and I'm a little afraid of what will come out of her mouth next. I don't want a fight with her, and today isn't the day for her to try to start one.

"Yes, some time alone. We can't get along and everything seems to always be working against us. You said yourself the other day that you were sick of it. You kicked me out of the apartment." I cross my arms in front of my chest.

"Jennie . . . you can't be fucking—" She looks into my eyes and stops midsentence. "How much time?"

"What?"

"How much time apart?"

"I . . ." I didn't expect her to agree. "I don't know."

"A week? A month?" She pushes for specifics.

"I don't know, Liss. We both need to get ourselves to a better place."

"You're my better place, Jen."

Her words swarm through my chest, and I force my eyes to move from her face before I lose whatever resistance I have left. "You're mine, too, you know you are, but you're so angry and I'm always on edge with you. You have to do something about your anger, and I need time to myself."

"So this is my fault, again?" she asks.

"No, it's me, too. I'm too dependent on you. I need to be more independent."

"Since when does any of this matter?" The tone of her voice tells me that she hasn't ever considered my dependency on her a problem.

"Since we had that massive blowup at the apartment a few nights ago. Actually, it started a while ago; Seattle and the argument the other night were just the icing on the cake."

When I finally gather the courage to look up at Lisa, I see that her expression has changed.

"Okay. I get it," she says. "I'm sorry, I know I fuck up a lot. We've already beaten the Seattle thing into the ground, and maybe it's time that I start listening to you more." She reaches for my hand, and I let her take it, momentarily baffled by her newfound agreeability. "I'll give you some space, okay? You've dealt with enough shit in the past twenty-four hours alone. I don't want to be another problem . . . for once."

"Thank you," I respond simply.

"Can you let me know when you get to Seattle? And get some food in your stomach, and rest, please." Her green eyes are soft, warm, and comforting.

And I want to ask her to stay, but I know it's not a good idea.

"I will. Thank you . . . Really."

"You don't have to thank me." Her hands push into the tight pockets of her black jeans, and her eyes measure my face. "I'll tell Jisoo you said hello," she says and walks out the door.

I can't help but smile at the way she lingers by Jisoo's car, staring at my mother's house for a long beat before getting into the passenger seat.