Need You To Need Me | Jenlisa

XXIX.

After Lisa left, Jennie had stayed at the park. Alone. Watching the ducks eating the bread that was thrown at them by children and old men, the brunette girl stood still until the sky turned dark and her breath condensed in the cold air.

Just like before, she couldn't get herself to move even a muscle. She knew she should be heading home. Or better, she knew she should have been home about an hour ago.
At the same time she couldn't help but ask herself why. It wasn't like there was anyone waiting for her, anyway.

So, she waited at the park for a little bit more. She didn't know what or who she was waiting for exactly, but there seemed to be something keeping her anchored to the place. She was afraid that if she left, everything that happened that day would become real.

When her phone kept ringing, she understood that she must have stayed for way longer than intended and that was allowed of her. Her parents must have gotten home.

After a while, she stopped feeling cold. She imagined what it would be like to just freeze like that forever, becoming a statue in an anonymous bench of an anonymous park, witnessing children playing with her and awkward make out sessions of couples of every age. She wouldn't mind it. It was the right compromise between immortality and invisibility. She'd get to see the people she loved without hurting them. They'd be close yet out of reach.

For Lisa, she wished she could be a statue.

She'd be content to be even one of those cheap, fake-gold Buddha statue that people likes to put in their living room. She'd be able to see her every smile and cry even if she wasn't the cause behind it. She'd even get to see those embarrassing but cute dance and singing performances people do when nobody's around. She'd get to see a Lisa she hasn't seen in a long time when she's with her. A happy one.

Yeah, she'd like that, Jennie thought while her lips curved into the first, and probably last, smile of the day.

"Miss" her thoughts were interrupted by a middle aged man who had made her way to her with a blanket in his hands.

Only when Jennie turned her head slightly, she recognized him to be her driver.

He handed the blanket with both his hands. The girl took it and laid it on her laps before mumbling a little thanks.

"I'm sorry Miss, I was instructed to bring you home" he said with his usual polite tone.

Jennie knew the man since she was nine years old and she was sure she had spent more time with him than with her father. At first, Jennie had been reluctant to have a stranger driving her around to her every thing. Back then when he had just been hired, almost ten year old Jennie only saw him as another way her parents had found to not spend time with her. But as she grew older and Sebastian would be the only adult in her life greeting her good morning and good night, she found herself slowly opening up to him.

Their relationship had always stayed in a somewhat professional zone. He had never stopped calling her Miss and she would still keep the divisor up when she had a bad day. Obviously, he couldn't bring it down. Yet another relationship in Jennie's life that depended exclusively on her.

"Okay" she had said after a while. The man waited for her before he lead the way to the parked car.

When she got home, she was met with a sight she hadn't seen in years. Her mum and her dad, both seated on two ends of one of the couches in the living room. Her dad was on his computer, probably working, while her mum was on a call. A work call, with all probabilities.

"I'm gonna have to call you back" Mrs. Kim said as soon as she saw her daughter entering the main door.

Jennie's mum was still in her work attire. She was wearing a turquoise Chanel tailleur that along with her shoulder length hair contributed to the elegance that she seemed to radiate. Like mother like daughter.