JENNIE

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The next morning, I wake early and pack my suitcase. When I open the door, Lisa is on the sofa, freshly showered, head bowed to her phone. She looks up and smiles. It's genuine, but reserved.

"Good morning." I return the smile and step into the main room, pulling my suitcase behind me.

Her charming smile vanishes as she focuses on my luggage.

"I'm uh … feeling fine. So I messaged Jisoo and told her I'd go with her today. She's taking engagement photos for a couple we met on our first day here."

She offers me a tiny nod, lips curled together like she's holding something back.

I clear my throat and infuse confidence into my posture and my voice. "Thank you for coming. It really was incredibly kind. And I feel bad that you wasted vacation time on me, but … nonetheless I'm really grateful."

I feel terrible that you lost your wedding band.

"Of course," she says. Lisa isn't herself at all. She is holding back.

As tempting as it is to push her to tell me whatever it is that's weighing so heavily on her, I think it's best to let it be. Let her go home without saying everything.

"I'll take you back to the hostel." She stands.

I shake my head. "I can grab a ride. No need to pay for a car back here."

She nods several times, being way too agreeable for the parent-mode Lisa that arrived yesterday. "Do you have everything? Your medication? Plenty of money? Do you want me to get you breakfast?"

There she is, a little glimpse of the woman from yesterday morning.

"Jisoo and I are going to grab breakfast when I get back to the hostel, but thank you."

I never ever dreamed that we'd be this amicable, this platonic, after what happened on that hill yesterday. It's utterly heartbreaking. Words fail me at every turn. My confidence is nonexistent.

"Have a safe flight home." I smile.

Lisa makes her way to me, hands in her front pockets. I will never look at pockets again without thinking of her losing her wedding band and how devastated she was crawling around in the dark. With every step, it feels like I'm suffocating more and more, like I can either have oxygen or close proximity to Lisa, but not both. I'm barely holding on right now.

"Where are you going next?" she asks.

"Sri Lanka in a week."

"Never been."

I find another forced grin. "I'll send you a postcard."

"That would be nice." Lisa stops close to me, so close I can feel the heat of her body and smell the fake herbal scent of shampoo. "Yesterday—"

I shake my head a half dozen times. "No. You don't need to say a word about yesterday. I shouldn't have … we … it just …" I can't stop shaking my head. "I'm so sorry." Everything from my chest to my scalp tingles with emotion as an ocean of unshed tears awaits like a tsunami for me to make it to the other side of the hotel room door. Turning, I reach for the handle, but Lisa grabs my arm.

"Not like this," she says, forcing me to turn back toward her.

My gaze affixes to my feet.

"This isn't the goodbye we're going to have after yesterday." She lifts my chin with her finger. "I don't know what that meant yesterday. What you want it to mean … what it should mean. But I don't want to regret it. And I don't want you to regret it."

What it should mean …

I don't know. I can't be mad at her for not knowing because I honestly don't know either. For me, it meant everything in the moment, but what is everything? And can something that feels like everything really mean nothing in the bigger picture? The problem is, when I'm with Lisa, I can't see past her.

Letting our gazes lock, I shrug. "I don't know what it meant, but I want it to mean something. Not a meaningless mistake."

"Okay," she whispers. "It meant something. But don't let it mean that you don't live your life to the fullest. Okay?"

My face wrinkles. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Lisa blows a long breath out of her nose. "I want you to be twenty-four. Adventurous. Untethered."

Untethered.

I scoff. "You want me to sleep with other people?"

She grimaces, it's slight, but I don't miss it. "I want you to do whatever you want to do without worrying about me."

"Without worrying about my wife?" I cant my head to the side.

She rests her hand on her hip and bows her head. "Jennie … it's not that kind of marriage."

Fuck my life.

"It's not that kind of marriage," I echo while chuckling past the pain. If I don't laugh, I will cry so hard I'll crumble into dust. "Silly me." I turn and open the door.

When she tries to grab my arm for a second time, I yank it out of her grip. "No! Let me go." I get two feet out the door with my suitcase before she pins me to the wall, holding my arms to my sides. Her fingers slowly lace with mine, her forehead pressed to mine, eyes pinched shut.

"I came to life yesterday. Inside of you … I came to life again. But I'm still figuring out who I am without her. And it's so fucking hard because I can't look at you and not see her. I do not want you to wait for me to figure this out because I don't know if I'll get there."

She opens her eyes to a stream of tears marking my face. "I thought I was there. I felt different. Then I lost my ring … and my mind. And I have to figure out why. Why did I not think of her once when I was inside of you, then all I could think about was her? That ring. Her last breath. The hole she left in my chest. And how losing that ring felt like losing her again. But then I look at you, and she's there for a blink. Your pills are her pills. She was in the hospital. You were in the hospital. Letting her go was the right fucking thing to do. Is letting you go the right thing to do too?"

Not since the night Chaeng died have I seen Lisa this emotionally crippled. The thick ball of emotion in my throat won't let me speak; it's holding back an earthquake of sobs. Tipping my chin up, I capture her lips, kissing her like I did yesterday.

No.

Kissing her harder than I did yesterday.

She releases my hands and grabs my face, giving me everything I'm giving her as I fist her shirt and hold her to me, not wanting to let go.

But eventually, I do.

I let go. Breaking our kiss and grabbing my suitcase handle, I take long, quick strides to the elevator without looking back.

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"Babe …" Jisoo frowns and hops out of bed as soon as I open the door.

I made it. That was the goal—to make it back here before completely losing it.

"Oh no … what happened?" She hugs me as I go into a full ugly cry.

This is what I need. It's what I've needed for longer than I've realized. Chaeng died and Lisa became my friend; she filled the void Chaeng left. We bonded over our love for her. Then Lisa became my wife. And when I fell in love with my wife, I no longer had a friend. I no longer had a home for my emotions.

Jisoo's given me a job, confidence, a boost in my pursuit of a career, but more than all of that, she's become my friend. In some ways, I needed a friend more than a job.

She listens.

I cry.

She gets emotional with me.

We talk through everything, yet we solve nothing. There is nothing to solve with Lisa. I can't fix her because I think losing someone you love does irreparable damage.

However, I can travel the world with Jisoo. And that's what I do.

I build my portfolio and help her build hers.

I meet amazing people along the way and find moments of solitude in what feels like uninhabited corners of the earth.

I drop postcards in the mail for Lisa and text about nothing in particular, text like we didn't share something intimate—like friends, but not the kind of friends who share everything.

Lisa keeps me up to date on Chan and Danielle's wedding plans. I respond without showing my painful envy that her brother is marrying a woman for love and planning a real wedding.

This friendly exchange continues until the end of summer approaches and Jisoo gets a call while we're in the middle of recording a Top Ten Places to See in Kazakhstan video.

"Oh my god …" She holds her phone with one hand while covering her mouth with her other hand. "Is he going to be okay? When's the surgery? Please give him a hug for me. Tell him that I love him, and that I'm on my way home."

"Chu?" I reach for her arm while her thumbs frantically work the phone screen.

"M-my dad had a heart attack. We … we have to go home."

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