Good Together

Chapter 1: Welcome to Polis, Alabama

Rain fell as two young girls sprinted across the beach together. The first, just several steps of ahead of the second, wore her brown curly hair in two french braids that ended just above her shoulders. Her vision was blurred, rain fogging up her glasses, but she was undeterred.

“Come on, Jennie!” she yelled back to her friend as she hopped over a log and looked back over her shoulder.

Jennie, wavy blonde hair matted to her face, too short to pull back with a hair tie, fumbled her way through the sand to follow her friend. The brunette slowed down to allow for the blonde’s shorter legs to catch up with her.

The brunette reached out for Jennie’s hand and the exact moment lightning struck barely feet away from them. Both girls screamed and Jennie leapt into Lisa’s embrace.

“We needa get outta here Lis!” Jennie yelled over the storm.

Lisa simply shook her head in response. “Don’tchya know?” she asked. “Lightning never strikes the same place twice. Besides, come ‘ere.”

Lisa grabbed Jennie’s hand and led her the few feet to the site of where the lightning had struck. The sand there was still smoking so Lisa held Jennie back with a hand as the younger girl looked down. “What is it?” Jennie asked.

“Once it cools, we’ll dig it up and I’ll show ya,” Lisa smiled.

“Ya know, you never answered my question from earlier, Lisa,” Jennie crossed her arms across her chest. “You said you wanna marry me, but that’s silly. We’re both girls. Why’d ya wanna marry me for anyhow?”

“Well before they died, my Momma and Daddy always told me that they got married ‘cuz they wanted to marry their best friend. And you’re my best friend,” Lisa answered matter-of-factly.

“That the only reason why you wanna marry me?” Jennie taunted.

“Well that, and so I can kiss ya anytime I want,” Lisa smiled, causing the smirk to fall from the younger girl’s face.

The two young girls leaned in at the same time and their lips touched tentatively. Lightning struck behind them.


-


Jennie was startled out of her dream and it took her a moment to register her surroundings. She’d been lying her head down on a table surrounded by sketches and swatches of fabric.

“So ‘why’d he wanna marry you anyhow’?” came a voice from across the room, speaking in a drawn out faux-southern accent. Jennie wiped her eyes and looked across the room at her friend Jisoo in confusion. Jisoo then began to speak again, this time in her normal New England accent, “You know, Jennie, your accent gets a whole lot thicker when you’re dreaming.”

Jennie rolled her eyes at Jisoo and shuffled the papers around her. “Why did you let me fall asleep?” the blonde asked.

“You needed it,” Jisoo responded. “You kicked that show out of the park this morning and the first thing you did after interviews was get back to work? Don’t you have somewhere to be tonight?”

“Yeah,” Jennie sighed. “The Mayor is holding a gala tonight.”

“And by the mayor, you mean your future mother-in-law, right?” Jisoo waggled her eyebrows at the girl.

“Connor hasn’t proposed yet, so don’t get too excited,” Jennie laughed as she gathered up everything in front of her and placed it in her bag. She checked the time on her watch and cursed under her breath. “I was supposed to have gone home over an hour ago to get ready.”

“Why don’t you just wear one of your own pieces,” Jisoo suggested. Jennie checked the time again, realizing that she really didn’t have time to go home.

“Okay, yeah. I’ll just do that.” She quickly stood up and headed over to the racks of clothing. Her clothing. Clothing she had put hours into designing. Clothing that was finally putting her on the map. She was going to be someone. Even Vogue had said so.

She sent a quick text to Connor, letting him know that she would be leaving from the studio instead of her apartment before she got ready with Jisoo’s help. Jisoo had been the first friend she’d made in New York City when she’d moved there five years earlier and the girl had quickly become the best assistant and friend she could ever ask for.

Once she was dressed appropriately for the event, one that would be attended by the most prominent of New Yorkers as well as the press, Jennie walked out onto the sidewalk, ready to try and flag a cab. Irene Newton, mayor of New York City, was hosting the gala and with her current bid for senate, Jennie knew that the press would be all over Irene’s son, Connor, and by connection, her as well. She was planning on taking a cab to Connor’s, where they would then get a car together.

Once she stepped out into the warm early summer air though, Jennie was surprised to find a limo waiting for her.

“Miss. Gardner, Mr. Newton sent me to come pick you up,” the driver announced his presence. Jennie didn’t even delay for a moment when the driver called her Miss Gardner. The name had been hers for five years and there were times when she forgot that it hadn’t always been her name.

“Thank you,” Jennie grinned at him as he held open the door for her. She slid in and waited for the drive to begin. They wound their way through the city until they stopped outside the back of a building.

“Mr. Newton is waiting for you inside,” the drive stated as he opened the back door for Jennie.

The blonde thanked the driver and walked in through the back door of the building. She wandered down a lowly lit hallway, searching for her boyfriend.

“Connor?” she asked out loud.

Moments later a man with floppy dark hair wearing an expensive-looking tailored suit appeared from around a corner, smiling. “Hey there, Princess,” he grinned.

Jennie loved Connor, she really did, but sometimes the nickname Princess rubbed her the wrong way. Connor had called her that upon their first meeting at a fundraiser, assuming she’d come from wealth the way he had. She hadn’t corrected him. Because according to all the biographies, Jennie Gardner had been raised on a plantation farm in Alabama. A real southern belle who never wanted for anything.

The problem was, Jennie Gardner didn’t really exist.

“Hey, babe,” Jennie grinned as he placed a kiss on her lips. “Where are we, anyway?”

Instead of answering her question, however, Connor took Jennie’s hands and led her through another door. The room was just barely lit and Jennie wasn’t sure where she was, but she was more focused on the man in front of her.

“Jennie Gardner,” Connor began as he lowered himself down on to one knee and the lights rose, revealing their surroundings.

Jennie quickly spun her head around, taking in the aisles of glass counters filled with jewelry and the attendants standing behind them. She saw the telling Tiffany blue boxes and she knew where she was.

“Will you marry me?” Connor asked simply.

Jennie looked at him in shock. She dropped her jaw and began to speak quickly, “Are you sure? Are you really sure? Because if you’re not, that’s totally fine. I’m sure the car is still here and we can head back there and go to the gala right now. It hasn’t even been a year yet, Connor.”

Connor quickly stood up off the ground, holding tightly to Jennie’s hands and reassured her in a calming voice. “I love you Jennie Gardner, and if I wasn’t sure, trust me, I wouldn’t be doing this. I usually don’t ask a question that I already know the answer to, so with the risk of being rejected twice, Jennie, will you marry me?”

Jennie looked into the honest face of the man she loved and saw nothing but adoration there. She forgot all the complications and everything she knew that would eventually have to be dealt with and focused on just him. She brought a hand up to his face and nodded, “Yes,” with a smile.

She squealed and wrapped her arms around Connor’s neck and he picked her up off the ground and spun her around. She placed her back down and gestured to the store around them. “Pick one,” he spoke with a smile.

An hour later, Jennie and Connor were making out in the back of the limo on their way to the gala while Jennie continued to sneak looks at the gorgeous, incredibly expensive ring resting on her finger.

“We’ll be seeing my mom tonight, but we should call your parents now,” Connor suggested.

At the mention of her family, Jennie immediately seized up. “No!” she grabbed his phone away from him. “I mean, I want to tell them in person. Why don’t we keep this quiet, just until I tell them?”

“Of course,” Connor nodded with a smile as he kissed her forehead. He took her hand in his and turned her ring around so that only the band was showing.

As soon as the limo came to a stop and their door was opened, Connor exited and guided Jennie out behind him. Immediately cameras started flashing and the couple smiled enthusiastically as they made their way towards the event space.

Before they made it to the doors, they reached a woman surrounded by cameras - Irene Newton.

“Mother!” Connor greeted the woman with a warm hug which Irene returned.

Irene turned to Jennie next with a calculated smile that Jennie knew was one that all politicians had perfected. “Jennie, I see you and Connor are still together.”

“Yes mother, we are,” Connor laughed and Jennie knew that his smile was equally as fake as his mother’s. He was trying not to let the woman’s statement bother him.

“It’s great to see you, Mayor Newton,” Jennie smiled, trying to look as genuine as possible as she extended her arm and kissed Irene’s cheek.

Irene grasped Jennie’s hand, but when she didn’t let go immediately, Jennie watched as the blood drained from her face. She felt where Irene was gripping and knew she’d been found out.

“Connor, darling, why does Jennie have a ring on this very specific finger?” Irene asked through gritted teeth and a fake smile. She flipped the ring around to reveal the large stone and gasped. Cameras caught the moment on camera.

The next morning, the photo was all over the New York Times and other press outlets. All bore similar headlines:

Mayor’s Son Engaged!

New York’s Most Eligible Bachelor Is Officially Off The Market

Connor Newton Engaged to Up and Coming Designer Jennie Gardner





While Irene’s press office dealt with the ramifications of the announcement and she observed the sudden upswing in her polls thanks to the reminder that she was a mother as well as a politician, Jennie hopped on the first flight out of JFK the next morning for Alabama.

When she arrived at the airport, Jennie rented a sports car and drove the two hour drive to the small town of Polis, Alabama.

She cringed as she drove through the small town where every single store and office of operations stood side by side on a single street. She drove past the town and out onto the dirt road that led her up by the lake.

When she reached the familiar run down house, she pulled into the driveway and parked the car. She looked down at the ring on her hand, marveling at it. It was a three stone Asscher-cut diamond ring. It was beautiful. It was her perfect ring, one that growing up she could only have dreamed about. When she looked at the ring though, she couldn’t help but be reminded of another ring. One that had only a small diamond on it, so small that the band itself was nearly wider than the stone.

Jennie shook her head, trying to forget the other ring. She carefully slid Connor’s gift off her finger and placed it in the glove compartment of the car. She then exited the car, holding in her hands the files she’d travelled all the way from New York with.

Jennie hadn’t even made it all the way to the steps of the porch when the screen door swung open and a woman exited. She wore ripped up jeans and a wife beater. Her curly brown hair was up in a ponytail and her arms and face were streaked with grease from the car part she was holding.

The blonde rolled her eyes at the mess of a women, knowing that she herself was exquisitely dressed in a designer dress and heels that were starting to get stuck in the dirt she stepped in.

“What can I do you for, Miss?” the brunette asked as soon as she exited the house.

“Well, Lisa,” Jennie began, her annoyance evident in her voice. She lifted up her Tom Ford sunglasses, placed a hand on her hips and stared at the women. She lifted up the papers she was holding. “For starters, you can get your ass down here and get me a divorce.”

Lisa’s jaw dropped at the same moment the car part fell out of her hand and onto the porch.







Lisa Manoban could not remember the first time she saw Jennie Kim. There was no way for her to remember the day. After all, she was still in diapers. Lisa Manoban could not remember the first time she saw Jennie Manoban. She knew the day, but she was too drunk the day of their wedding to remember the exact moment she said, “I Do.”

There was one thing for certain though. Lisa Manoban would always remember the first time she saw Jennie Gardner. She was skinnier and more toned than ever before, wearing clothes that looked like they came straight off a runway, heels that made her cringe to think about the pain they caused, and an annoyed expression while she demanded a divorce.

The car part she’d been holding fell out of Lisa’s hand and landed with a loud thud on the porch. The last thing Lisa had expected to happen when she woke up that morning was the arrival of her high school sweetheart, the girl she married when she was nineteen and Jennie was eighteen.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Lisa gasped with a half laugh after she finally realized who it was that was standing in her driveway. “Jennie Kim, as I live and breathe. Hello to you too. I was expecting a ‘Honey I’m Home,’ but I guess you lost your southern charm the day you left this town for wherever it is you’ve been for five years.” She ignored the part on the ground and crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the side of the house.

“I didn’t lose anything when I left this god forsaken town,” Jennie scoffed. “But I did gain my dignity the moment I landed in New York.”

“So that’s what you hoity-toity Yankee bitches are calling a crass attitude and that look of utter constipation?”

“At least I’m not covered in grease and looking like a…like a…” Jennie raised her hand and gestured to Lisa.

“Like a what?” Lisa asked.

“Like such a goddamn lesbian,” Jennie spat, as if the word was a disgusting poison. The tinge of hurt Lisa felt at the remark was well hidden behind an impassive face.

“Well, we both know that I am a lesbian, so I really don’t see what the problem is there,” Lisa scoffed, throwing off the taunt with laughter. “You’d think my wife woulda known that though.”

“I’m not your wife, Lis,” Jennie sighed. “I’m just the first girl who climbed in the back of your truck. I’ve changed, though. I don’t even know that girl anymore.”

“Neither do I,” Lisa stared wide-eyed at the blonde. She could barely recognize the woman her once best friend had turned into.

“Look, Lisa,” Jennie took several steps closer to the porch and Lisa noticed the way her heels stuck into the ground, making it hard for the blonde to walk properly. “I’ve been sending you these papers for years, but I guess you didn’t quite get the hint. So here they are. They even have idiot proof tabs to show you where to sign.”

“Do your parents even know you’re here?” Lisa asked, realizing that if Jennie had gone to see Barry and Cate, that she probably would have heard about it. And therefore heard that Jennie was in town in the first place.

“Can you just sign the damn papers so I can get back to New York?” Jennie spoke, exasperated, as she held out the papers to Lisa.

With her suspicions confirmed, Lisa shook her head. “Come back after you’ve seen Barry and Cate, then I’ll think about it.” She turned around and left Jennie behind her. Lisa kicked the screen door open and it swung shut behind her.

The brunette wasn’t surprised to find that Jennie had followed after her. Jennie was nothing if not persistent.

“Goddamnit, Lisa, just sign the papers!”

“Like I said, go see your parents, then we’ll talk,” Lisa retorted, slamming the door on Jennie’s face and locking it.

After making sure the back door was locked, Lisa sauntered into the kitchen. She opened up the fridge, barely even noticing that it was nearly empty, and pulled out a bottle of Corona. Lisa had never been picky when it came to her beer, never even minding Natty Lite, but recently she had upgraded herself to Coronas, thinking it was about time with everything she was up to recently.

After opening the bottle, Lisa meandered into the living room while drinking. She had the bottle up to her lips when she noticed that the front door was open and the screen door just slightly ajar. She shifted her gaze and saw Jennie standing in the middle of her living room, dangling a set of keys. Her eyes went wide and she quickly chugged the rest of her beer.

“Next time you try and lock someone out of a house they used to live in, maybe you should try and remember to remove the hidden key,” Jennie arched her eyebrows.

The bottle now empty, Lisa chucked it into the trash and it made a clinking noise as it hit the other empty bottles.

“Get the fuck out of my house, Jennie,” Lisa’s voice was suddenly harsh and stern.

“I will when you sign the papers,” the girl crossed her arms across her chest, and suddenly she looked more like a petulant child than a pissed off adult. The sight made Lisa remember the girl who Jennie used to be, the kind of girl who would do anything for the people she loved, the kind of girl who threw rocks at the windows of a house just because her friend was upset that his Dad was caught cheating on his Mom.

Not in the mood for an involuntary trip down Memory Lane, Lisa left Jennie in the living room without another word and went to the kitchen where she spent a few minutes searching for her cell phone. She hardly ever used it, there was no need, not when she always knew where her friends were at any given time. She dialed the town sheriff and tossed the phone back in the drawer.

When she returned to the living room, Jennie was still standing there holding the papers. Neither of them spoke, just stared at each other, until the flashing lights of the cop car shone through the windows.

“You called the sheriff on me?” Jennie exclaimed, quickly straightening up. “You KNOW that bitch hates me.”

You smirked at the frazzled girl, even as you realized that Jennie had no idea that Sheriff Indra had retired and that the new Sheriff in town was her son. She started to hustle towards the back door at the same moment Peniel, dressed in his sheriff’s uniform, knocked on the screen door.

Lisa let her friend in and Jennie turned around, taking in the surprise behind her.

“Peniel?”she asked, shocked. “You’re the town sheriff?”

“Sure am,” he grinned in response. Jennie sighed in relief and crossed the room and gave Peniel a hug. “Haven’t seen you around here in a while, Jennie. How are things? You’re in New York, am I right?”

“I am,” Jennie nodded. “It’s great, Linc. You should really come up and visit at some point. You’d love all the art. Not just the museums, mind you, but the street artists as well.”

As Jennie caught up with her high school friend, Lisa remembered that there was a time when she would peak into the window of the art room at Polis High to watch Jennie paint and draw. She would always have a smile on her face and she and Peniel would always be sitting at desks next to each other. Lisa wondered when the last time Peniel did anything artistic.

Lisa quickly snapped out of the memory she was experiencing and focused instead on the two others in her living room. “Peniel? Care to be a bit more professional?” she sighed. “You’re here to take Jennie away for trespassing, remember?”

Peniel looked up at Lisa as if just remembering why he was there, then looked back at the blonde. “She’s got a point, Blondie,” he remarked. “You can’t just going on breaking into houses that you don’t live in.”

Lisa smirked, ready to watch Peniel take Jennie away in handcuffs, but instead watched as a look of realization crossed the blonde’s face. “I’m willing to bet that my name is still on the deed to this shitty ass house,” Jennie spoke and Lisa tried not to care about the adjective Jennie had used to describe the house they had once christened together. “Or at least it should be, considering the fact that Lisa refuses to sign these divorce papers.” She lifted up the file, the colored ‘idiot proof’ tabs fully visible.

“You’re still married?” Peniel looked between the two women, shocked.

“Unfortunately,” Jennie said at the same moment that Lisa responded, “Yep.”

“Lisa, if you’re still married and she still owns the house with you, then I can’t exactly arrest her for trespassing,” Peniel sighed, and Lisa could tell that he was starting to feel awkward about the whole situation.

The wheels in Lisa’s brain started turning as she tried to figure out a way for Peniel to take Jennie away. “What’s the statute of limitation on destruction of private and public properties?” Lisa smirked as she remembered the countless pranks Jennie had pulled around town, several of which she’d managed to avoid detection for.

“Fuck you, Lisa,” Jennie turned to the brunette, quickly figuring out where the brunette was headed. “You were with me for every single stink bomb and defacement.”

Lisa quickly realized that Jennie was right. In fact, Peniel had been with them as well for several of the pranks. Back in high school they had caused so much trouble, but she and Jennie had always been thick as thieves, even before they started dating and became the first-ever lesbian couple in Polis, Alabama. They’d had their group of friends as well. They’d all been friends since diapers. She and Jennie had always been the ringleaders, but they’d almost always been accompanied by Jackson Gardner, Peniel Cooper, Kris Wu, Bambam Bhuwakul and Goran Siddon.

“There’s no reason for me to arrest Jennie, Lisa,” Peniel stated. “This here is just a little domestic dispute. Unless she hit you,” he turned to Jennie. “Because we’re taking that stuff seriously now. She didn’t hit you, did she?”

Lisa snapped her gaze to Jennie, wondering if the girl would have the balls to lie just to piss her off. Jennie’s gaze softened though as she spoke, “No, Peniel. Lisa would never hit me. She couldn’t even kill a spider.”

Jennie had been the designated spider-killer in their relationship. Lisa noticed in Jennie’s words that Jennie hadn’t said that she would never hurt her, just that she would never hit her. Because Lisa sure as hell knew that she’d hurt Jennie in plenty of other ways, non-physical ways.

“I don’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t have you two in it,” Peniel smiled, clearly not totally catching onto the tension in the room, or ignoring it. Peniel had always been the peacekeeper in the group. Him and Goran. But now that role fell solely on the Sheriff.

“Now is not the time,” Lisa sighed.

“Right,” Peniel responded as he started to back towards the door. “Well, I’m going to head out. Jennie, if you’re in town for a while, you should come to Grounders. The whole gang is there most nights.”

“Thanks for the invite Peniel, but I’m on the first flight out of here tomorrow morning,” Jennie spoke with a tight-lipped smile.

Peniel tipped his hat at the two women and left the house.

“I guess not much has changed,” Lisa raised her eyebrows at Jennie after the wheels of the cop car were heard crunching through the dirt driveway. “You come to town and the first thing you do is seek me out, then you have a confrontation with the cops.”

“Fuck you, Lisa,” the blonde narrowed her bright blue eyes at Lisa, glaring at her. “I’ve changed, I’m not the same girl who used to skip gym class, show up cross-faded to prom or have sex in the back of a truck with some girl.”

“You’re right,” Lisa nodded. “That girl was happy, something you certainly don’t seem to be.”

“I am happy,” Jennie crossed her arms. “I am incredibly successful. I have people writing about me in magazines. People want to BE me. And I have someone who loves me and wants to marry me. I’m engaged to someone else Lisa.” Jennie lowered her voice with a sigh at the end of her sentence and Lisa’s stomach dropped. She should have known that everything she had been doing the past few years wasn’t going to make a difference, but she’d still held out hope nevertheless.

“Well I hope you’re happy with your new Yankee fiance. Maybe this time you’ll get the whole marriage thing right. I hope she isn’t as big of a disappointment to you as I was,” Lisa rolled her eyes and looked at the glass figurine resting on the bookshelf over Jennie’s shoulder.

“He.”

“What?” Lisa moved her gaze from the glass to the blonde.

“I’m marrying a man, Lisa.”

“Of course you are!” Lisa laughed out loud. She knew that Jennie had always been attracted to men and women. She wasn’t sure which would have been worse though, Jennie moving on with a girl or a guy.

“I’m straight, Lisa,” Jennie insisted and Lisa laughed loudly. “I realize now that you were just a phase. My mom was right, it was a phase I’ve now grown out of. I was just confused back then. I confused the feelings I had as your best friend for love.”

At Jennie’s utter denial, Lisa was actually mad, but she wasn’t going to let that show. Instead she let out some more laughter, as if Jennie’s statement was just laughable, instead of a knife in the heart. “For a straight girl, you really enjoyed eating my pussy. But hey, I guess that was just a failed experiment, right? I never meant anything to you.”

“That’s not…” a flash of guilt passed over Jennie’s face. “That’s not true. I cared for you and you know that. You were my best friend, but that’s all.”

Lisa had the hundreds of memories of the two of them lying naked together, professing their love to each other, to prove Jennie wrong, but she didn’t bother. She didn’t see the point.

“I’ll sign your goddamn papers,” Lisa sighed and Jennie smiled. “But only after you see your parents. I’m not changing my mind on that. They’d kill me if they knew I’d seen you and didn’t make you go over there.”

Lisa realized that something must have shifted in her own face, maybe it was the realization that everything she’d done in the past years didn’t matter anymore, but whatever it was seemed to make Jennie believe her.

“Fine,” she responded, finally relenting, but not without a sharpness to her speech. “Only because if I stay with them then I don’t have to stay at the airport hotel.”

“Okay.”

“Where will you be after I see them?”

“I’ll be around tomorrow morning before you gotta leave,” Lisa explained, becoming more aware of her own southern accent and how strong it was compared to Jennie’s faded one.

Without another word, Jennie turned on her heels and left the house, leaving the papers behind on the table for Lisa to sign. As soon as she heard the rental car pull away and leave her driveway, Lisa sunk on to her couch and sighed.

All of a sudden everything around her made her think of Jennie. From the light blue sofa to the painting on the wall, to the centerpiece of it all. The glass piece that had been created in a lightning storm fifteen years earlier had been the inspiration to everything. But it didn’t matter anymore.

Instead of being bombarded with memories of a thunderstorm when she was ten, or the vicious yelling fights that had ended their relationship, Lisa was hit by the memory of her and Jennie’s second kiss.





Lisa was sixteen and Jennie was fifteen and their sophomore year of high school was just days days away from starting. In honor of the end of summer, Jackson Gardner was hosting a party at his family’s plantation. There was a bonfire and plenty of beer and no one worried about the police being called. Jackson’s dad was out of town, probably with one of his girlfriends and his mom was on the other side of town, living in the trailer park with her new husband and Jackson’s half sister. The property was large enough with no neighbors in sight, so that they never worried about getting caught there.

They were all pleasantly drunk and circled around a bonfire, the fire more for aesthetic than heat as it was still warm enough to hang out outside, even at night. Bambam and Kris had put the fire to use though, roasting marshmallows and trying to throw them into each other’s mouths.

The whole gang was there; Lisa, Jennie, Jackson, Goran, Kris, Bambam and Peniel, as well as some others that they were friends with, but not as close with.

The night was one of those perfect nights. The kind of night that could have been an ordinary night, but once you’re with your friends it just becomes the epitome of high school. They all felt it, the ease between them all and the easy fun that came from drinking together outside in their small hometown.

Someone brought up the topic of first kisses and Jennie and Lisa exchanged a glance as they remembered being each other’s first kiss in the middle of a thunderstorm, six years earlier. Since then, they’d each kissed other people, many of whom were in attendance, but neither forgot that first kiss.

When Chahee Park announced that she hadn’t had her first kiss yet, Kris, mouth full of marshmallows, promptly volunteered. The shy girl, confident only because of the beer coursing through her, nodded and after Kris swallowed the marshmallows, he kissed her. Everyone cheered.

Soon, everyone was drunk enough that they were splitting up into smaller groups, and after several more beers Jennie turned towards her best friend. “I have to pee, come with me?”

Lisa nodded and followed the blonde out of sight of the others and waited as the girl crouched behind a tree and relieved herself. Lisa remembered the uncharacteristic confidence that Chahee had shown earlier and she realized that it was about time that she showed some herself. She’d been waiting all summer for the right moment to tell her best friend her biggest secret, but had managed to talk herself out of it on multiple occasions. Now that the summer was practically over, Lisa knew that she had to stop with the excuses.

When Jennie reappeared from behind the tree, Lisa immediately spoke so that she wouldn’t lose what little courage she’d managed to gather.

“Jennie, I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, Lili?” Jennie approached Lisa and threw an arm around her. When Jennie was drunk she got incredibly physically affectionate. Physical affection usually bothered Lisa, but never when it came from her best friend.

Lisa took a deep breath and decided to go for it. “I like girls,” she spoke quickly. “I think dicks are gross and boobs are awesome. I’m gay, Jennie. Totally and completely gay.”

She searched Jennie’s face for a response and the blonde quickly gave her one. A smile. “I know Lis,” she laughed. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows. You’re not exactly subtle.”

“I’m not?”

“No,” Jennie shook her head. “I’ve never seen you show interest in any guy, not even when you spent the night making out with Tim that one time last summer.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Lisa asked tentatively. They lived in a small town in Alabama and Lisa didn’t know a single other gay person in the town, girl or guy.

“Obviously,” Jennie rolled her eyes. “You’re my best friend no matter what, obviously I’m okay with it. Besides, now that you’ve officially told me, I guess I should tell you that I’ve had a crush on you for a long time. I’m not sure how long, I dunno when the crush started, maybe it was always there, but I definitely have a crush on you Lisa.”

Lisa looked at the drunk blonde in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not the only one here who isn’t straight,” Jennie laughed. “Don’t get me wrong I still like guys, but I’m a sucker for a sexy girl as well.” This reveal was news to Lisa. Jennie was definitely the most sexual girl in their grade, having been the first girl they knew to lose her virginity, but Lisa was pretty sure she’d never tried to hook up with a girl before.

“You’re not straight?” Lisa asked, still confused.

“If I was straight, would I do this?” Jennie then approached Lisa and placed a hand behind her neck, winding her fingers through the curls she found there. Lisa realized what Jennie was about to do just moments before it happened.

Jennie’s lips were soft and tasted like cheap beer and cigarettes. They tasted like sandy beaches and a rainstorm. They tasted like home.

It didn’t take long for Lisa to start kissing Jennie back, quickly deepening the kiss when Jennie didn’t pull away immediately. Before she knew it, Jennie was moving them and Lisa’s back was against the bark of a tree, scratching her where her shirt had ridden up. But she didn’t care. She barely even noticed it, certainly not when Jennie’s hand was suddenly on top of her clothed breast.

Jennie kept her hand there for barely a moment before removing it, and when Lisa whined at the lack of contact, Jennie laughed into her lips. She then used that hand to take one of Lisa’s, both of which were resting on the blonde’s hips. She led Lisa’s hand to her breast and lifted her lips slightly from Lisa’s.

“You said you love boobs, Lis, so here you go.” Jennie’s voice was low and gravelly and it elicited a growl from Lisa’s lips, one neither of them knew she had in her. Instead of laughing though, Jennie moved Lisa’s hands away from the top of her shirt and guided it under instead.

Lisa didn’t need much guidance to know what Jennie wanted. She pushed her hand underneath Jennie’s bra and grabbed her bare breast, causing Jennie to attach her lips to Lisa’s once more.

Lisa flicked a thumb over Jennie’s nipple and Jennie drove a knee between Lisa’s legs. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. And that’s when Lisa knew she was a goner. There was no turning back. She was Jennie Kim’s, her body and her soul.

They never really came out to their friends. They all just figured it out when they started holding hands in public and when they would sit on each other’s laps when hanging out with everyone, occasionally exchanging chaste kisses. Everyone figured it out on their own and it was never a big deal.

Kris was the last to figure it out. It took him until the end of the September when he finally asked why Jennie would call Lisa her girlfriend, but none of their other girl friends. Lisa had answered for Jennie by kissing her in a way that was slightly PG-13 and saying, “Because I’m the only one allowed to do that. Because I get to kiss her anytime I want.”

And Jennie’s eyes had sparkled as they both remembered the words they’d spoken before their first kiss.