Heart Beat Here

Chapter 4

NINETEEN

Going back to school helps. After spending the summer wallowing, she decides to put some energy into enjoying sophomore year. The first time around, she'd spent her sophomore year exploring her options. She'd taken a bio class and another statistics class and even the Intro to Farsi class. She's not sure what she was trying to accomplish by taking so many different classes. Maybe there was some underlying hope that she'd fall in love with something new. That's got to be what that Farsi class was about.

This time around, she takes full advantage of the art offerings - something she knows she won't tire of. It takes her the summer to realize that at twenty-four, she'd been away from art for nearly three years. Georgetown provides the opportunity to release some of the anger and frustration and loneliness from the summer (and it doesn't hurt that she still gets credits toward graduation.) Another Studio Art class, a Mixed Media class, and an Art History class are added to the docket. No bio, no stats, no Farsi.

She thinks about Lisa now and then. There's still the occasional email. For a while, she didn't respond. Not long after she first heard about Rosé. She needed the time to separate the Lisa she knew from this one. The Lisa she knew was in love with her, even if it felt like a fucked up kind of love. This one only knows Rosé's love. The Lisa she knew fell hard and fast for Jennie not long after they first met. This one doesn't seem to know what to make of her.

Once she can separate the two, they resume emailing, though it's decidedly less personal than when they left off. Lisa tries, but Jennie doesn't engage in the Rosé talk and soon they're just exchanging niceties about classes and internships and plans for the future.

And so it goes. Studio Art II becomes Studio Art III. Mixed Media becomes Printmaking. Art History becomes an Art Education class. She still can't find it in herself to drop the business minor, but she's nearly halfway done so she picks up another class, rounded out with another science requirement (but only because she has to). She's still home more weekends than not. Still calling home more afternoons than not.

"Hi Dad." She's just finished her last class of the day when she calls him. She sits on the stool looking at her most recent painting, half listening, half observing.

"Hi Clarkie." His voice is tinny through the phone.

"Whatcha doing?"

He gives a hoarse laugh, somewhere between a wheeze and a chuckle. "Same as most Monday nights."

"So falling asleep in your chair until it's an appropriate time to go up to bed?" Jennie finds a trace of still-wet green paint staring back at her from the canvas and moves to smudge it.

"I think it's always an appropriate time. It's your mother who disagrees." There's another chuckle on the other end, but this time it's followed by a hacking cough.

She abandons the paint and looks into the distance, one hand instinctually moving to grip at her thigh. "You ok? That didn't sound good."
"Fine. Getting over a cold."

"You should probably get it checked out, whatever it is." Her eyes focus on the same spot against the back wall of the studio, her hand grips at the same spot on her thigh.

"Nothing I haven't had before." It's time. The thought starts as a speck in the distance, but barrels toward her.

When she doesn't respond right away, he continues. "Your mother said I'm fine."

Her mom had to weigh in. It can't be just a cold.

"I'm going to stop by tomorrow after classes," she says, all in one breath, "just to check in."

She hears him let out a quick burst of air, what she hopes is maybe the start of a laugh. "Headed back to work tomorrow, honey."

"Well I guess I'll be there when you get home." Eyes still focused, hand still clenched tight.

"You know I'll never say no to a visit from my favorite, but you shouldn't feel like you have to check in on your old man. I'm fine."

She almost starts then, but holds off for just a moment more.

"I'll see you tomorrow night. I'll make some chicken soup, just to help you finally kick that thing."

The call is long over when she moves the phone from her ear to the table. Her eyes unfocus. Her hand unclenches. She cries harder than she can ever remember - in this life or the last.



She wants it to feel like there's nothing special about dinner, and in a way, there isn't. She's at home and the soup's been ready for nearly two hours before her parents cross the threshold of the front door. Pretty typical. She'd taken advantage of their long work hours when she was in high school, ignoring her homework until her mom cracked her bedroom door around seven and found Jennie with charcoal on her face and a few sketches on her easel.

It's her dad who comes home first, unsurprisingly. His tie's loose around his neck and his hair's standing up a little bit at the back of his head and the only way she knows it's him is from the hacking cough that announces his arrival.

Her mom's next, about thirty minutes later. She comes in with a gust of cold air and a heavy sigh.

After dinner, her mom comes back downstairs from changing her clothes.

"Dad's gonna take a quick nap. I think it's been a long day for him, honey."

She studies her mom from across the room, looking for any sign that it might be true.

"What if it's something more than a cold, Mom?"

Maybe that look she gets from her mom in return means she's right. Maybe it's just the look of someone who's had a long week.

"It's unlikely, Jennie. It's just that time of year - colds, the flu, even some allergies are still lingering."

Jennie nods. She wishes she could remember when it happened. She wishes she hadn't been so fucking selfish the first time around.

Just as her mom is about to disappear into the kitchen, she whispers, "Do you remember when you promised me?"

"Promised you what?"

"That you'd tell me. If something ever happens."

Her face falls and Jennie swears she knows. "I promise you, Jennie."

"I don't need protecting, Mom."

"I know honey. Nothing's wrong. I promise."

It's close. She knows it has to be close. They didn't tell her until much later the first time around and it had progressed significantly by then. She figures that this must be the start of it and if she can convince him to see a specialist early, or get into one of those trials at the hospital, if he just listens, then that might put an end to it.

But she also knows her mom wouldn't break a promise. She wouldn't lie to her. Even with their relationship as broken as it is at twenty-four, her mom has never lied. Maybe things have changed. Maybe dropping that Farsi class was the key to it all. The thought crosses her mind, but not for long. She can't let herself get too optimistic.

She spends most of the weekends during basketball season at home. It's the same stuff: scrabble, reading near the fireplace, Chinese food and pizza. Despite short bouts of optimism, she knows that it's close and it occupies her mind completely. Knowing that Lisa's off somewhere with Rosé allows her mind to dwell on it even more. There's no use in thinking about Lisa now.

On weeknights, she's never too far from her phone and never even close to buzzed. Just in case. It doesn't stop Jisoo and Bambam from trying to ply her with alcohol every chance they get, especially with her light load of classes and her absence from all of the best weekend parties. She doesn't care that she's "missing the college experience." She wishes that she could tell them that she actually isn't missing it at all. She already did that once.

It happens on a snowy afternoon in March. She's just finished her last class of the week and her feet are soaked through the boots with ice and slush. Her phone feels warm against her cheek. She just wants to find out if they want her to bring home any cupcakes from the place they like near campus.

"Hi, honey."

She's surprised to hear her mom pick up her dad's phone. She's surprised to hear her mom's voice on a weekday afternoon. She waits a moment, not wanting to betray her emotions. "How are you guys?"

"We're ok." She sounds tired.

"Just ok?" Is this the moment? Is this the moment when they knew and didn't tell her? Did they have this moment the first time around? Probably not. She was busy with Farsi or Kai or some other frivolity.

"Just ok. We've had a long day." Jennie hears the phone muffle and her mother say something. "Your father's sleeping, Jennie. Can he call you tomorrow?"

She's worked herself up again, wondering, reading into her mom's sighs and her dad's sleeping patterns. She wipes a tear away and presses forward. "No. I want to talk to him."

"Jennie," her mom's voice takes on a familiar, frustrated tone. One that she hasn't heard much in this redo, but it's familiar from the first time around.

"I just want to know that he's ok," she whispers, a full sob threatening, cracking her voice.

There's more muffling and she hears her father's low rumble getting closer to the receiver.

"Hi, Jennie. I'm ok, just tired."

He sounds it. More than ever before.

"Are you sure, Daddy?"

"Why don't you come home this weekend?" She can hear her mom say something in the background and her dad cover the receiver to respond.

"We'll have some wonton soup and I'll beat you and Mom at Scrabble."

"Ok, Dad."



The first time they told her it was in June, after classes had ended and exams were over and she came back from her trip to the beach. This time, they tell her on a snowy weekend in March. They watch Georgetown lose the conference championships and then her mother turns off the television. They both turn to her and the blood rushes through her ears so loudly that she doesn't even know exactly what they say.

She misses a full week of classes after they tell her. She spends most of that time on the couch in her pajamas. It's the week before Spring Break and there aren't any midterms to study for, what with art classes taking up so much of her schedule. Indra calls her and she doesn't answer but she sends an email a few days later about a vague family emergency.

When she gets back to school, every night is occupied by research on the newest hospital studies and their age requirements and phone calls home to check in. Late nights are occasionally scattered with movies she's seen before, just to have something on, even if she's not going to pay attention. She's back - reliving this - for a reason. She convinces Indra to allow her to take work home, so that she can skip Studio time on Friday afternoon and go straight home, usually with a trashbag-covered canvas in tow. She spends her weekends explaining the studies that she's researched and making more chicken soup than she ever thought possible.

In a way, home feels like it always has. Dad falling asleep on the chair. Mom waking her up from the couch with a hand brushing through her hair. Scrabble games. She's torn between staying at home to help (whatever that may mean) and staying in school (because there just seems to be so little that she can actually help with). When she suggests taking the rest of the school year off, her mom gets angrier than she's seen her in a while. She wants to fight back, but she's been down that road before. Her mom will yell, she'll yell, they'll both slam their doors and cry. She heard muffled sobs from her mom's room too often in that past life.



There's one night, after she's hung up the phone, after she's read about the latest trials and studies, when she just can't stare at her computer any longer.

Her feet carry her there. But that is the only thing of which she is certain. She can't remember pulling on her jacket or walking past the dining hall, nor can she remember swiping her SmarTrip card or riding up the long escalator to the cool night air.

When she feels the warmth of the library, it scares her. How did she get here? What was she thinking?

She's at the same table. The same "Sunday study-bun" even if it is a Tuesday night. What's probably the same pencil moves from pressing against her lips to underline something in the text, and then back to her mouth.

"I'm glad you're a creature of habit."

"Oh, hello Jennie." A heavy gray sweater hangs off her lithe frame, one leg tucked under her body. Her eyes are wide, just like the first time they met in this very place.

"Hi, Lisa." Jennie sits. It's less busy than that one Sunday afternoon, but then she realizes it must be pretty late. Pushing ten.

She sets the pencil down on the table and studies Jennie. She's a little leaner in a year's time. Her jaw line a little more chiseled. She pushes her glasses up, removing the last barrier to her visage. "Hi."

She looks so young and beautiful and good and kind. Jennie wants to hug her. To ask her to hold her, like she remembers doing at twenty-four, when Lisa's almost asleep and mumbling something she can never make out.

That memory turns out to be the wrong one. Tears spring to her eyes and roll down her cheeks in an instant and she buries her face in her hands so that she doesn't have to look any more.

"Jennie, what's...are you alright?"

Jennie can't say anything. Not yet. It'll come out warbly and broken and she's not even sure what she wants to say to her.

There are people watching her. She feels their eyes, wonders what they must be thinking. Lover's quarrel is probably their first guess. Soon enough, that'll be true. Maybe. But not this time around.

"Come on. Let's go sit outside for a moment," Lisa whispers. Jennie finds her suddenly kneeling next to her, a hand on her arm.

Lisa leads her to a bench outside of the library. Their faces are illuminated by a single spotlight that lights up the path between buildings. Her hand has found its way to Jennie's and it feels warm against the cooling April night air. They sit for a while until Jennie can get the tears under control. Until she trusts herself to speak. Still, she's not entirely sure what's about to come out.

Lisa looks at her for several long moments and Jennie feels fresh tears threaten. Those are the same eyes that have been staring back at her during Studio time. The same green that took her so long to mix. She hadn't thought about it, but she should have known her subconscious would creep in to her art.

"I need you, Lisa." She's almost as surprised as Lisa that it comes from her mouth, but she doesn't have much time to think about it when Lisa's forehead scrunches and she raises one eyebrow.

It's taking Lisa a while to respond or even react beyond the furrowed brow and Jennie considers saying more, but she's not sure how she can elaborate. She's already crying outside of a library forty-five minutes from her campus with a girl she's only met a handful of times. The elaboration is sure to be even crazier.

"You need me? I don't understand."

"I need you," she says again, then whispers, "please."

Lisa's hands run through her hair, pulling some wisps from their hold.  "I'm not sure what you mean, Jennie."

"My...it's my Da..." she starts, before whimpering and sealing her lips tight. She wants so desperately to be enveloped by her, wrapped in her, lost in her, buried.

"What is it?"

Lisa slides closer. Jennie can feel the warmth of her body through her jeans, but a few centimeters still divulge the distance between them.

"I just need you, Lisa." She doesn't want to tell her. It has to be her burden. She's done this before. She figured it out then, without Lisa. She just wants some connection for the night. Not something that will change their fate, just something that might make her feel whole. Just for one moment in time.

Lisa's hands wring in her lap when they're not running through her hair. She sighs heavily. "I'm sorry to say this, Jennie, but I don't think we know each other that well."

It hurts, but she's not wrong. Jennie wants so badly to convince her that she loses her restraint and a bit of herself.

"But we will," she starts desperately, grasping at the bench next to Lisa's thigh. "We'll know each other so well. We'll be together. We're going to run into each other in a couple of years. You're going to be interning with Senator Jacobsen and I'm going to be in the Capitol art internship program and we're going to meet and fall in love and you're..." Lisa's brow furrows more and more with each word and she stops herself before the anger that she sees in Lisa's jaw brims to the surface.

"I think you should go home." Lisa uses that voice that Jennie knows is reserved for others, not for her. She's never heard young Lisa use this tone, only the Lisa she knows from the tiny apartment. "Do you need me to call you a cab?"

"No. It's...no. I'm sorry," Jennie whispers through tears. Her elbows dig into her knees on the bench and she covers her face with her hands. "Just give me a minute and I'll get out of your way."

Lisa pushes her glasses back down onto her nose. Her head droops, but her eyes remain on Jennie, hunched over and sobbing next to her. Jennie wonders what she's thinking. Maybe wondering whether she should call the police, rather than a taxi. Maybe wondering how quickly she can delete Jennie's email address from her contacts. Maybe wondering how to avoid that internship with Senator Jacobsen in a few years.

"Why do you need me?"

The sobs stop and several moments pass before Jennie realizes that she's holding her breath. She lifts her head and looks at Lisa, who studies her for each second that passes, eyes tracing Jennie's reddened and puffy eyes, her wavy blonde hair, the flush that's crept up her chest.

"You steady me."

"How?"

"You calm me. You soothe me. I can't describe it, but when you're around, things are ok."

"What do I do?" Her eyes are impossibly green. Jennie can't look away. For some reason, Lisa is indulging her crazy and she doesn't feel so out of control.

"You just...you're just there. You look at me and you smile at me and you hold my hand sometimes, or you wrap your arms around me and pull my head against you. You tell me things are going to be ok. And then they are. They're always ok."

"I do?" Impossibly green, even when hidden beneath the growing furrow of her brow.

"I mean...I don't know why I'm trying to explain this. I should go." She takes one last look. She'll see them again, but it may be another year. At most, it's supposed to be two. For Lisa, she'll hold on to fate.

"I don't understand, Jennie."

"Of course you don't. In a few years you'll understand. Wait until twenty-one. Unless I've fucked everything up. I've probably fucked everything up."

She's almost gone. She's standing and turning and then she hears "Lisa?"

"Hi. Just a minute," Lisa says to the voice. Jennie turns back to look. "This is my friend Jennie, the one I told you about." She doesn't want to be meeting anyone right now, least of all who she thinks she's about to meet.

"Oh, from Mock Trial, right?"

Jennie nods, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I was just going. Sorry to bother you. Nice to meet you, Rosé."

As she's walking home she realizes her mistake. Rosé. Lisa didn't even introduce them. Doesn't matter anyway.