touched by stars -chaennie

Chapter 4: Loss

The plus side to your newfound friendship with Jennie is that you don’t have to be a constant third wheel anymore. If being in your room got exhausting with Lisa and Jisoo loved up on Jisoo’s side, you could call Jennie and she’d meet you in the library. There you’d just sit across from each other and work on whatever school work you had to finish up. Jennie seems to be limited in the friends department too, so she doesn’t really have prior plans that would prevent her from hanging out with you those times you ask.

You like to think you’re growing on her even if Jennie seems determined to pretend she hates you. Jennie still always shows up when you ask if she wants to hang out. (Though that could be due to the promise of food courtesy of your father’s funds.) She hasn’t told you anything about her past which you don’t mind. You’re not entitled to know anything about her, just getting a chance to get to know her is good enough for you.

The thing about Jennie is she’s far from frail. It’s admirable in a way how she handles herself. Despite the fact that she can’t see, it doesn’t slow her down at all. You think it’s out of pure spite at the hand life has dealt her that she doesn’t let it hold her back. Jennie’s kind of amazing.

She’d probably make fun of you if you said so out loud.

As much as you enjoy hanging out with Jennie, you’re sure your friends are aware of you blowing them off to spend more and more time with her. You can’t bring yourself to feel too guilty about it. It’s nice to just sit down and not be expected to engage in a conversation. If you didn’t feel like talking, Jennie would just sit across from you and stick her headphones in. Jennie didn’t want anything from you except food at the end of the day, and it’s refreshing to just sit across from someone with zero expectations.

But to make sure your other friends don’t feel neglected, you make plans to watch another one of Lisa’s track practices and then go out with her for pie the upcoming Wednesday. Then you’re going to brunch with Joan and Ashley on Saturday, doubling that as a tutoring session. (You have your first test for your Biology class coming up in a week and you’ve been so preoccupied the past three weeks hanging out with Jennie that you hadn’t exactly been studying. Science isn’t exactly one of your strong points but Joan loves it. They’d practically begged you to let them tutor you.)

For one of the first times in your life, you feel completely in control. You feel like things are kind of going your way. And the more pessimistic part of yourself is wondering how and when it will all go wrong.

♡

Lisa is distracted when you go out to pie with her. You’ve eaten what you would estimate is about half while Lisa picks at her half with her fork. She’s more stabbing the slice than actually putting any of it into her mouth. You don’t say anything at first, but Lisa looks at her phone and frowns for what must be the sixth time in the past thirty seconds.

“Hey, what’s up?” You nudge the toe of her sneakers with your own and she looks up to meet your eye.

“Huh?”

“Is something wrong? You haven’t said a word since we left the track.” Lisa turns her eyes back to the pie and stabs it once more before she answers you.

“Do you ever feel you’re just growing apart from someone?” Lisa asks. She sits back in her seat and runs her fingers through her hair, looking sullen.

Um?

“Why?” She looks torn; like she doesn’t want to admit what she’s about to say out loud, but she meets your eye again and grimaces.