Good Together

Chapter 7: Deep South Glass

“What the fuck did you tell him about me?” Jennie exclaimed, fists on her hips as she stared down Lisa while Connor walked away. Before Lisa responded however, Jackson interjected himself into the conversation.

“It’s not her fault,” he explained. “We were thrown off by the fact that he called you Jennie Gardner, so he asked who Jennie Kim was. We just told him who you were.”

“Yeah” she asked, fists still on her hips. “And who exactly was I?”

“Someone who cared about a cat not suffering. Someone who felt your friends’ pain. Honest,” Lisa spoke up. “And a loyal friend.”

Jennie’s arms dropped to her side as she watched her ex-wife turn and walk away, leaving her to her own thoughts.

Jackson drove Jennie in her car back to her house where her mom was waiting. He let Jennie rant at him, briefly mentioning the fact that Jennie wouldn’t have to worry about Lisa anymore, as she was moving. Jennie didn’t register the words though.

Jennie had texted her to tell her what had happened and as soon as she opened the door, her arms were around Jennie. She hugged her and rubbed her back. She gave her the kind of comfort Jennie had needed many times over the years, but never received.

“Why does this keep happening?” she cried as Cate held her, leading her to the couch where they sat, Cate continuing to rub Jennie’s back.

“Connor isn’t Lisa,” Cate tried to reassure her daughter.

Cate’s words caused Jennie to pull away and look up at her mom. “No, Lisa never walked away from me. I walked away from her. And Connor walked away from me. If anything, it’s karma.”

“You just caught him off guard is all,” Cate sighed. “He’ll be back. He loves you.”

“He loves Jennie Gardner,” Jennie rubbed at her eyes. “He loves the fashion designer who grew up with a rich plantation family. Not redneck Jennie Kim.”

“It doesn’t matter where you come from Jennie,” Cate explained. “It’s about where you go. It’s about what you do with your life. And look at you, look at all you’ve done. You’ve left this town. You’ve made something of yourself. That’s all I ever wanted for you, to have the best you could have.”

“All you ever did was push me away and put down my decisions until I finally left this place.”

“That’s because you deserved better Jennie! Sure, when you first started dating Lisa I was put off by the fact that she was a girl, but that’s not why I didn’t want you two together. I knew you could do better than her. You’re better than this town and I didn’t want you anchored down to this place when I knew you could fly away. I didn’t want this life for you,” Cate gestured around to their small home.

The pieces finally clicked into place in Jennie’s mind. She finally understood why her mom had pushed her into pageants, had insisted that she stay away from Lisa, had cheered for her when she’d moved to New York.

“You didn’t want me to turn out like you, that’s it, isn’t it?” the blonde asked. Cate nodded. “Momma, there’s nothing wrong with your life. There’s nothing wrong with this town. There’s nothing wrong with being you.”

Jennie wiped away the last of her tears just in time for the front door to open. Barry walked in first, followed closely by Connor, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

“I found him walking down the highway, tryna find his way back here,” Barry spoke, gesturing to Connor.

“I’m sorry,” Connor spoke, hurrying over to Jennie, handing her the bouquet. “I overreacted. I showed up here unannounced. You have a past, I get that. I understand. I’m sorry I didn’t let you explain.”

“I guess I should explain then,” Jennie stood up, accepting the flowers. “My name isn’t Jennie Gardner. I just borrowed the name from my friend because I was ashamed of where I came from. But I’m not ashamed anymore. I’m Jennie Kim and this is my home,” she gestured around to the small abode. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

“It’s beautiful,” Connor smiled. “Because you’re in it.” Jennie blushed and Cate clapped her hands together and covered her mouth in excitement. “We haven’t met yet Mrs. Kim, but I’m Connor Newton, and if she’ll still have me, I plan on marrying your daughter.”

Cate eagerly shook Connor’s hand as he extended it to her. “Please, Cate is fine.”

“Will you still have me?” Connor asked, turning back to Jennie. Jennie nodded with a smile.

“I was actually thinking,” Jennie spoke. “I was thinking that maybe we could get married here in my hometown.”

Connor was silent for a moment, thinking about the suggestion before a smile broke out across his face. “I think that’s a great idea Princess. Everyone in New York will be expecting us to get married at the Plaza next June, what do you say we push it up and get married here next month?”

“I’d love that,” Jennie smiled before leaning forward and pressing her lips against Connor’s.

“A wedding!” Cate exclaimed. “And in a month! Good Lord, we’ve got a lot of planning to do!”

After pulling out of the kiss, Connor turned to Cate. “I don’t want you folks worrying about the cost of anything. My mother is more than willing to cover the cost.”

“Now that’s not right,” Barry interjected, finally speaking after standing in silence for several minutes. “We want to help to. Let us at least cover the rehearsal dinner.”

“Alright then,” Connor nodded.

They started planning that very night over a bottle of bourbon that Barry had been saving for a special occasion. Cate was the one who suggested he break it open and Barry agreed to do so, hiding his hesitation from his wife and daughter and her fiancé. When he’d bought the bottle, this wasn’t the special occasion he had in mind, but it seemed like that occasion wasn’t likely to happen anymore.

They flew back to New York two days later. Jennie remained in New York for two weeks, pulling strings in the fashion world to get a wedding dress on short notice while planning the event. Invitations were sent out to all the important people in both Jennie and Connor’s lives.

After completing all the tasks she needed to get done in New York, Jennie headed back to Alabama. Connor would be flying down the week after her with his mom. She wasn’t alone though, she flew back with her two best friends from New York, Jisoo Kim and Jaden Hall.

“I still can’t believe you’re getting married in ten days,” Jisoo shook her head as she rolled down the window on the passenger side, resting her arm just outside of it.

“I still can’t believe she was married less than a month ago,” Hall chimed in. “You move on fast.”

Jennie rolled her eyes at her friends as she drove the rental down the Alabama highway. “The divorce was just a legal thing. It’s not like I’ve really been married this whole time.”

“Still,” Jisoo shrugged. “It’s still a bit unbelievable.”

The entire time Jennie had been doing wedding preparations, she’d had to force herself not to think about Lisa and not to think about the last time she got married. And how different the whole event had been. She’d never realized how much more complicated a wedding was when you had money to burn. She almost felt like she was putting on a show for her town and for all their friends that were flying down to New York. When she’d married Lisa, it hadn’t been a show. It had been a party more than anything else, a celebration of their love, a celebration for all their friends to enjoy. Or at least, it was supposed to have been. If Lisa hadn’t gotten so drunk the night before.

Jennie heard Jisoo and Hall continuing to talk, but was stuck in her own thoughts until she saw a sign that caught her eye. It read “Deep South Glass - Next Exit”.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. She pointed to the sign. “That’s it! That’s the glass I was telling you about Chu!”

“Well then, get off the next exit and we’ll check it out,” Jisoo laughed.

“I could use a few more martini glasses,” Hall announced.

Once Jennie got off the exit, she followed the signs up a dirt road until she reached a large barn on a lake. The parking lot was fairly crowded. The place seemed to be pretty popular, sitting in the outskirts of Birmingham. She parked the car alongside a dirt-covered truck and walked up to the store alongside her two friends, aware that they looked slightly out of place in their couture outfits.

For the first time in a long time she wished she were wearing old jeans and flannel and cowgirl boots.

Together, the friends wandered around the store. It was a beautiful store. The barn setting let in rays of light through open windows, shining through the glassware. Jennie ran her fingers over glasses of all shapes and sizes, marveling at it.

Jennie paused when she found Jisoo staring at a section that she hadn’t gotten to yet. They were figurines. They looked almost like fingers intertwining, something that Jennie knew could only be made in nature.

“Most people don’t know what happens when lightning strikes sand,” Jennie explains, referring to the sculptures. “It makes glass. You just have to wait for it to cool, then you can dig it up.”

“They’re beautiful,” Hall affirmed, joining his two friends. “They literally look like frozen lightning.”

“They basically are,” Jennie nodded. Her eyes scanned the figurines, stopping as soon as they reached the statue in the middle of them all. She could never forget that glass sculpture. Two fractured pieces of lightning, intertwining. It had sat at the center of her and Lisa’s home. She’d seen it still there when she’d first returned to Polis a few weeks earlier.

And now here it was, sitting alongside similar pieces. But it wasn’t the same. None of the others had been dug up by two girls on the beach after they experienced their first kiss. This one watched a first kiss and million others after it. It saw a relationship come to life and fall apart. And here it was, for sale. As if it didn’t mean a thing.

In the back of her mind, she remembered Jackson saying that Lisa was moving to Birmingham for work, and the realization hit Jennie like a truck. She turned around just in time to see the store’s owner, the artist behind every piece of work in the barn, walking down the steps that led to the store’s restaurant.

Jennie’s feet were moving before of their own accord and she met Lisa halfway, Hall and Jisoo standing just a few feet behind them.

“Dibs,” Jisoo whispered to Hall, lifting her eyebrows and glancing over Lisa’s form appreciatively.

Hall watched the way Jennie and the woman she had walked up to drank each other in, looking at each other not as strangers, but as people who saw one another’s souls and understood everything behind defensive eyes.

“I think she may already be taken,” Hall responded.

“Welcome to Deep South Glass,” Lisa finally spoke, gesturing around her. “If you find anything you like, just someone with a name tag know and they’ll be happy to ring you up.”

“Lisa,” Jennie sighed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What was there to say?” Lisa responded, her face hardened and resolute. “You made up your mind about me a long time ago.”

Jennie wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what she could possibly say. She wanted to know why Lisa hadn’t announced her success to her. She wanted to know why Lisa never told her that she’d run after her.

She wanted to know when Lisa gave up on her.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Lisa nodded at Jennie and her friends before walking away.

Jennie followed Lisa with her eyes as the woman walked away.

“That was her, wasn’t it?” Jisoo nodded.

All Jennie could do was nod and wonder how her life turned out the way it did. How her best friend became a stranger in a shop.





Fall hit Alabama in the form of colorful leaves and sweater weather, the last vestiges of summer finally creeping away with each fallen leaf.

It was Jennie’s idea to head to the creek. It was about an hour’s drive from Polis, so they planned on spending the day there then camping for the night. But as plans tend to go, they went a little wrong and they got a little lost.

So instead of arriving at the creek by midday, it was already well into the afternoon when they arrived packed into two cars. They wasted no time breaking open beers and stripping down to swimsuits.

It didn’t take them long to get suitably drunk, wading in the creek water with a floating cooler. It wasn’t long before the sun fell and the temperature dropped, causing everyone to want to dry off. Bambam, using his boy scouts skills, fixed them up a fire on which they grilled hot dogs.

They’d stocked up on cases of beer, no longer having to worry about sneaking them, now that Jackson was twenty-one, even though the rest of them were still twenty. The night wore on, Jackson played music from his portable speakers and they talked about everything while tossing back beers.

No one was drunker than Lisa though. And when Lisa got drunk, she got handsy. The married couple sat together on a blanket with another blanket wrapped over their shoulders. Lisa shifted the blanket so it no longer just fell off their shoulders, but fell in front of them, obscuring their bodies from view.

Jennie was distracted, talking to Peniel about some art project, when Lisa slipped her hand down the front of her wife’s pants. Jennie jolted in surprise at the contact. When Lisa pushed a finger inside of her, she moaned audibly.

“Oh my god!” Jackson exclaimed. “Are you two fucking right in front of us?”

Jennie’s cheeks burned red. Lisa smirked. Jennie subconsciously shifted her hips, pushing Lisa’s finger deeper inside of her. This time Lisa moaned, more from surprise than anything else.

“That’s hot,” Kris grinned.

Lisa pulled her finger out and sucked on it.

“Don’t you think that’s a little much?” Jennie muttered.

“No, definitely not,” Kris shook his head.

When Jennie scooted a few inches away from Lisa, everyone seemed to get to move on and eventually it was suggested that they play truth or dare. The game quickly evolved into a game of just dares, with Bambam and Chahee skinny dipping together and Kris giving Jackson a lap dance. Peniel was even dared to kiss Goran.

After Peniel dared Lisa to drink a beer without using her hands, Jennie began to grow nervous about how drunk Lisa was getting.

“Lis, I think you need to stop drinking,” Jennie insisted after Lisa finished the drink.

“I’m sorry,” Peniel shook his head. “I wasn’t really thinking.” Jennie brushed him off. It wasn’t his fault that Lisa didn’t know when to stop.

“I’m fine Jennie,” Lisa insisted, her point not taken seriously as she hiccuped halfway through her sentence. “So it’s my turn to to give a dare to Goran?”

“I can kiss Peniel again if you want,” Goran teased. Everyone laughed as Peniel puckered his lips.

Lisa looked around and touched a finger to her lips, thinking, while simultaneously hiccuping. She smiled as she observed the cliffs they’d been jumping off earlier that afternoon.

“I dare you to jump off the high cliff,” she pointed to the ledge above the one that they’d been leaping from earlier.

“Is that safe?” Peniel asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Lisa shrugged. “We’ve jumped off it in the past, haven’t we?” Everyone shrugged and nodded in agreement. They’d each jumped off the higher cliff multiple times in past years.

“Do I have to?” Goran pouted. “It’s cold out.”

“Chahee and I just went skinny dipping!” Bambam exclaimed, still huddled beneath a towel. “We’ll have a towel waiting for you.”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Lisa rolled her eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll do it with you.”

“Double dare!” Kris exclaimed.

Lisa grinned at Kris’s cheer and stood up, wobbling a bit.

“You’re not fucking jumping off a cliff in this state,” Jennie spoke through gritted teeth.

“Kris already called the double dare, no turning back now,” Lisa smirked.

“I’m taking your place then,” Jennie insisted. She stood up and pushed Lisa back down onto their blanket. “If it has to be a double dare, I’ll do it.”

“My wife is so chivalrous,” Lisa drunkenly smiled.

Jennie rolled her eyes at the brunette as she stripped down to her swimsuit alongside Goran. Despite how annoyed she was by Lisa’s drunken state, Jennie couldn’t help but think that Lisa was adorable trying to control her hiccups. Before she and Goran left to climb the cliff, she leaned down and gave Lisa a lingering kiss, eliciting hoots and hollering, mostly from Kris.

Lisa tasted like beer. She tasted familiar. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular kiss. A little sloppy. If she had known it would be their last before their relationship fell apart, maybe Jennie would have tried a little harder, lingered a little bit longer.

The kiss was over just moments after it started and Goran and Jennie started too walk up the cliff while their friends chatted. When they reached the top, the two lifelong friends walked to the edge. Goran was on Jennie’s left, closer to their friends.

“Jesus fucking Christ, it’s like ten degrees colder up here,” Jennie exclaimed, rubbing her arms up and down as they waited for their friends to notice that they’d reached the top.

“Switch sides with me,” Goran insisted. “This way I’ll block a bit of the wind and you won’t have to swim as far to get out.”

“You sure?” Jennie asked. Goran nodded and they switched sides without a second thought.

Once they got in position they waved their friends down and they turned their heads to face the jumpers.

“You ready for this?” Goran asked, his eyes lit up by the reflection of the moon off the lake many feet below them. He wore a slightly mischievous smile. Jennie would never forget that smile. He lifted his hand up and Jennie high-fived it.

“On the count of three,” Jennie began. “One…two…three!”

Together the two friends jumped. Jennie screamed and Goran laughed. Jennie hit the water and it felt like icicles piercing her skin.

Jennie was a good swimmer, so she easily pushed her way up to the surface, shivering. She wanted to get to shore as quickly as possible and warm up, now that she was suddenly stone sober.

“Goran, I’ll race you!” she yelled out.

When she didn’t hear a response, she turned around. She couldn’t even see him in the water, but it was dark. She turned her head back to the shore to see if he’d somehow managed to swim ahead of her. He hadn’t, but all her friends were standing up, no longer sitting.

And that’s how she knew something was wrong. She could barely make out their faces and for some reason her brain couldn’t process the fact that they were yelling something at her. So she swam over to where Goran must have landed.

The sight of his body nearly made her gag. It made her legs stop moving and she nearly started to sink. There was a long, sharp tree branch stuck sticking straight out of the water and Goran had landed on it. It had gone straight through his neck, nearly decapitating him. He would have died on impact.

Jennie wasn’t sure how long she waded there in the water, a foot from her oldest friend’s body, but it wasn’t long before Jackson and Peniel swam out to her, Jackson taking her in his arms and swimming her back to shore while Peniel retrieved Goran’ body, not sure what else to do.

Jennie left Polis the day after Goran’ funeral. She’d been mute until that day, not being able to say a word. That morning though, she blew up, yelling at Lisa. Blaming her for Goran’ death. She ran away to New York, unable to face the life behind her. Needing to start over.

She never told a soul what happened at the top of the cliff before they jumped. Never told a soul about the fact that she and Goran switched positions. That she was the one who was supposed to be dead.





The week following Jennie’s surprising appearance at her store, Lisa had grown more and more restless. She woke up alone each morning in her new, unfamiliar home, feeling out of place. She went to work, each day bringing her more and more customers. On the days she didn’t walk the floor of her store, she dedicated her hands to the glass, making more and more.

The lightning glass was one of the most popular collections she sold, and also the most expensive because of the nature of how they were made and collected.

She took the price tag off the oldest piece, the piece that had been made on a beach beside two girls sharing their first kiss. It stayed on display, but she couldn’t sell it anymore.

The first time she saw Jennie’s number come across her caller ID, she thought it was a mistake, so she didn’t answer.

Then she kept calling.

And Lisa kept ignoring her calls.

Rosé had told her all about how Polis was being turned on its head for the Newton wedding and the last thing Lisa wanted to do was talk to Jennie. She didn’t even want to think about why should would even possibly be calling.

It didn’t help that she was homesick for Polis. Having now spent more time outside of it, more than three weeks, than she had ever spent away from the town in her entire life. She missed Rosé. She missed Jackson and Peniel, even Kris and Bambam. She missed the familiarity of knowing where everything was in the Piggly Wiggly. She even missed awkwardly trying to avoid Cate Kim around town.

She didn’t mean to dial Rosé’s number, but after another five calls from Jennie one morning, she needed to hear her sister’s voice.

“Well look who finally decided to call,” Rosé laughed. “I was starting to think you cut yourself on some broken glass and there was no one to find your body.”

The reality of Rosé’s tease stuck with Lisa. She had employees in Birmingham, but she had no friends there, no family.

“Very funny,” Lisa sighed back.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Rosé responded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Rosé called her out on her lie. “I know when something is bothering you. So I’ll ask you again, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Instead of forcing it out of her, Rosé took the conversation into her own, knowing exactly what was likely to be bothering her sister. “Jennie’s getting married this weekend.”

“I know,” Lisa spoke back, calmly. “And why am I supposed to care?”

“You know, you’re pretty quick to let go of something you’ve been holding onto for so long.”

“I can’t control her anymore than I can control the weather,” Lisa admitted.

“There’s supposed to be a nasty storm here Saturday, you coming for it?” Rosé asked.

“Yeah,” Lisa responded. “I’m only coming for the storm though. The lightning glass is popular and I need some more. So I’m only coming to go down to the beach.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m serious Sé,” Lisa insisted.

“Okay.” There was a moment of silence, both sisters waiting for the other to end the conversation. “So I’ll see you Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s still time you know.”

“Goodbye Rosé.”

Lisa hung up the phone and knocked her head against the doorframe. If it weren’t for the fact that she needed to try and make more of the lightning glass, she wouldn’t be anywhere near Polis the weekend of Jennie’s wedding. The last thing she needed was to see the town celebrating the nuptials.

She was done. She was done with Jennie. She was done hoping, done trying to prove to the blonde that she could be more. She had to start living for herself. She couldn’t keep living in the past.

So why then, was she so quick to go back to Polis the one weekend she knew would hurt her most?