Nude - Jenlisa

Chapter 4

"Oh, Rosé, not again," Jennie whined. She tipped the latte up, blocking out her best friend's excited pout.

"Why not? This one might be the one." Rosé pushed the colorful, half-page poster toward her, and tapped on it with her nail. "Don't tell me you're giving up? I didn't think Kims are capable of giving up."

Jennie sighed and let her eyes wander down to the art exhibit flyer. Where did Rosé keep finding these oddball events? Reluctantly, she gave into her curiosity. Setting her warm cup down on the beige table, she picked up the flyer.

"This one is through the university. You said she was a student, right?" The taller pointed around the flyer's corner to the school's fancy logo.

"I think so," Jennie said. Honestly, she didn't remember. "It's been four months. Maybe it's time to call it quits."

"Why?"

She sighed deeply, closing her hands around the latte. "I can't just keep going to art show after art show and hoping to see her. It feels so…pointless. Every time is more discouraging."

"But what about her?"

Jennie stared into the swirling coffee that reflected the yellow lights in the dimly colored café ceiling. Her stomach twisted. "She might not even remember me."

"She painted you naked, I highly doubt she'd forget," Rosé said without hushing herself, drawing the attention of the nearby table's teens. Jennie kept her eyes on her coffee. Rosé leaned in and said lower, "I mean, how many times is that going to happen to her?"

"Maybe a lot." She sipped. Lisa had slept with other women. She'd said so. How many of those women had she painted first? "There's a lot I don't know about her. It could be a frequent thing in her life."

Rosé scoffed, almost comically. "Right, but before you throw in the towel on this girl, let's go to this last show."

"Why?"

"Because she might be there."

"There's a better chance of her not."

"I've got a good feeling about this one, alright?"

Jennie rolled her eyes. All this gallivanting cut into her school time.

Rosé pouted. "Please, Jen? Just one last time. Then I'll stop looking."

Jennie looked over her cup at the other girl, pale brown eyes wide and desperate, although good humored. She chewed on the inside of her lip. She wanted to get over this ordeal, and just forget about Lisa. She'd tried. She couldn't.

"One last trip?"

She sighed. "Okay, it's a deal. One last time."

Rosé's smile widened, and Jennie had a horrible feeling in the bottom of her stomach.

That Friday, Rosé picked her up and they drove down to the city. She didn't talk as much as her friend. Each time they'd set off like this, her stomach had knotted up. What if she was there? What if she didn't remember her? If she did, what would she say? She had planned her explanation a thousand times, wrote it down, threw it away, and told it to herself in the mirror. Her phone had been smashed. All her of data and numbers, gone. Simple, but it left a sour flavor behind.