Heart Beat Here

Chapter 3

EIGHTEEN

They exchange emails sparingly over the summer - an email about summer plans, an email about vacations (Jennie) or lack thereof (Lisa), an email about preparing for college. Jennie often finds herself pushing the conversation and Lisa seems happy to oblige. Aside from finding out that Lisa will also be in DC for college (which she already knew), it's not what she had hoped. That flirty edge that set her alight at twenty-one is conspicuously absent from their interactions at eighteen and she doesn't want to push anything. No damning the consequences.

Still, at this eighteen, most things feel just like they felt at that eighteen. Her dad still drops the box with her lava lamp on move-in day. She still meets Jisoo and Peniel and Kris in the first week of classes. She is still inspired by Indra, her Studio Art professor, when she offers to spend some extra time with Jennie. She still convinces herself that she should take a business class, if just to explore a second option.

At this eighteen, though, there are a few things that are very different. After move-in day, she finds herself making plans to return home within two weeks to visit her parents. At that eighteen, she was running as far away as she could, even if the campus was just a short forty-five minute drive away. At this eighteen, she's calling them every night, and sometimes during the day. At that eighteen, she was plotting hook-ups with a girl from the fourth floor of her dorm, in the hopes of telling Chahee every sordid detail. At this eighteen, she's considering plotting a run-in with Lisa, only partially with the hopes of a sordid story. At that eighteen, she couldn't even fathom Lisa.

She's not unhappy to relive college, in a way. It's a time of exploration and excitement, even if it is the second time around. There's the little things, like wearing flip-flops to take a shower, or finding just the right sunny spot in the library to study for her statistics quizzes. And there's bigger things, like the way that girl on the fourth floor (yes, that one) smiles at her for a little too long, or the pleasant buzz of her first football game and the frat parties that follow.

In reality, though, she knows now that even those bigger things aren't really that big.

It's December and nearing first semester final exams when she wears down. The exploration and excitement of the first year of college has dimmed. Jisoo and Peniel and Kris are quickly becoming some of her best friends and Studio Art is capturing more and more of her attention, but something's still amiss. Maybe it's that she's done this already. Even the stuff she didn't do the first time around, like those biweekly trips out to the Maryland suburbs that gave her so much pleasure in the fall aren't quite enough to quell the ache. Or maybe it's just a different kind of ache.

She knows it's Lisa. She knows that the occasional email is not enough. She never thought she'd miss her this much.

And she knows that, so far, tempting fate hasn't actually resulted in any change in fate. Her lava lamp still broke on move-in day. Jisoo is still her roommate. Her parents still remind her at least once a week that she should consider adding the business major to her studio art major.

She's still at Georgetown and Lisa's still at American, less than an hour's metro ride away.

That reminder sits in her mind, especially on Sundays, when she tucks herself into a sunny carrel in the Environmental Science library. Usually, the reminder doesn't sit too long. Just long enough for her to wonder what Lisa's doing. (She knows that she's in the library, just like Jennie, which then leads her to wonder what she's studying, what she's wearing, whether she's still make-up free, like she was back at the mock trial tournament, or whether she's started her experimentation with the eyeliner that Jennie's used to.) Soon enough, she's lost in her own studies and her thoughts of Lisa fade until the evening. Until their typical return, just after she closes her eyes, just before she falls asleep.

But the Sunday before her last week of classes, as she settles into her sunny carrel in the library and wonders what Lisa's doing, she finds herself packing her books back into her bag. She chances it. Fate be damned.

An hour later, she's in the American University library and a half-hour after that, she's watching Lisa from across a cluster of desktop computers and buzzing student foursomes. She's taking up an entire table with books and papers, a laptop, and a travel coffee mug. Her hair is pulled back into her messy "Sunday study-bun" (a term that Jennie coined a few weeks into their senior year) and her leg is tucked underneath her body as she shifts between a textbook and a small paperback and a spiral notebook. The eraser of a pencil pushes at the side of her mouth when she's not scribbling something into the margins.

Jennie's not sure how long she watches her or how her feet carry her to the edge of Lisa's table.

"Lisa," she whispers. It's not really meant to get her attention, more to test it out. She hasn't said her name in so long.

Lisa startles and drops the pencil, a silent crash on the dirty carpeted floor. "You...Jennie, right?" Her lips part slightly and her eyes widen. No eyeliner yet. Still beautiful. And Jennie's nearly forgotten that they only really met that once. Lisa's occupied her mind nearly every night for a year, but the same isn't true for Lisa. No wonder she looks startled and quite a bit confused.

"Hi." Jennie's voice is still barely there as she matches Lisa's wide-eyed stare with one of her own. Her hands feel clammier and her mouth drier than it did moments ago. Her mind can't figure out what else to say, but she knows that just a simple "Hi" hangs between them and she feels dumber for it.

Lisa breaks her gaze after a few more moments, as if she's scolding herself for her lack of decorum. She bends down to pick up the pencil from under the table and Jennie hears a muffled "What are you doing here? I thought you said you went to Georgetown."

"I do," she replies, a little too loudly. Perhaps a little too defensively. She earns a glare from a girl at a table nearby and she sits down. "I couldn't find a book in our library, so I thought I'd come over here to check out your library," she finishes in a whisper. She'd decided that would be her reason long before she'd left. Lisa wouldn't question the validity of an inter-campus library sharing agreement. In fact, she'd probably already taken advantage of it herself.

"Oh. What book?"

"I brought you this," Jennie says instead, pulling a package from a brown paper bag. She hasn't thought that far ahead anyway. Better to distract.

She'd stumbled on a small corner store a few months ago and bought a few packages in moment of weakness. She'd never liked the stuff much, but she opened a package that night just to smell a familiar smell of New York and twenty-four and Lisa. "I mean," she continued, "I hoped I might run into you, you know, since you go here and I'm here, so..."

Lisa pulls the package from the bag once it's in her possession. Her eyes widen again when she sees it's her favorite brand of halva, the one with sesame.

"Ok?" It's more of a whisper, as if she wants to remain guarded, but is struggling. That much is clear as she reverently tucks the package back in the paper bag and then into her book bag.

"I just...thought...I figured maybe you liked it or something...you would like it, I mean." She runs a hand through her hair and gets stuck half way through, cursing the beanie she'd tucked it under on her way over. "I mean, I heard your accent and there's this store down the street from my dorm and I was thinking about you one night, after you sent me an email, of course, and..."

"Jennie," Lisa interrupts, saving Jennie from herself. "Thank you. I do like it."

It takes another moment for Jennie to collect herself, for her to silently thank this Lisa for saving her from full spaz mode. She'd figured that halva would be the way to Lisa's heart. It usually was at twenty-four, after a day spent in the law library, or a night of heated tempers and slammed doors.

But this time, it doesn't seem to yield quite the same results. Lisa looks over her guardedly, shyly, despite seeing Jennie on the edge of panic. It's not an unpleasant look, but it's not the 'love at second sight' gaze that Jennie is hoping for.

She blows out a frustrated sigh before asking, "Do you want to take a walk? Get out of this stuffy library for a bit?"

"I'm sorry, Jennie, but I have too much to do," Lisa replies quickly. Too quickly? Jennie finds herself second guessing everything. This isn't like her. Though, on second thought, maybe it's just like her at eighteen.

That response isn't surprising, she supposes. "What class is that for?"

"Intro to Politics." She remembers this. This is the class that Lisa talks about. Raves about. This is the class with the professor that makes such a great impression. The professor who takes Lisa under his wing, who talks politics and theory, philosophy and international relations. This is the professor who finds something in Lisa that Jennie thought only she could find.

"How do you like it?" She asks, leaning forward to run her fingers over the books in front of Lisa on the table, a de Tocqueville paperback and a huge textbook, both well-loved, both with yellow "USED" stickers on the spines.

"I'm unsure of it," Lisa says. That should be her answer, but Jennie waits. She knows Lisa has more to say if she gives her the time. Maybe it's her brain translating, maybe it's her guard falling. Whatever it is, Jennie wants in, so she waits. She doesn't have to wait long as Lisa takes a deep breath and continues. "I had hoped we would talk more about the Constitution and the foundations of American government. Things that I will need for law school, for passing the bar. Instead, we're talking about things like polling and political maneuvering and this French guy's thoughts about American government," she says, holding up the paperback and waving it in Jennie's direction. "At our last class, we watched several political advertisements from the last presidential election."

Jennie smiles and she feels Lisa's eyes on her. "What's so bad about that?"

"I never said it was bad, I'm just unsure about it. I don't know how it connects to my training for law school." She huffs. Jennie loves this side of a frustrated Lisa. When she's figuring everything out and occasionally slipping into a heavier accent. It's when that heavier accent and frustration is directly aimed at Jennie that she's not so keen on this Lisa.

"Does everything need to connect?"

"Ideally, yes." That drive. If only it was for what she truly loved. Maybe she doesn't even realize it yet. She probably doesn't.

"What do you do for fun, then?" Jennie says with a smile, knowing the answer. It's: "I didn't have fun in college, at least not at the beginning. All work, stuffed in the library. Calls from dad making sure that's where I was. Making sure I wasn't partying. Like I'd be partying at all." At least that was the answer she remembers Lisa gave at twenty-two, her head heavy in Jennie's lap, Jennie's fingers pushing through her hair and massaging her scalp after her first law school exam.

"I don't leave much time for fun in my schedule, Jennie." Stone-faced.

"You should," Jennie replies, pulling the de Tocqueville book toward her, out of Lisa's reach.

"Did you need a book here?" Lisa asks, pulling the book back from her.

"Can you take a break? Can we catch up?"

She looks up into Jennie's eyes, wide-eyed again, then looks behind her, as though her dad is hiding out in one of the stacks, keeping tabs on her. "I suppose."

"We don't have to."

"No," Lisa replies quickly, hand out to stop Jennie from moving away. "It would be nice, Jennie. How are you?"

Jennie beams. A battle won. Lisa is taking a break. For her. For them. "I'm ok. I think I'm ready for this semester to be over."

Lisa looks surprised. "Are you not enjoying college?"

"I am...I just...," Jennie pauses. There's so much more to it. Being at home with her mom and dad over the past year and a half was like falling into a dream. But then going off to college mixed everything up. It became so much about her, rather than her family, rather than Lisa. "I guess I miss being at home, with my family," she says, before getting lost too deeply in it all.

"Yes. I understand. I miss my mother's cooking especially very much." Jennie's heart flutters at Lisa's odd wording.

"What's the first thing you think you'll do when you go home for break?" Jennie asks. She's heard rumblings of home here and there from Lisa, but she aches to know more. Especially from this young Lisa who seems to rely so much on her family, and them so much on her.

"I am expected to tutor my younger brother when I go home."

Alec. The little hellion. It's Alec who Jennie thinks is to blame for Lisa's hard-nosed persistence and stubbornness. He fucks up and Lisa becomes that much more determined to make her parents proud. Jennie grits her teeth at the thought of him but remembers that this is only eighteen and they've only just met. "Oh, you have a younger brother?" She asks, looking away.

"Yes, Alec. He is fifteen. My parents expect him to become a doctor. Since I excelled at biology and chemistry in high school, they would like me to tutor him in those subjects while I'm home."

"Does he want to become a doctor?" She shouldn't ask. Planting all these little seeds is sure to result in dire consequences, but she can't resist. It's not like the situation at twenty-four can be that much worse, she thinks. But maybe it can. Maybe this is why she's here. To plant these seeds. To change Lisa's life, not her own.

Lisa pauses, as if she hasn't considered it. She shrugs her shoulders.

Enough hard thinking, enough seed planting for today.

"You sound like a good big sister."

"I suppose." Lisa stops for a moment, as if she's never thought about it. Then, "Do you have a big family?"

"No, just me, my mom, and my dad."

"Are you close?"

"As close as can be. Last week, when I visited them, we stayed up until nearly two in the morning playing scrabble. My dad is the reigning champion. He won on a triple word score from the word 'zax.' We challenged him, but it's definitely a word."

"Sounds nice," Lisa says distantly. She looks at Jennie a beat too long, eyes flitting between Jennie's eyes and her own hands idly fumbling with the pages of the paperback. Jennie feels her eyes well up momentarily. It is nice. She hadn't been thinking about it or reflecting on it too much lately with the beginning of school and all, but she's spending so much more time with them than she did before and it's quality time and after exams she'll have a month of quality family time, uninterrupted.

It's just a moment though, of her eyes studying the way that Lisa's long fingers flip at the pages of her paperback. Somehow, in that time, thinking about her family, and Lisa's persistence, and final exams, she's convinced herself that this is not the moment. She and Lisa have perhaps moved their relationship from strained emails to slightly less stunted conversation and Jennie's grateful for that, but this is not the moment to push. This is not the moment to seek out something more. There's too much at stake - Jennie's family, Lisa's studies. She can't.

"Sorry to barge in on your studies, Lisa," she says abruptly, standing up from the table. "I'll see you later."

Lisa stands with her and extends her arm to shake hands. "It was pleasurable, Jennie. I hope I can see you again sometime. Good luck on finding your book."

"My what?" Jennie says, reaching out a little too far and gripping her forearm for an awkward moment. She sees Lisa's eyes study her own and she can't think. It makes her wonder if Lisa feels any little bit of this, too.

"That book you're looking for."

"Oh right, yes, that one." Jennie drops Lisa's arms and turns toward the stacks, then turns back, "I'll email you soon."

"I would like that," Lisa replies, with a single wave of her arm in Jennie's direction.



Winter break is not quite as gratifying as she'd hoped it would be. While they spend plenty of quality time together - playing scrabble, exchanging Christmas gifts, reading in the living room in the glow of the fireplace - her parents still have work to do. Which leaves Jennie home and alone more often than not over the course of the month. Soon enough, she's thinking too hard and too long about the predictability of her future. No amount of doing or not doing has changed her fate or the fate of anyone else. Then, she thinks too hard and too long about whether she'll ever go back to twenty-four and whether twenty-four is actually twenty-six now that two years have passed. Are they still in that small bedroom in New York? Is she still working too hard at a job she hates? Does Lisa still look at her from across the room with those exhausted green eyes? She could change things once she gets back there. Make her life better. Make Lisa understand. Maybe make her mom understand. Maybe that's why she's here. A period of contemplation. A very long period of contemplation.



A month in and out of bed, wandering around the house in slippers and her sweatpants have made her excited to leave home. It's the first time she's felt that feeling since twenty-one (the first time around), when she just couldn't stand to be around her mother any more. And, as soon as she thinks about the coming excitement of school - seeing Jisoo and Kris and Bambam, starting Studio Art II, going to basketball games - she feels guilty. Though she's starting to relent, this second chance still feels like a reason to alter fate and how can she do that when she's so far away from her family?

Second semester goes just about as expected. Friends are fine. Classes are fine. Family is fine. The basketball team is fine. Lisa is fine. Everything is just fine.

It's nearing the end of basketball season when she gets a reply email from Lisa, delayed by several days. It's hard for her to read it, but she can't delete it and she knows that she should have expected it. She knew about her, about Lisa's first. Rosé. Lisa's email reads a touch like an awkward romance novel, describing every detail of their first encounter at an event for Eastern European students. (An event Jennie is almost certain she had to get permission from her father to attend, because it sounds an awful lot like extracurricular fun.) Lisa describes Rosé's hair and her eyes and the way she twists her hands when she talks and Jennie remembers Lisa's flare for both the romantic and the dramatic. It's a flair that has since run dry, but it was there once, welling and swelling for her. She supposes that she should be honored that Lisa trusts her enough to share this information, but she doesn't linger on that thought too long before wondering what she and Rosé are doing at that very moment. Rosé's probably whispering in her ear, hugged against her back as Lisa applies her first strokes of eyeliner. Lisa's probably laughing that silent little laugh as Rosé wipes an errant smudge from beneath her eye. Rosé's probably burying her face in Lisa's neck, inhaling her scent. Lisa's probably turning around, tracing her fingers over Rosé's lips, up the bridge of her nose, over her brow, up to her scalp. Lisa had to learn that from somewhere. And Jennie can't help it. She doesn't want to picture her girlfriend with someone else, but she just can't stop herself.

It takes her a few weeks to write back. She's not upset. This is fate. Rosé is Lisa's first. Jennie is her next. Or supposed to be. With her own flair for the dramatic, Jennie convinces herself that some change of fate will probably, finally, kick in around then. Just her luck.

It reminds her of all of the firsts and seconds and thirds that she's missing this time around, though. Wells was her prom date, but they didn't round the bases like they did in high school the first time around. He got a peck on the cheek and a 'thank you' and that was it. He was supposed to be her first. They were supposed to hook up on prom night and continue through the summer and even a little into freshman year. The girl on the fourth floor never got too much closer than a smile and a lingering look. They bumped one another in the dining hall and the girl offered to help clean up Jennie's t-shirt and Jennie got so flustered she nearly yelled at the girl. That was supposed to be the start of her second, that moment right there in the dining hall. Just the slightest overlap between her and Wells. (Wells would forgive her a few months later, though Chahee would hold it against her for quite a while longer, questioning her character and their friendship.)

Now that Lisa's got Rosé (and especially now that Jennie has to hear about it), she misses that connection. With someone. Anyone would do.

She meets him at a frat party.

To say she's wary is a bit of an understatement. He's supposed to be her third. Or, he was her third. Now, if she goes through with it, he'll be her first. (She spends an inordinate amount of time considering this and then the social construct of virginity before clouding her brain with another beer.)

Kai turned out to be a liar and a cheat the first time around, though mostly good in bed as long as he hadn't had too much to drink. She considers that if she knows that he'll be a liar and a cheat, if she expects it, can she just use him up and spit him out this time around, instead of the opposite?

She'd forgotten that he was such a goofy, charming guy.

She'd forgotten that he'd made her feel so beautiful.

She'd forgotten how easy it was to fall for him.

But she doesn't sleep with him. Not after that first night at the frat party. Not after their first date. Or the second. Or third.

Pretty soon, she's got a new set of rules in place. Rules that will keep him from lying and cheating. Rules that keep her from falling into bed with him so easily.

He occupies her time and her mind, for the most part, even convincing her to spend some of her weekends meant for home on campus with him.

It finally happens after another email exchange from Lisa. She's glowing right through her computer screen, going on and on about Rosé, about love, about Rosé inspiring her to pursue law school in DC, maybe even finishing school in three years instead of four so that they can graduate together.

She deletes that one but only after reading it again and again. Maybe her fate is to allow Lisa and Rosé to be together. Maybe Rosé would make her happier. Maybe Rosé understands her more. Maybe Kai is her person after all.

She deletes the email and calls Kai.

The sex is less remarkable than she remembers. There's not enough foreplay. He finishes too quickly. She can't help but think about the difference between Lisa's lithe body gliding on top of hers and Kai's hulking frame sinking their bodies into the hard dorm-issued mattress.

The next morning, she tells him it was a mistake. He doesn't disagree.



She spends that summer missing twenty-four more than ever before. College is boring. Her parents work too much. Lisa's in love with someone else.

She'd rather hate her job, miss her broken family, and question her relationship than do this all over again.