JENNIE

"I don't have just one favorite thing about you." She starts. It's Monday night and I had the phone propped against the kettle while I packs the freshly made stir fry onto a flat plate.

We had been talking on the phone and back then Lisa had been lying down on her bed.

"Same. Lets give it a shot though." I says. Lisa picks

then phone and sets it on the table, propping it against the vase of flowers. I grabs my food and takes a seat.

"How about you say one and vice versa?"

Lisa looks at my smiling face. "Your smile. It's one of my favorite things, it's the first thing I noticed about you."

"Lisaaa..."

"It was your first day at school. We had two classes together and I noticed you were alone. I tried to work myself up into talking to you but you never smiled so I thought I was just going to make a fool of myself."

[AP]

Lisa remembered how Jennie had looked, her head bent low, hands gripping her backpack tightly.

"Remember how we had a free period before the end of school?" She add.

"Yeah?"

"I noticed you going somewhere so I followed you."

"Oh my god, Lisa"

"What?" She shrugs. "I was curious."

"You were a stalker."

"Hey!" Lisa pouts, waving my fork at the screen, smiling softly when I cackles.

"I'm sorry. Go on."

"I followed you all the way to the library and watched through the window. You stopped to talk to the librarian and he must have said something funny that made you smile. You smile and I was floored." She revealed, placing my fork on the plate, cheeks turning red and so were the tips of my ears.

"She told me I looked like her future wife" I giggles.

"Gross. Wasn't he like thirty or something."

"Shh, Priya. he was joking." I says with a chuckle.

"I don't like that joke."

"He said this like twenty something years ago. You seriously can't be jealous." I teased. I dramatically takes a forkful of food and stuffed it into my mouth.

"Your turn."

I makes a humming sound and then speaks. "Your hands." I said and her eyes widened. "Don't think dirty thoughts."

"I wasn't."

"Sure you weren't."

[AP]

Lisa looks down at her hands. The last time she had held Jennie was just a couple hours ago but it felt like it had been forever. She hadn't been thinking dirty thoughts, she was wondering what Jennie had meant.

"The first time we spent time together was at that pool house. Ever since then you've always touched me one way or another, hand on my arm, in my lower back, holding my hand. It kinda felt like you were holding me together back then and I needed it."

"Jennie, you were strong. You are strong. You always have been, always will be."

"It felt good. Especially after we started dating and your mother kept talking to me like I was below her, like I was an ant."

"And I put a stop to it as fast as I could."

"I know you did. Thank you for that."

[AP]

Lisa remembered arguing with her mother. She never liked the way she had looked down on Jennie because she was poor and an orphan. Once she was eighteen and had secured a scholarship to her university, Lisa had told her she was never coming back. She told her she shouldn't call her or text her or even look for me. She had disowned her.

Jennie should be treated with respect. Lisa had made a mistake, she had forgotten that for a bit but she'll remember for the rest of her life and she'll work harder than ever to have Jennie trust her again.

"My second favorite thing about you is your passion for books." Lisa starts, my food forgotten and pushed to the side. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. "You would read a book and then talk about it, sometimes you'd cry, especially when a main character was killed off."

"That's because a young life had been taken. I grow close to a character in forty chapters and then he or she dies! Like why do authors do that?"

Lisa chuckles at that. "I remember how much you cried when Vincent pushed Hester in the Mortal Engine."

"Ugh." I groaned. "The books were amazing but the movie made me want to stick a finger down my throat."

"You get very feisty when you talk about bad movie adaptations." Lisa laughs.

"Some of them are so bad. The author worked hard to write the book, why can't you work hard and produce a decent movie?"

"I remember you ranting about The Mortal Instrument movie."

"It sucked. It was so bad. It was..." I breaks off with a shake of my head and Lisa just laughed, I remembered I ranting about the movie for three hours, comparing the book and the movie and just cussing everyone out. It had taken a pint of Oreo ice cream to calm me down.

I truly was adorable??.

"You are cute."

I bites my bottom lip, smiling shyly. "Oh shoo!" I says and Lisa mimes locking her lips and throwing away the key. "My second favorite thing about you is your ability to quote nineties songs and name the artists."

"I do not."

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous." I quotes and Lisa instantly replies.

"Smells like teen spirit by Nirvana."

"She's got class and style, street knowledge by the p-"

"No diggity by blackstreet." She instantly replies. "At least try harder."

I just gives her a look that screamed see what I mean and she just looks away. It wasn't her fault, she had grown up listening to old songs and there was this nineties diner that had a jukebox and between the ages of twelve to fifteen, Lisa had spent the majority of her free time there. Lisa told me.

"You always seem to know them."

"And you always get excited when I do."

"I don't even know why but it just makes me laugh." I reveals, my eyes darting away from the camera as I looks down.

[AP]

Lisa is endeared. She just wants to reach in through the screen and hold Jennie but sadly she couldn't.

"Your laugh is my third favorite thing. You do it so unabashed, with your head thrown back and you get this glint in your eyes and you look so damn good." Lisa says, wanting to fist pump when I gets that same laugh from me.

"You are so sweet."

"You bring it out of me." She says. "When I'm with you, I am the best woman I can ever be." She confesses and it's true.

[AP]

Once the guilt had settled in and Lisa had tried to give Jennie space two years ago, it had made her so miserable. She had made the worst mistake of her life. She wasn't sure who she had been two years ago but she was better now. It felt like the cracks within her were being filled up each time she held Jennie.

"I want to kiss you."

"I want to do so much. I want to kiss you, I want to hold you, I want to feel you pressed up against me."

"I... I want that too Lisa." I replies, running my hand through my hair. "I... we haven't had sex in years and I feel like I won't do it right."

"Never. You could never."

"It's why I haven't brought it up. I didn't want to make you lose interest in me if it isn't good."

[AP]

Lisa wished she was beside Jennie, so she could hold her and personally say this to her face.

"I didn't fall in love with you because of your pussy. I fell for you because of who you are. You are smart, funny, a little weird in your own special way like you love to say. You are considerate, brave and all that makes you sexy. It's you. I fell in love with you."

"Your words... it somehow always feels like you and I are still sixteen and we are falling like we are the only two that exist."

Lisa nods. "I know. My heart always goes crazy whenever I hold your hand or heck, whenever I talk to you."

"It's like when you told me you loved me for the first time." I says softly, my voice low and my eyes piercing through the screen of the phone.

"I want to tell you all the time."

"I want to hear it."

Lisa doesn't hesitate to say. "I love you. I love you. I love you. You are the love of my life."

"Always and forever."

"Always and forever." Lisa repeats. A silent promise.

From then on, the lists of favorite things just take a different turn. There's actually no order to the list and they just talk in the quiet of the night. We talk about our favorite things and when the time was up, an hour, we continue for another before talking to the kids and the two of us trying to guess who it was Rosé was dating.

[AP]

Jennie falls asleep while on the phone, her face smoshed to the pillow, lips parted a bit as slept. She looked like an angel. Lisa watched her for a bit. It's been years since she got to see this view, it's been years since she laid down beside Jennie and every part of her being was screaming for her to get into car, head for Jennie's house and just knock on the door.

Instead she covers the stir fry and placed it in the fridge and made her way to her room. She gets in the bed and sets the phone against another pillow, pulls her duvet over her self and falls asleep with Jennie.

[ AP ]

Throwback

"Two plus two is four."

"But how do you know if it's not twenty two?" Eighteen year old Lisa teased. They were seated at the school library, a month away from graduation.

"Jennie, stop."

"I'm just teasing." Jennie giggles, leaning over and placing a kiss on Lisa's cheek. They were seated side by side, the only other person in the room was the librarian who Lisa still had mixed feelings about because he was the first person to make Jennie smile. Not her.

Lisa tilts her head a bit, her finger going underneath Jennie's chin, tilting her head up as they locked lips. They kiss softly, Jennie's fingers gripping the lapel of Lisa's blazer tightly.

They pull apart but Lisa doesn't let go. Lisa peppers kisses over Jennie's face, loving the little giggles her girlfriend made. They pulls apart and stares at Jennie who was smiling up at her brightly.

"You are absolutely beautiful."

Lisa watched with fondness as Jennie's cheeks turned a wonderful shade of red. "Priya.."

"I see you walking across the room and I feel like screaming in everyone's face, Yeah! She's mine! The beautiful girl is mine and I love her."

They both paused and stared at each other with wide eyes. Lisa couldn't look away from Jennie's whiskey brown eyes. It's not like she wanted to look anywhere else though. Nothing could rival Jennie. Lisa couldn't believe she had just said it like that. Lisa had a plan. Lisa was going to invite Jennie to dine and hold her hand and then say it.

Lisa was about to start freaking out. Scratch the plan. What if she had been wrong and Jennie didn't love her? No, that couldn't be it. They've been close to saying this to each other for months now.

Lisa hasn't looked away from Jennie's face. Her girlfriend was staring up at Lisa with bright eyes and this blinding grin. Jennie cheeks were still red and her hand hand found Lisa's, their fingers locking together.

Lisa hadn't known she was holding her breath, hoping and praying. So when she finally hears Jennie's voice, it felt like she could breathe again.

"I love you too, Lisa."

~~~~~~~~~~