Midnights In Paris | Jenlisa

Qui n'avance pas, recule

"Qui n'avance pas, recule" is a truth that none can counter. It is translated as "Who does not move forward, recedes".

Jennie woke up to a cold bed. That, was the exact reason she had dreaded falling asleep the night prior, too scared to take her eyes off of Lisa's half lidded ones and her dirty-blonde bangs on her face.

She would be lying if she said she didn't expect this. Actually, she would be surprised by the opposite: waking up to a cheery Lisa kissing her eyelids and the lobes of her ears, giggling as she would try to playfully push her away.

At the same time she knew she wasn't kidding anyone, not even herself. Whatever hormone induced delusion was playing in her head, had never been them. Not even their golden days had looked like that. And it had always been her fault. She had always been the one to push Lisa away. Actually, she had been the one to push so hard that Lisa finally got the message.

She was a ruiner and there was no changing that.

She pushed her legs off the bed, one after the other, unconsciously looking for her loafers. After not finding them, she reminded herself the exact reason she had been too busy the prior night to put them by her bed. A sudden blow to her stomach made her dizzy as she tried to regain her stance.

She groaned mentally as her feet came in contact with the cold floor, while her ears hopelessly tried to capture on any noise, anything that would indicate that she wasn't alone.

As she made her way through the hallway that separated her from the living room, where she could already see the sun rising up in the sky, she knew that she had been right. That first thought that had crossed her mind that morning, that had slowly planted its roots  deep inside her, had revealed itself to be true.

Lisa had left.

My J,
I've written dozens, if not hundreds, of letters.
Ones where I blamed you, ones where I blamed myself. Even ones where I blamed Love.
I can't ask you to change, because then I'd have to change myself, too.
At the same time I can't seem to quit you.
Because who am I if not in love with you?

I wrote this letter a few weeks after you left. I don't know why I always carry it with me. It's not like I ever thought you would read it. To be honest, I didn't think you would care enough to.
Even now, as I'm writing this and you're lying naked on your bed, I'm not sure whether it's still the case or if I'll ever find out.

You confuse me. You've confused me for all the time we've spent together; so much that, sometimes, I feel like I've been chasing after a ghost. I'm never sure whether I just made you up, if you're just a sick twist of my imagination or a drug induced hallucination.
I'm not going to say that last night was a mistake. A mistake, you make without being aware of the consequences. But I am conscious of all that will happen, in the same way I am of all the events that lead to this.

And now, I can say that I can't do that again. I will not live what you put me through again.
As you once told me, qui n'avance pas, recule and I can't recede again.
                                                L

It hadn't been the most obvious of places to leave a goodbye note. If anything, it looked like it wasn't meant to be found if not by mistake, while mindlessly scrolling through old vinyls and strolling down memory lane.

Maybe that was exactly how Lisa had wanted her to find it, days, months or even years after she had picked up her clothes from the floor of Jennie's bedroom while she was sleeping.