our gentle sin

not beyond repair

12.

JENNIE POV

As the hours inched closer to when Lisa would be coming on Tuesday, I was a lot more nervous than usual. I couldn't deny the energy between us had shifted and I couldn't ignore it either. It seemed Lisa could though.

She arrived happy as ever and greeted me as if these past two weeks hadn't even happened. If she could move past it, I decided I could too, or I could at least try to. Besides, it wasn't as if I was uninformed about Lisa's lifestyle; Irene had made it clear to me when she had asked me to guide Lisa. But now that I had grown closer to Lisa, and I had seen it with my own eyes, everything was in the open and it was affecting me differently.

It wasn't even her views on religion, although that had confused me too. I didn't want to think too much about what she had said because it muddled my head up. Besides, I was mostly thinking about the other thing. Whenever I looked at Lisa, I couldn't help but picture her with Mina and that disgruntled me to the point where I was irritated by everything that came out of Lisa's mouth. So I kept quiet, similar to how I was when we first met, which was torture because all I truly wanted was to be close to her again.

Feeling conflicted in the worst way, I sat across from Lisa at a diner. It was our go-to food place every day we spent together. Memories of us laughing together as she tried to balance a fork on her upper lip, which attracted stern glares from waiters when it clattered to the floor came to mind.

She was nervous now and had been since we had been sitting down together, though she was trying not to show it. I couldn't blame her, I was making it awkward by being timid. It didn't give her much room to pursue the conversation and the little small talk she did make I brushed off with effortless answers.

I felt awful, I was watching her face fall more and more with each rejection she received from me, but at the same time, I couldn't help it. It was as if I wasn't in control of my own body. Each time I attempted to reciprocate her efforts, the image of her kissing her girlfriend forced its way back into my mind, reminding me of how much she had hurt me.

I could admit it was strange. Lisa had told me herself that she wasn't the most virtuous Christian. She had even admitted that she sometimes took it too far when partying. And now she had even told me she was doubting Christianity altogether. But it seemed all other sins were meaningless in the face of her kissing someone-- kissing a girl.

Then I tried to imagine her kissing a boy, to see if that would make me feel better, but I was met with the same sick feeling in my stomach and was more confused than ever.

"Hey?" Lisa waved her hand in front of my face, pulling me from my thoughts before I could let them run away with me even further.

"Hmm?"

"Are you okay? You were just staring at me."

"Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out."

"Oh," I could hear the disappointment in her voice. "Do you want to go home?""Honestly, yes. I'm not feeling too good." It wasn't the response she wanted, but I feared if I sat there any longer, I would just continue to hurt her as well as myself.

"Okay, that's cool," she looked at her phone. "It's getting kind of close to your time back, anyway."

She was lying, it was only 16:00 and we usually cut it close to the time I was supposed to be home. But I didn't comment on it, instead just walking side by side with her to the bus stop. She didn't reach for my hand anymore, not since everything happened. I'm glad because although I wanted to hold it, it just didn't feel right anymore; not when I knew that Mina held it too, and when Lisa held Mina's hand it meant something different to her than when she held my hand.

The bus ride home was silent, I think Lisa had given up, and it wasn't fair of me but I didn't want her to. My emotions were all over the place. On one hand, I wanted things to go back to normal, on the other I didn't want to see her ever again. I knew I had to figure this out before it all piled up and one of us exploded.

"Hey, listen," Lisa spoke as we got off the bus, "I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do, so if you want to stop seeing me, then that's fine."

There was around a ten-minute time frame from where we were to the Church. If I said yes to Lisa now, this could potentially be the last ten minutes we ever spent together. And suddenly that seemed a lot worse than seeing her and picturing her with someone else.

"No it's not that--" I took a deep breath. "Listen, clearly our friendship isn't the same because of... you know..." Honestly, I wasn't sure if she knew, she could take that as her being gay or her not believing in Christianity, but really seemed to just be the fact that she was dating Mina. I felt slightly uneasy about her knowing this and figured there was no harm in keeping it to myself. "But I think we can get back on track. You just have to give me some time."

"Okay, so by give you time, do you mean not see you until you're ready?"

"No, I still want to see you. You're still the best part of my week." She grinned at me, self-approvingly, and I unconsciously gave her a small smile. "Don't let it go to your head; you know my schedule."

"Listen, I'm the best part of your week, you said it yourself. I don't need to know much more than that," she teased playfully.

"Whatever." I rolled my eyes at her and bit back a grin.

"Okay, so I'll still take you out and we'll work on it from there."

"Exactly."

She turned her head to the ground and I thought that was the end of our interaction until I was gently shoved sideways, courtesy of Lisa pushing my shoulder with her own. Something she thought was hilarious as she giggled at me.

"Hey!" I returned her shove with an even harder one, so she stumbled and almost lost her balance. She wasn't laughing now but I was. She regained her balance and smiled at me, filling me with that familiar warmth, and I knew we were going to fix our friendship.

Maybe I could forget all about Mina and just pretend Lisa wasn't dating anyone or even involved with anyone else. We didn't even spend much time talking about Lisa's regular friends anyway, so maybe we could go back to the way things were and pretend that day in the mall never happened and that Lisa didn't have an entire other life outside of me.

I knew I was lying to myself. There was no way I could forget. I spend a lot of time thinking about Lisa. I hate to admit it, but I was probably thinking about her all the time. But since that kiss, it had been different.

I didn't just think of Lisa anymore, I thought of Lisa with Mina. When she wasn't with me, was she with Mina? When I was doing my evening prayer, was Lisa spending her time kissing Mina and not sparing me a second thought?

That disgusted me, and this disgust was enough to reassure me of my faith. Surely something that disgusted me that much must be sinful, right?

I hated it. I hated the thought. I didn't want Lisa to spend time with anyone else, let alone kiss them. At this point in time, Lisa was the closest person to me, but it was clear that this was one-sided. But I didn't want it to change on my side, I just wanted to be as important to Lisa as she was to me; it was awful to know that she didn't think of me as much as I thought of her.

All I could do was give it time. I wanted Lisa in my life and I couldn't force her to think of me as I thought of her. That meant I just had to take what I got and hope in the future Lisa would see me as her best friend who wants the best for her rather than someone who wanted to take away her happiness. I think I cared too much about Lisa for me to risk that happening, even if it did go against my religious duty. Irene didn't have to know anything for now. It would all sort itself out eventually.