DELICATE ★ JENLISA

Chapter 29

~Lisa~

Taking into consideration my level of confusion, I could only imagine what was going through Jen's head. I knew how much she missed her family, especially her sister, and now that it seemed there was hope she was alive, I was both happy and worried. I was happy because this meant that there was a chance for Jen to be happy again.

On the other hand, I was worried because I had no idea what was going on, and as high as my hopes were, I also had my doubts that Lilianna was still alive. As I drove back to Charles's house, I couldn't stop myself from continuously looking over at Jen and seeing the hope in her eyes. She already believed that her sister was alive even though we didn't know anything, and if it turned out that she wasn't, I knew it would crush her all over again.

When we pulled up to Charles's house, there was no stopping her. She moved faster than I'd ever seen her move, immediately entering the house and starting towards Cate. Something had shifted inside of her.

Cate seemed to want to speak but Jen didn't let her. "Don't talk," she said. "I don't want to hear you say anything except for whether or not my sister is alive."

Cate backed up against the kitchen cabinets, clearly intimidated by her adoptive daughter. She swallowed and nodded slowly. "She is."

I watched Jen from the side, seeing her expression flicker through a million different emotions before her legs gave out and she started to fall back. I was there before she could hit the ground. I held her, watching her come to it as her eyes opened and she looked up at me. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" Jen whispered, a gentle smile appearing on her face. "Am I okay..." she trailed off. "My little sister's alive Lisa."

I smiled at her, consciously aware of the fact that we weren't acting like I was her teacher and she was my student. I just hoped Cate wouldn't think much of it. I helped her stand up and then distanced myself, watching her attitude change again.

She stormed over to Cate. "Why the fuck would you let me go my entire life thinking that my sister died that night? Do you have a heart inside of there? Did you think I wouldn't want to know? What? What is it Cate?"

Cate's hand trembled as she tried to calm Jen down. "P-Please just let me explain."

Jen crossed her arms over her chest. "The floor's all yours."

"I... I don't know anything about Lilianna, okay? I know she's alive because she wasn't buried with your parents, but I don't know where she is or how she's alive. I've looked everywhere for her, I've asked your social worker--"

Jen took a step back and I watched even more hurt spread across her face. "Katherine knows that she's alive and she didn't tell me?"

"We... we didn't want to get your hopes up Jen. I can't find her and neither can Katherine and we've both been searching for ages. I know how much you're hurting and I knew that telling you your sister's alive only to remind you that there's no way you can get to her would crush you even more..."

I could see how much anger Jen was holding back as she stood there in the middle of the kitchen with her fists clenched. Finally, she broke and stormed towards the older woman. "How sick do you have to be to keep something like that from me? I deserved to know! I don't give a shit what you think you know about me, you don't! You don't know me at all! And you clearly don't care enough about me to tell the truth to the police, but you care enough to hide my sister from me? Fuck you, Cate!"

She lashed out at the blonde and I knew Cate probably deserved what she had coming to her, but I had to stop Jen anyway. I ran forward and pulled her waist back, having difficulty restraining her. It was a bad idea to let her hit Cate, and I had a strange suspicion that it might come to that. Jen flailed in my arms but I didn't let her go. "Fuck you Cate!" She pried at my hands, "Let go of me!"

I didn't release her until we were outside, and when she pushed away from me and her eyes met mine, it hurt. It hurt because she was looking at me like I had betrayed her too. I reached out to her but she pushed me away. "Don't touch me Lisa."

She sat on the front step and put her head in her hands. I could only imagine what she was going through. Something like this should've been good news, but finding out that the people around her had lied to her for so long was anything but that. I tentatively sat down next to her

"I'm sorry," I said, speaking softly. "But taking your anger out on Cate is not going to make you feel any better, believe me."

She just shook her head, too distraught to respond to me. I spoke again, "I know you're hurt and you have every right to be, but this is essentially good news, isn't it? Jen, your sister is alive. You can let yourself be happy about that."

"No," she denied, her voice tense. "I can't. If my social worker doesn't know where she is, how am I supposed to find her? She could be anywhere, and if she's in the system, that means she might be going through what I went through." She paused, sighing. "And if that's the case, I don't know if I should be happy that she's alive."

I frowned, thinking about her words. "Does that mean you're not happy you're alive?"

She looked at me, her expression broken. She stood up, walking towards my car. "That's a conversation for another day," she muttered, getting into the passenger seat. I let out a breath of air, pressing my thumbs to my temples. As if Jen needed anything else to worry about. I had no doubt now that she wouldn't be able to focus on anything but finding her sister, which certainly wasn't a bad thing, but it would drive her crazy if she couldn't find her. I knew that. I didn't agree with what Cate had done, far from it, but in a way, I could understand why she and Jen's social worker hadn't told her about her sister.

The car ride back to my apartment was eerily silent. I wanted to say something, anything, to make her feel better, but I had no idea what to say. Most of the time I was good with words, but Jen's overall situation was something I'd never seen or experienced before and it was difficult for me to help her through it. When we made it to the first floor of my building, we both saw June pacing back and forth in front of my door, reminding us that Lilianna was far from the only thing that Jen had to worry about.

"Where the hell have you two been? I must have called you each at least twenty times. This is serious, you two can't just ignore me when I'm trying to reach you."

Jen barely acknowledged him, taking the key out of my hand and pushing her way into my apartment. I sighed, "Chill June, she's going through a lot right now and we were clearly a little pre-occupied to answer our phones."

He narrowed his eyes. "One legal issue at a time Lisa, I can't hear about what you two are doing together to occupy your time when you're the key witness in her case. Ever heard of conflict of interest?"

"That's not what I meant by pre-occupied, June. We're not doing anything. Jen just found out that her little sister is alive, so for god sake, give her a few minutes to process before you start throwing the case on top of her."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Wow that's... news. That's good though, right? Why does she look so upset?"

"Too many reasons, not enough time. What do you need?"

"Well I have to talk to both of you. Charles's attorney requested a prelim and the judge set the date for tomorrow. Tomorrow. I needed to start prepping you guys hours ago."

I ran a hand over my face. "Shit," I muttered. "She is not in an okay state for anything else to be added onto to her plate. Why do you need her? Aren't I the one you need to prove that you have sufficient evidence?"

"Yes but I need her to testify as well, which means that Charles's attorney has the opportunity and will most definitely cross examine her. She needs to be ready for that."

I sighed. "Well prep me first, okay? Give her some time to think. Today's... the day her parents passed away. She's not doing well."

He softened, losing a bit of the intense lawyer attitude and nodding. "Okay. I'll try not to make today any worse for her."

"Thanks... come in, just give us a few minutes to talk."

He nodded and made his way to the kitchen, and since Jen wasn't there, I made my way to the bedroom. I found her on the edge of my bed with my laptop on her knees. She looked up. "Oh, um, I would've asked.. you were taking a while--"

"It's okay Jen, I don't mind."

I sat down next to her to see that she was on the Internet and her sister's name was typed into the search bar. "Just.. one quick question, how'd you get in?"

She rubbed the back of her neck, smiling coyly. "You might want to change your password." Her eyes met mine and despite how depressed she had seemed before, she laughed. I hadn't heard the sound in a while and it made me genuinely smile. "Tell me I didn't guess your password in three tries."

"It's not that obvious."

"Ark123," she laughed and rolled her eyes, "I didn't think you were one of those people."

"She made me! Besides Jen, I live alone and I don't take my laptop anywhere, I wasn't expecting anyone to break into it."

She smiled and shook her head, her eyes lighting up when she looked at me. "An eight year old made you. Okay, that's logical."

"You know said eight year old and she can be scary when she wants something."

"No doubt," she murmured, scrolling down on the touchpad. I bit my bottom lip and spoke, "What were your first two tries?"

She didn't look up but she smirked a little. "Well of course I tried Jen-is-insanely-hot but for some reason that didn't work."

I laughed a bit, eyeing her profile from the side. I was glad that she seemed less sad now because I remembered that June was in my kitchen and I knew I had to mention Charles. "Jen."

"Yeah," she muttered, her eyes moving back and forth as she read the words on whatever website she was on.

"The preliminary hearing for your case is set for tomorrow... June needs to prep you."

She exhaled heavily. "You forgot to ask if I wanted the good or bad news first."

I smiled, happy that she was still able to make jokes. "Sorry, my mind these days. I'm getting old."

The corners of her lips pulled upwards. "So what's the good news?"

"Well... it's Saturday which means you get to sleep here with me tonight?"

"That sounds like bad news to me," she muttered, smirking and eyeing me out of the corner of her eye. I nudged her shoulder, prompting her to chuckle. "Kidding."

I stood up and she mumbled, "Not."

I just rolled my eyes and left her to her search, finding June in the kitchen. "I'm not trying to be a martinet here but this is serious. If you're not ready for tomorrow, you could get in serious trouble. Charles's attorney will undoubtedly use the fact that you didn't report Jen's abuse to his advantage. We can work around it but I need time, time that you're not giving me. That was way more than a few minutes, Lisa."

"And it was well worth it because I got to hear her laugh for the first time in what feels like forever."

June gave me a soft smile. "I'm glad." He paused, eyeing me. "I'm pretty sure I'm correct in assuming, but I do need you to be one hundred percent honest with me when I ask you this because if there's a reason why I should be careful when examining you in court, you need to tell me. You're clearly not just her teacher, but are you two involved?"

I sighed. "Yes."

"Have you slept with her?"

I sat across from him, hardly meeting his eyes. "Yeah."

He let out a breath of air and muttered, "Shit."

"I know."

"That makes everything ten times more difficult, do you realize that? We're treading a very fine line here."

"Yes I realize that, June. I didn't plan on all of this happening after the fact. I didn't plan on ever seeing her again."

"It happened before she was your student," he said matter-of-factly.

I nodded slowly and he sighed. "Great, so she was even younger."

"I really appreciate you reminding me."

He made a gesture with his hands. "If you don't want to hear about it, you shouldn't have done it."

"Thanks Dad. I shouldn't have, you're right." I shook my head, glancing back at my bedroom as if I could see her from my seat in the kitchen.

"But I think for once I can say that I'm so glad I did."

****

"Attention?" Jen fumed, storming out of the court room and into the long hallway leading outside. "I want fucking attention? Are they serious?"

June tried to calm her down. "You and I both know that's not the truth Jen, but this is how court works. It's not about justice, it's about who can make a better case, and right now, we're both pretty even. I told you, Charles's attorney is good and he made a smart move."

"That makes me feel so much better about myself, thanks. Charles says the only reason I'm prosecuting him is because I want attention and you say he made a smart move. That's awesome."

June held his hands up in defense and was about to speak but I gave him a look that shut him up. I turned to Jen. "I know it's upsetting but you do have to understand that Charles's pleading not guilty and that means he'll do and say anything to get himself off the hook."

"I understand that, I'm just not okay with it."

"You kind of have to be," June said, looking off into the distance. I shoved him because I knew his words were going to pose a problem, and they did.

Jen narrowed her eyes. "You two both get an A plus for trying to make me feel better. Seriously."

June sighed. "Don't speak so soon. I have more bad news."

"Fun," Jen muttered sarcastically. "Hit me with it." She looked at me, "Get it? Cause Charles's abusive?"

"That's not funny Jen."

"I thought it was pretty funny." She looked back at June. "Are you going to tell me the bad news or what?"

He rubbed his neck. "Well Charles's not exactly a nobody. He owns a big business that a lot of people know about and you better believe that him getting arrested was on the local news. This case is going to be highly publicized and there's not much we can do about it."

"Oh good," she sighed. "Well you know me. I'm an attention seeker at heart so I guess this is good news."

June and I gave each other a look, both sighing. I spoke, stepping forward. "Jen..."

She shook her head, pushing past me. "Can we please just go?"

I nodded, looking at June to see if there was anything else he needed from her. He just shrugged. "It's a possibility that there's press outside waiting for both you and Charles. Just push through them, you're not required to answer, in fact, don't. We don't need you saying something you shouldn't."

"Yeah we wouldn't want that," Jen muttered in response. I sighed and hurried after her as she left the courthouse and pushed past a few reporters. June had been right, and I all of the sudden realized that Jen probably shouldn't be getting in the car with me. "Jen," I called after her, pulling her away from the reporters before she got into my car. "Um, ask June to give you a ride, okay?"

She looked around at the reporters and seemed to nod in understanding, though her mood deflated even more. It was obvious that she hated hiding whatever we had between us, and I had to admit, I did too. I really did. I wanted to be able to go out in public with her and bring her places that might cheer her up, but I couldn't do that. The only place I could think of that was both private, to a degree, and would probably be enjoyable to her was my dad's beach house. But I couldn't even take her there because it was way too far from where we lived and we both needed to be here for multiple reasons.

I watched Jen pull the hoodie she had in her bag over her body, lifting the hood so that she was less noticeable. "See you," she mumbled, giving me a brief nod. I sighed but got in my car and made sure she was with June before driving back to my place. As soon as June dropped her off, she headed straight to my laptop.

I hadn't exactly expected her to do anything else.

I knew that I had to make my lesson plans but I didn't want to make her turn the laptop over so I made do with paper and pen until she took a break as the afternoon passed by. I made her something to eat for dinner but when I came back into the room around eight, it was untouched and she was still hunched over on my couch with her eyes glued my laptop.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair and walking over to her, sitting down and gently prying the laptop from her hands. "Jen," I whispered. "I know you want to find your sister. I do. But you can't just drop everything. You have to eat."

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to do," she muttered. "Come on, please let me have it back."

I eyed her, exhaling and setting it down on the other side of me. I scooted closer to her. "Jen, wherever she is, she's not going anywhere. You have time to find her."

"She could be in a really bad home right now Lisa," she said, shaking her head. "I'm supposed to just let it go and take my time finding her?"

I shook my head, putting my hand over top of hers. "No, of course you should do everything you can, but I think we both know that even if she's in a bad home, there's not a whole lot you can do to get her out of it." I sighed. "My point is that you should take a break. Eat, let your eyes rest."

She met my eyes for a while before sighing and loosening up. "I guess you're right. It's just, I have this feeling of extreme happiness like I've never felt before, but it's being weighed down by the fact that I can't actually see Lilianna. I just want the happiness to... break through, you know?"

I smiled, nodding. "Yeah, I get it. It will. You'll find her Jen."

"I hope so." She fell silent for a few moments, before she looked over at me. "I do need a break. Can you take my mind off of things?"

I raised an eyebrow. "How exactly do you want me to do that?"

"I have a couple ideas, though you may or may not have shut down my first idea a couple of days ago," she teased, a hint of a smile on her face. "Do you want to watch a movie?"

"Sure," I responded, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. "What movie?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, you pick. I don't watch movies. The last one I watched was on Halloween with you."

"Okay so let's rule horror out," I began. She muffled her laugh and nodded. "Sure, wouldn't want to make you piss your pants again."

"Funny joke," I muttered, turning on the tv and scrolling through the options.

"It wasn't a joke but thanks."

I eyed her and settled on a movie I had never watched before so it was new for the both of us. Sometime through the movie she had moved so that her head was on my shoulder, though her eyes were glued to the screen. It was times like these that I had to make the most of because they almost had me convinced that we could be normal. We weren't a couple but it was reassuring to know that we could do something like this together without it being weird.

We hadn't reached the end when she shifted, whispering, "You kind of suck at choosing interesting movies."

This time I rolled my eyes. "It looked good."

"Well I'm bored and I can tell you are too."

I laughed, "There's certainly no holding back when it comes to you, is there? What if this was my favorite movie? Maybe I'm offended."

"If this is your favorite movie, I need to think about finding a different teacher to have a fling with behind closed doors."

I turned and met her eyes, trying to wrap my head around what she had just said. Something told me it came from earlier today when I had asked her to ride with June. I spoke, trying my best not to seem hurt. "Is that what this is?"

"What?"

"A fling?"

She held herself back from speaking immediately, forcing me to keep my eyes on her. "Well isn't it?"

I searched her eyes. "I certainly hope not." She said nothing in response and I lifted her chin up. "I know that I upset you earlier today."

She shook her head. "No.. it's.. fine, you have to look out for yourself."

"Yes, I do, and.. I'm sorry I can't act like... like we're together.. but that doesn't mean I can't tell you how I feel."

Her eyes snapped to mine. "How do you feel?"

I hesitated. She was so much more than a fling to me, but for some damn reason, I couldn't bring myself to say what I wanted to say. "I... feel.. happier than I have in... forever, because of you."

She simply nodded and smiled a bit. "Good to know." She picked my laptop up off the table. "I should get back to it."

I sighed. "Jen, please, you're going to drive yourself crazy. You've been staring at that screen since we got back from the courthouse."

"Yeah well I haven't found anything about my sister yet so I clearly haven't been staring at it for long enough."

"I think you have and you asked me to take your mind off of things, remember?"

"You didn't do a very good job of that."

"The movie didn't," I said, "I know I could do a much better job."

Her lips twitched upwards and her head turned, curiosity filling her eyes. "Why don't we find out?"

I smirked, biting my lip. I pressed my thumb to her stomach. "Does this hurt?"

"No."

"Are you lying to me?"

"No."

I nodded slowly, my mind reeling. I had wanted her for what felt like such a long time and I didn't know when we were going to get a better opportunity to take things farther. Between preparing for court with June, making it to her group home in time, and now finding her sister, I knew we wouldn't exactly be presented with many.

I pulled her up from the couch. "Then let's go find out."

She placed her hands on my hips, looking up to meet my eyes. I wanted her to kiss me because I knew I was ready to do what we had done the first night we met, but I didn't know if she was. She seemed to be in an overall worse state than ever and I didn't want our second time to be now if she wasn't in the right state of mind, but when her lips met mine, my worry melted away. She guided me towards my bedroom, our feet not stopping until the backs of my knees were hitting my bed and I was falling back.

I had been slow with her on the night that she made her statement, but something in me wouldn't allow that this time. When she kissed me, she ignited a fire that I had a ridiculously hard time putting out. It wasn't just a want, I needed to experience all of her again and I didn't want to take my time. I flipped her over, letting myself hover over her hips as I brought my own shirt over my head. Her eyes took me in completely as I leaned back down, capturing her lips between mine. I couldn't help but get carried away as I pressed one of her wrists against the mattress above her, trailing light kisses down her neck and letting my other hand move up her thigh.

But she wasn't with me.

I could tell there was something wrong, and she only confirmed my suspicion when she whispered, "Stop.."

I opened my eyes and I saw that she was an absolute wreck. She wriggled out of my grasp and moved towards the foot of the bed, trying to catch her breath. She was clutching her head, shaking.

"Jen...?"

I reached forward and touched her shoulder but she pulled away, standing up. My heart all but fell out of my chest. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Charles."

I realized what was happening as soon as she said his name. I had triggered something inside of her to make her feel the way that she did when he put his hands on her. When she stopped shaking, her expression contorted into anger and she kicked her bag across the room. She sat down on the edge of the bed, exhaling. I scooted forward. "Hey it's okay..."

"It's not okay!" she shouted. "He's everywhere and now you can't even touch me without him showing up in my mind!" She shook her head, whispering, "I am so... done..."

I felt absolutely helpless because I knew that deep down, there was nothing I could say to make this better. She wasn't dealing with Charles physically anymore but she was mentally, and that was something that she needed to overcome. There was something utterly soul-crushing about not being able to help someone that I cared so much about.

I wanted desperately to somehow make her okay, but I didn't know how to do that. I couldn't hold her, I couldn't kiss her, and I couldn't say anything to make her feel any better.

So we sat there, me in the middle of my bed feeling helpless, her on the edge of my bed with her head in her hands.

Charles was the demon inside of her head that needed to go, except neither of us knew how to go about getting him out. We were stuck, and I was convinced that we would always be stuck.

But regardless of where Jen and I ended up, I knew that Charles needed to pay for what he had done to her.

June had to win this case.