When Lisa manages to do anything that wasn't thinking about Chaeyoung and go back inside, she makes up some flimsy excuse for Chaeyoung's abrupt goodbye that she's sure half of her friends don't actually believe.
With Chaeyoung's departure also comes the end of the night, which is honestly a blessing, because she doesn't know how to pretend her heart isn't bleeding out of her chest.
Lisa follows Solar back to her apartment without even noticing she's doing so.
She doesn't linger on the reason why they always go to Solar's. It's practical to do so. Solar doesn't have roommates. Lisa does. Solar has a proper, big bed. Lisa doesn't. So, she never lingers on the reason why she also never stays the nights if she can help it.
"So... are you going to tell me why Chaeyoung kept looking at me like I was the one who told her her favorite band disbanded?" Solar asks, throwing her jacket on the desk chair and turning back to her.
"What?"
Solar stares at her and Lisa feels like she's getting yellow carded.
"You know what I mean."
"She just doesn't like most people" she tries to shrug it off lightly, "don't take it personally."
That doesn't seem to appease Solar much, though, "I don't... I don't want to pry or anything, but she looked at me like she was your ex or something."
'Or something' feels more appropriate than Lisa cares to admit.
"She's not."
"Does she know that?"
Chaeyoung had told her she loved her.
She shakes her head.
"Solar..."
"Lis." Solar tries again, and this is not right, because who in their right mind would ask the deceased to write their own eulogy?
"We were nothing. Nothing of importance anyway."
So why should Lisa have to talk about the person she had died for?
Solar suddenly feels smaller, as she wraps her arm around herself, "So, I shouldn't be worried?"
Chaeyoung had told her she loved her.
And Lisa never stays the night and she's always stayed with a foot halfway outside the door. No wonder Solar isn't secure in their relationship.
She walks over to her, takes her face in her hands and kisses her once, twice.
"No, Solar." she says, and the lies she told once upon a time, she tells again, "You shouldn't be."
"I just don't want to be that girlfriend, you know?" Solar's laugh is bitter, and Lisa doesn't ever want to hear that sound coming from her lips ever again. She doesn't ever want to be the one to cause that laugh ever again either.
"What girlfriend?"
"The jealous one, the clingy one. But..." Solar sighs, "She looks at you, Lisa. And you look back."
"I'm with you, now. I'm committed to you."
"I know. But is it enough?"
Lisa just kisses her in answer because she knows she can't say yes with the conviction Solar needs to hear. She kisses her back, and Lisa has the weirdest feeling she knows that too.
Chaeyoung had told her she loved her.
***
Lisa is seventeen and she tastes copper with each breath as she stands on the top of a roof of some bullshit hotel nobody should ever have enough money to pay a room for.
