DELICATE ★ JENLISA

Chapter 25

Lisa

Going to work had become incredibly difficult. Thoughts of Jen kept me too distracted to do anything really, much less teach. She seemed to be getting sadder and sadder as the days passed and it felt terrible to just stand by and watch. I kept telling myself there was something I could to do help, but I just didn't know what.

As usual, I tried to pay attention to the student talking in front of me but my eyes never failed to wander off. Jen was sitting in her normal seat in the back, slumped over so that her hair was covering her face, and I couldn't help but to try and figure out if she was doing it on purpose. I looked up at Kristen. "Uh, I'm sorry, what was your question again?"

She put her hand on her hip. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Yes Kristen," I sighed. "What do you need?"

She went off on a rant about the assignment and I almost immediately tuned out again. To be fair, I wasn't even entirely sure what I assigned. I was so out of it today. I had one single thought running through my mind, and it was the question of whether or not Charles had laid a hand on Jen yet. It didn't matter how pissed off at her I was, I still couldn't stop thinking about it.

The bell rang and Kristen groaned, picking up her bag and walking out the door with a less than helpful response from me. I stared at Jen, trying to notice any imperfections. It wouldn't have been hard; I had spent the last two months in my apartment admiring her features, at this point I would notice anything out of place.

She didn't look to be in pain and I couldn't spot any visible bruises, but I knew that she was smart, or dumb, enough to cover up anything that Charles left on her body. She stood up, slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking beside Jisoo to the front of the room. I could tell she was struggling with whether or not to look up, and when our eyes met, it made everything ten times worse.

She immediately looked away and walked out of the room. I stood up mindlessly and headed towards the door as well even though I didn't have a fourth period class. I watched her stop at Jisoo's locker farther down the hallway, both of them speaking briefly. I couldn't hear her very well but after a few moments, her attitude shifted and her voice raised.

"No, I can't go, just stop asking me Jisoo! And do me a favor, please, and tell Cara that's she cool but... it's just not going to work out."

With that, she turned away from Jisoo and all but ran in my direction, whether purposefully or not. She met my eyes one more time, painfully might I add, before disappearing around the corner. My heart fell out of my chest when I realized what she was doing. She was distancing herself from the few friends that she did have because of what had happened between Charles and I. She was scared that Jisoo and Cara would get hurt too.

I was almost sure of it, and it made me feel sick.

It made me feel sick because she didn't deserve to be scared of her friends getting hurt. She deserved to have those people in her life that she could count on, and a loving family, and a safe home. It didn't matter how pissed off at her I was, I knew that she had a raw deal and I hated the fact that she didn't have any of those things anymore.

When my last class ended, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I wouldn't see Jen again until tomorrow and I needed to get her out of my head because she was all that I could think about and it was killing me. I couldn't go back to my apartment because I knew the silence would remind me of how empty I felt inside, and I didn't want to fall into the state that I had been in after my mom passed.

Instead, I went to the gym. All I really wanted to do was box with Tomas but I couldn't do that. If I wanted to take out some real frustration, I needed Tomas to fight back, and I couldn't go into work tomorrow with a split lip or anything of the sort.

So I ran. I ran until I felt my knees buckling underneath me, until the sweat was literally dripping off of my face, until all thoughts regarding Jen had completely escaped my mind. I ran in a way that I hadn't in such a long time and it brought me back a few years. Instead of thinking about her, I thought about high school.

I thought about how simple my life used to be.

I wasn't sure what lap I was on when I stopped, bending over and putting my hands on my knees. I felt a hand on my shoulder after a few moments and I looked to my right to see the tall drink of arrogance that I'd been sleeping with for far too long. He raised an eyebrow. "Is it your intention to run until you puke?"

I picked his hand up off of my shoulder and let it drop by his side. "My intention was to block out anything and everything around me, including you. If you'll excuse me."

He slid in front of me, sighing. "Come on Lisa, you're still mad at me?"

"I'm not mad, Jackson, you just annoy me."

"Why?"

"Maybe because your ego is bigger than Kanye's, and that's saying something."

"It's not that big."

"You are literally unable to wrap your head around that fact that I don't want to have sex with you, to the point where it's a little sad, Jackson."

He ran a hand through his hair. "That has nothing to do with my ego, that has more do to with the fact that we've been sleeping together for a long time and all of the sudden you don't want to anymore out of no where? I'd just like to know why."

"Cause you're annoying," I said, rolling my eyes and pushing past him. I was a mess after running for so long; I was sweating, my hair was falling out of my ponytail, my clothes were clinging to my body, and all I wanted in that moment was a hot shower. But Jackson had other plans.

"Hey, wait up," he called, jogging after me. "I'm sorry, you're right, I've been a little.." Jackson smirked. "Well, I've been a little bit more of myself. I can filter myself again if you'd like."

"No need," I responded. "I have to go."

"Now wait a minute, I came over here for a reason, you know. You near ran yourself to death just now. What's going on?"

"Since when do you want to talk?"

"Since I'm not allowed to strip you and not talk anymore. We were friends first, remember? Besides, Ella's out of town so I'm the only one you can talk to about whatever's on your mind."

"There's that ego again."

He shook his head. "That's not my ego, that's the truth. Lisa, come on, what's up?"

I sighed. "Nothing I want to talk to you about, Jack."

He nodded. "Fine, I get that, but I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. Come get a drink with me tonight."

"It's Monday."

"So?"

"So I have to work tomorrow."

"I'm not asking you to come get wasted with me, Lisa. One drink, and if you don't want to talk about whatever's going on in your head right now, we don't have to."

I gestured to my body but he stepped forward. "And before you make excuses, I don't mind waiting for you to shower and I know you have other clothes in that bag of yours. Come on Lisa, one drink."

I sighed.

"Fine."

****

Being in a bar suddenly felt like such a disgusting thing. It reminded me of all the things I didn't want to think about. It reminded me of the night Jen and I met. It reminded me of all the other times she'd probably been in a bar to drink and fuck and forget about the problems in her life. I couldn't even bring myself to buy a beer because that bottle meant something different to me than it did to her. For me that beer bottle resembled a little under ten years of partying and letting lose and having fun. For her it was an escape from the pain and the abuse and the grief she felt for her family.

That made me sick.

Jackson talked a lot while I sipped my glass of water and thought. He knew I wasn't paying very close attention but in some weird way it did help, and I think he knew me well enough to assume that.

"Something weird happened the other day," he said. "We couldn't identify the body of this one victim, assault, I think, so we sent it off to the lab. And I had this thought, that, I don't know, you'd still be there, and you'd ID the girl, and you'd tell me first and I'd finally win my boss over...."

Jackson's voice seemed to fade away. I heard two words; that was it. Victim. Assault. Those two simple words hadn't meant much to me just a few years ago. I'd hear them and think: another body to ID, another long day at work. It wasn't about them. It wasn't about how they had died, or who they had been before their heart stopped. What they had done, or who they'd made an impact on.

It was just a job.

Jen placed an entirely new meaning to those two words. It should've already meant something to me. I stared at new lifeless faces every day for a year and somehow it didn't bother me until it Jenme personal, until my mom died. That's how the world works, isn't it? Nobody gives a shit until it affects them.

"Lisa, you alright?"

I shook my head, my hand in my hair. I felt horrible. Suddenly all of my emotions had completely taken over me. For a minute, I felt like I was part of the reason that Jen was home with Charles now. That I contributed to the fact that people like Jen, innocent fucking people, got hurt.

My inner maniac then switched sides. Jen left. I did everything I could to stop her from going, and she left. If she got hurt, it wasn't my fault. I had tried.

I ran my hand up the length of my face, my thumbs pressing into my skin. I was driving myself crazy, all because of something so utterly meaningless that Jackson had said. But the word victim did mean something to me, I realized. All I could think of was Jen. Of what she'd been through, what she had yet to go through. And all of that, every part of her, meant something to me.

"Jack," I finally whispered, "I am anything but alright."

He stared for a moment, then moved forward. I almost, for a split second, expected him to kiss me. He didn't, simply wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into a hug. "I don't know what's going on, Lisa, but if you want to talk about it, we can."

I wrapped my arms around his neck. "I don't," I whispered, "I just—"

My voice fell flat. Without Jackson in my line of vision, my eyes had the gracious opportunity of landing on her. Jen sat there, a beer in her right hand, four empty ones next to her. She finished it, then called for another, and while I sensed the bartender was hesitant, he brought her one anyway. Sadness overwhelmed me for a few seconds. She'd gone back to drowning out the pain in alcohol. God, I thought, had he hurt her already? It'd barely been two weeks.

I guess that was enough for him.

I pulled back from Jackson, debating on whether or not to stay put or talk to her. I watched a woman, a little taller than her, brown hair, red lipstick, short skirt, walk over and slip into the adjacent seat. The sadness quickly vanished as I watched the two speak for a minute. The woman disappeared, then came back a few moments later like she was suddenly ready to go. She stood behind Jen, running her hands down both of her arms and whispering into her ear. My grip on my own beer tightened so much that I thought I'd break the glass. Jackson must've thought so too because he quickly pried it from my hands and stared at me like I'd suddenly lost my mind.

Jen had her head tilted down, so I couldn't quite see her face or what she was feeling. All I knew was that she was drunk. I watched the woman's lips move from Jen's ear to the back of her neck and I heard her say, "No thanks... really not feeling it." But the woman didn't budge; instead she continued placing kisses across Jen's neck until she'd turned her around and found her lips. Jen hesitated. She just sat there for a while as the woman kissed her. Then something shifted. She kissed her back.

"Lisa," Jackson said, watching Jen. "I think we should go." He tugged on my arm. "Come on, we can go back to your place and watch those boring ass science documentaries you like—"

I shook him off of me. "I'm not going anywhere."

Jen set her beer down, her hands running through the woman's hair. She took money out of her wallet and threw it on the counter, sending pain straight through my heart. Myself and all the other women she'd probably slept with were exactly the fucking same. I suddenly felt so stupid for believing that I meant something to her. She used me to get rid of her pain and then I forced her to stay in my apartment. I forced her to; otherwise she'd have been long gone. She'd probably have dropped my class and never looked back.

I meant absolutely nothing. How could I possibly think otherwise?

Jen and the other woman stood and started towards the door. I started to get up too, but Jackson held me back. "You'll regret it."

"I probably will," I said. "But I can't just let her leave."

"She doesn't belong to you, Lisa. If she wants to go home with that woman, she's fully entitled to."

I whirled around and watched Jackson's eyes flood with the knowledge of what was about to come. He'd just sparked something inside of me, and now my desire to stop her from leaving was a thousand times worse. "She is not entitled to! I don't care if we're not dating, she's not! You don't understand Jackson. You just don't."

"I do Lisa." He sighed. "It's like how I felt you and I were exclusive when we weren't, and deep down I knew that I couldn't fault you for sleeping with other people because you weren't doing anything wrong. She's not either, and it's not up to you to decide who she sleeps with."

I watched Jen trip a couple of times on her way towards the door and shook my head. "If she was sober, then maybe it'd be a different story. But I'm not gonna sit here and watch that woman take advantage of her."

I ran towards the door and out into the parking lot, where I saw Jen stumbling towards the woman's car. I doubted she'd ever gotten this drunk before. The pain seemed worse than ever, and I considered for a moment that I had something to do with that. The thought gave me enough courage to run over and grab her arm, pulling her towards me.

"Is this fun for you, Jen?" She slowly turned around, her eyes gradually meeting mine. "Doing the same thing over and over? You left me for my own good, yet here you are doing the same thing with someone else? I don't get it."

"There's nothing to get," she said tiredly. "This is my life. My mind isn't something for you to figure out. I do what the fuck I want and surprise, right now? What I want isn't you. Just go home Lisa."

I took a step back, hurt. It was so damn easy for her to hurt me, I realized. So damn easy. She'd probably never understand the power that she had over me. "You can honestly tell me that what you want is her?"

The woman put her hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes. "Well she's going home with me, isn't she? Jealousy's a bitch, honey, but it's certainly no way to get a girl back." Her arms snaked around Jen's waist. "Can we go?" She looked at me. "Somethin tells me you don't want to deal with this."

Jen nodded, slowly turning away from me. I stopped her again, this time pulling her closer. Her eyes locked into mine, and I barely breathed. "Do you even care how much you're hurting me?"

My question seemed to sober her a bit. "Hurting you? You don't care. All you ever do is push me away."

"How could you ever think I don't care after..." My voiced seemed to die. "Jen... I told you about my mom."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh boo hoo." I forced myself not to care; she was beyond drunk. If she was sober, none of this would be happening right now, and she certainly wouldn't have rolled her eyes. "Give me a fucking break. I told you about my mom. And my dad. And my baby sister. Four months ago."

"So what?" I practically screamed. My heart felt so heavy and the tears were digging knives into my eyes, begging to be set free. Jen stared at me for a moment, before stepping forward and placing a hand on my chest. "Please.. just go." She pushed. "I left for a reason."

She turned and guided the woman towards the car. "Because you didn't want anyone to get hurt!" I shouted after her, "so what the fuck are you doing now?"
For a moment, she stopped completely. I watched her fists tighten, and heard her release a heavy breath. As soon as I was sure she still planned on getting in that car, I did something that I probably shouldn't have.

"She's not twenty-one," I said loud enough for the woman to hear. "She's seventeen. She's a liar."

The woman stopped cold in her tracks, one hand on the door handle of her car. She looked over at Jen. "Is that true?"

Jen stared at her, then groaned, kicking the pebbles beside her feet in frustration. "Well go on. Just leave already. But don't kid yourself; you never believed I was twenty one anyway."

She stepped away from the car, towards me, and watched the woman process what she'd said. Eventually she got in her car and drove away, probably annoyed with the realization that what Jen had said was true. I think even some part of me knew she was lying that night. There was just that something about her... with those sparkling eyes and that smirk of hers, she could convince anyone to do anything.

Jen started laughing then, breaking my train of thought. Really laughing, like someone had just told the funniest joke in the world. "Do you realize," she said, still chuckling, "that you're the biggest hypocrite I think I've ever met?" When I didn't respond, she said, "If I ever did something like this to you, do you know what you'd do? You wouldn't talk to me for fucking months. Months, Lisa. I want you to think about that for me. Just for a second." She laughed again. "Sort of a funny thing, isn't it?"

Deep down I knew she was right, but I still tried to hold onto the belief that what I had done was somehow justified, even though I knew it wasn't. "Are you going to let me take you home or not?"

"Do I really have a choice?" she answered.

"No, Jen. Don't make me drag you."

She smirked. "You're gonna drag me, huh?"

"Yeah, I will if I have to."

We stood there in a stand-off sort of position, my arms folded across my chest while Jen stood across from me with her hand on her hip, amused. "Aren't you pissed at me or something?"

"Yeah. I'm infuriated," I said. "I still want to know you get home safely."

"What difference does it make anyway when home's not safe?"

I sighed. I felt every inch of distance between us. Your home is with me, I thought. And it is safe. But I didn't say it, because I was mad at her and she was drunk nonetheless. I doubted she'd even remember tonight.

"Can we just go, please?"

"You're gonna have to drag me," she said, smiling. I rolled my eyes and started towards her, but she only continued to back up until she was pressed against the hood of someone else's car. We stayed like that for a while, fighting with each other, her giggling the whole time like it was some big joke. After a while I finally got her wrists pinned down against the hood. She raised her eyebrows. "So you got me. What now?"

"Stop fighting me, Jen."

She lifted her face a little, her eyes twinkling in the reflection of the lamplight. I knew if it came down to that, I could just pick her up by her legs, throw her over my shoulder and take her home. But something stopped me from moving at all. My grip on her wrists loosened and she smiled, bringing her hands up to my face. "You're so beautiful you know," she whispered. "I can't get over how gorgeous you are. When I look at you I swear it's like..."

"Stop talking..." I whispered back, cutting her off. "You're drunk..."

"Not really, and besides that wouldn't make it any less true." She caressed my face, tucking my hair behind my ear. "You care too much Lisa."

"I care the right amount. You won't take care of yourself, Jen. Somebody's got to."

She rolled her eyes but said nothing. We stared at each other for what felt like— I don't know, seconds? Minutes? Hours? I lifted my body off of hers at some point, tried pulling her toward my car, but she pulled me back on top of her and kissed me. I practically melted. I felt a few pieces of my heart begin to glue back together, as if a single kiss from her was all it took to fix the unexplainable pain she'd put me through just hours before.

After a few moments I remembered she was drunk, and I felt my heart sink. I still didn't pull away, but I didn't let her hands anywhere besides my hips. I felt my lips trembling as she kissed me. I knew then I'd never be able to deny how I felt about her. She made me feel something that I never had with anyone else, not even my first love. There was just something so utterly irresistible about her to me. I felt bad for kissing her like this when she wasn't in the right mindset to stop, but I just couldn't pull away. She sucked on my bottom lip a little, smiling into my mouth. When she pulled back, she had this look of absolute bliss on her face.

"You're kind of good at that," she whispered.

I thought then of all the nights that Peter and I had stayed in together. My mind wandered to my high school boyfriend and my college girlfriends. All of the relationships I'd ever had, even the most serious of them all, revolved around sex. I suddenly felt so gross, like my skin was dirty and no amount of scrubbing could get the filth off. Jen was innocent. She'd been in bars and she'd probably been with other women but I didn't think it was anything like I'd done in my life. Peter had manipulated me throughout almost our entire relationship, and after him I'd let myself grow cold. I began manipulating people. Those were things I could never take back.

I looked down in shame. "I've had practice," I muttered.

Her brow tightened. "You're ashamed of that or something?"

"Let's just go home, Jen," I whispered. Damnit. Suddenly I regretted ever having said anything to her that night. I should have just let her go with that woman. Fuck her problems away, because it was easier on the both of us. She wouldn't have remembered it anyway, so what difference would it have made?

"You shouldn't ever be ashamed of where you've been," she hummed, stroking my arm with her fingers. She laced ours together, and started towards my car. "C'mon. You can bring me back to Charles's."

I sighed, knowing that was my only real option because I couldn't betray her trust and if I brought her back to my apartment, she'd only run back to Charles's the next day. The car ride was silent but peaceful. Every now and then I glanced at Jen, who was staring out the window with this dazed look in her eyes. Then I'd look at our hands, which lied intertwined in her lap, and get this feeling that everything was right. This was how it should be.

Eventually I pulled up to Charles's house and got out to help Jen out of the car. She'd fallen asleep during the ride, so I guided her arms around my neck and carried her into the house. Her eyes, innocent as ever, opened the second I set her down on her bed.

"Sorry," I whispered, "I tried my best not to wake you."

"I wasn't asleep," she said, "I just pretended so you'd hold me."

I smiled a little and pressed my lips to her forehead. I was still beyond pissed at her for leaving, and I was sure those feelings would intensify again when the heat of the moment passed, but in that moment treasuring potentially the last few moments I had with her outside of school was all that mattered to me.

I started to pull away but she didn't let me, pulling my face back down until our lips met once again. It was slow and torturous, and when I ended the kiss I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

"I just want you to be safe..."

"Me too Lisa, but the world works in mysterious ways and for some reason it really wants the opposite for me." I realized then she was sobering up, or maybe she hadn't really been that drunk at all. "But it's got nothing against you, and I'm not gonna be the reason that changes."

"Why do you care so much about my safety when you don't even care about your own?"

"You know I... I couldn't kiss that woman back there until I'd convinced myself she was you." I just looked at her, confused what point she was trying to make. She just laughed a little. "For such an intelligent woman, you can be pretty dumb sometimes." Then she took my hand and placing it over her heart. "Do you feel that? No one's ever made my heart beat like that before. I'm not gonna let the one person who has get hurt because of me."

I felt my own heart flooding with warmth. I knew if I stayed any longer it'd be too hard to leave, so I pressed my lips to hers one more time and then started to get up. Her hand shot out and held me in place. "Please..." she said, "just stay till I fall asleep. I'm sorry I left but please don't do the same to me..."

I could practically hear the desperation in her voice and it killed me, so I momentarily let go of my anger and got back into her bed, wrapping my arms around her body. Her back rested against my chest, and her head fit so perfectly into the space under my neck that for just one moment, before I reminded myself of all the impossible obstacles in our way, I was convinced we were meant to be.