Jennie's POV
I stare out the passenger window, not wanting to speak first. After a couple of blocks, Lisa turns the radio on and then turns it up too loud. I roll my eyes but try to ignore it—until I can't. I hate her taste in music and it gives me an instant headache. Without asking, I turn the knob down and Lisa looks over at me.
"What?" I snap.
"Whoa, someone is in a pissy mood," she says.
"No, I just didn't want to listen to that, and if anyone is in a bad mood, it is you. You were being rude earlier, then you text me and ask me to stay; I don't get it."
"I was pissed because you brought up the wedding. Now that it's settled that we aren't going there is no need for me to be pissed." Her tone is calm and sure.
"It is not settled—we didn't even talk about it."
"Yes, we did. I told you I'm not going, so drop it, Jennie."
"Well, you may not be going but I am. And I am going over to your dad's house to learn to bake with Karen this week," I tell her.
She clenches her jaw and glares at me. "You're not going to the wedding, and what—are you and Karen like best friends now? You barely even know her."
"So what if I barely know her? I barely know you," I tell her. Her face falls, and I feel bad, but it is true.
"Why are you being so difficult?" she says through gritted teeth. "Because you aren't going to tell me what to do, Lisa, It's not happening. If I want to go to the wedding, I will, and I really would like you to come with me. It could be fun—you may even have a nice time. It would mean a lot to your father and Karen, not that you care about that."
She doesn't say anything. She lets out a large breath and I stare back out the window. The rest of the ride is spent in silence, both of us too angry to speak. When we pull up to the fraternity house, Lisa grabs my bag out of the backseat and puts it over her shoulder.
"Why are you part of a frat, anyway?" I ask her. I have been wanting to know the answer since I discovered her room the first time.
She takes a deep breath as we walk up the steps. "Because, by the time I agreed to come here, the dorms were full—and I sure as hell wasn't going to live with my father—so this was one of the few options I had."
"But why stay in it?"
"Because I don't want to live with my father, Jen. Besides, look at this house; it's nice, and I did get the biggest room." She smirks a little, and I'm glad to see her anger is dying down.
"I mean, why don't you live off campus?" I ask her and she shrugs.
Maybe she doesn't want to have to get a job.
I follow her quietly up to her room and wait as she unlocks the door.
What is it with her and her obsession over no one going into her room? "Why won't you let anyone in your room?" I ask and she rolls her eyes.
She puts my bag down on the floor.
"Why do you always ask so many questions?" she groans and sits on the chair.
"I don't know, why won't you answer them?" I ask, but of course she ignores me. "Can I hang up my outfit for tomorrow? I don't want it to get too wrinkled from being in my bag."
She seems to think about it for a second before she nods and stands to retrieve a hanger from her closet. I grab the skirt and blouse out and put them on the hanger, ignoring her sour expression at my clothing.
"I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow so I can be at the bus station by eight forty-five; the stop three streets over is on the route that gets me two blocks away from Vance," I inform her.
"What? You're going there tomorrow? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did . . . you were too busy sulking to pay attention," I fire back.
"I will drive you there; you don't need to take, what's it, like an hour- long bus ride."
I want to decline her offer just to annoy her but I decide against it.
Lisa's car is a much better way to get there than a crowded bus.
"I am going to get a car soon; I can't last any longer without one. If I get the internship, I would have to take the bus there three days a week."
"I would drive you," she says, her voice almost a whisper.
"I'll just get my own car," I tell her. "The last thing I need is for you to be mad at me and not pick me up."
"I would never do that." Her tone is serious.
"Yeah, you would. Then I would be stuck trying to find a bus route. No, thanks," I half-joke. I honestly feel like I could depend on her, but I don't want to take any chances. She is just too moody.
Lisa turns on the television and stands up to change her clothes, so I home in on what she's doing. No matter how annoyed with her I am, I would never turn down a chance to watch her undress. Her shirt is pulled over her head first, then I watch her muscles contract under her skin as she unbuttons and pulls down her tight black jeans. Just as I think she is going to wear only boxers, she pulls a pair of thin cotton pants out of her dresser and puts them on. She stays shirtless, lucky for me.
"Here," she mumbles and hands me the shirt she just removed. I can't help the smile on my face as I take it in my hands. This must be our thing now; she must like me wearing her shirt to bed as much as I love the smell of her on the fabric. Lisa focuses on the television as I follow her lead and change into her shirt and a pair of yoga pants. The pants are more like spandex leggings, but they are comfortable. After I fold up my bra and clothes Lisa finally looks at me again. She clears her throat and her eyes rake my body.
"Those . . . um . . . are really sexy." I flush. "Thanks."
"Much better than your fuzzy cloud pants," she teases, and I laugh while taking a seat on the floor. I feel oddly comfortable in her room. Maybe it's the books, or Lisa, I am not sure.
"Did you mean it in the car when you said you barely know me?" she asks quietly. Her question is very unexpected.
"Sort of. You aren't the easiest person to get to know."
"I feel like I know you," she says, her eyes locked onto mine. "Yeah, because I let you. I tell you things about myself."
"I tell you things, too. It may not seem that way, but you know me better than anyone else does." She looks down at the floor, then back into my eyes. She looks sad and vulnerable, such a difference from her usual angry intensity, but equally as captivating.
I am not sure what to say to her confession; I feel like I do know Lisa on a very personal level, like somehow we connect much deeper than just knowing minuscule bits of information about each other, but it doesn't feel like nearly enough. I need to know more.
"You know me better than anyone, too," I tell her. She knows me, the real Jennie. Not the Jennie that I have to pretend to be around my mother, or even Kai. I have told Lisa things about my father leaving, my mother's criticism, and my fears that I never told anyone else. Lisa seems very pleased with this information; a smile covers her beautiful face as she stands from the chair and moves over to me. She takes my hands into her and pulls me up.
"What do you want to know, Jennie?" she asks, and my heart warms. Lisa is finally willing to tell me more about herself. I am this much closer to figuring out this complicated and angry, yet sometimes lovely, Girl.
Lisa and I both lie back on the bed, eyes on the ceiling as I ask her at least a hundred questions. She talks about the place she grew up, Buriram, and how nice it was living there. She talks about the scar on her knee from the first time she learned to ride a bike with no training wheels, and how her mother passed out from the blood. Her father was at the bar that day—all day long—so her mother was the one who taught her. She tells me about grade school and how she spent most of her time reading. She was never very social, and as she got older, her dad drank more and more and her parents fought more and more. She tells me about how she got kicked out of secondary school for fighting but her mother begged them to let her back. She began getting tattoos at sixteen; her friend would do them in his basement. Her first tattoo was a star, and once she got one she wanted more and more. She tells me she doesn't have a specific reason why she hasn't tattooed her back; she just hasn't gotten around to it yet. She hates birds, despite the two inked above her collarbones, and loves classic cars. The best day of her life was when she learned to drive, and the worst was when her parents divorced. Her father stopped drinking when she was fourteen and has been trying to make up for all the terrible years, but Lisa isn't having it.
My head is swimming with all of this new information and I feel like I finally understand her. There are still many more things I would love to know about her, but she falls asleep while telling me about the playhouse made from cardboard boxes that she and her mother and her friend made when she was eight. As I watch her sleep, she appears so much younger now that I know about her childhood, which seems like it was mostly happy until her father's alcoholism poisoned it, creating the angry Lisa of today. I lean over and give the proud rebel a kiss on her cheek before crawling into bed to sleep, too.
I don't want to wake her, so I pull the comforter sideways to cover myself up. That night, my dreams are clouded by a curly-haired little girl falling off a bicycle.
"STOP!"
I jolt awake at the pained sound of Lisa's voice. I look around for her, then peer over the bed to see her body jerking on the floor. I hurry out of the bed to get down to her and gently shake her shoulders to try to wake her. I remember how difficult it was the last time, so I lean down on her and wrap my small arms around her shoulders as she tries to thrash away from me. A whimper escapes her perfect lips and then her eyes shoot open. "Jen," she gasps and wraps her arms around me. She is panting, sweating. I should have asked her about the nightmares, but I didn't want to be greedy; she told me much, much more than I had expected her to. "I'm here, I'm here," I say to comfort her. I pull her arm, gesturing for her to get up and come to bed. When her eyes meet mine, the confusion and fear slowly fade out of them.
"I thought you left," she whispers. We lie down and she pulls me as close to her as possible. I run my fingers through her damp and unruly hair, and her eyes flutter closed.
I don't say anything. I just continue to rub her scalp to calm her.
"Don't ever leave me, Jen," she whispers and falls back into sleep. My heart nearly explodes at her plea, and I know that as long as she wants me here, I'm here.