touched by stars -chaennie

Chapter 8: You Know

Your curse lingers awkwardly in the air between the two of you. You don’t curse often, even now the word feels weird coming off your tongue and sounds strange to your ears. Yet it repeats in your head over and over.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Jennie raises an eyebrow at your choice of words, knowing you try and keep your language PG.  (You’d grown up with a swear jar at home and losing your money had led to a habit of trying to keep it clean.) You shift your hands from where you’re still cupping her cheeks to pull her sunglasses off of her face. You feel like an asshole for it, but you wave your hand slowly in front of her face.

“Nothing?” You ask desperately.

“Aside from feeling the motion of your hand in front of my face, I can’t see a thing.” Jennie closes her eyes and rubs the inside of her left eye with an index finger. “Fuck.” You set her glasses down in your lap and watch as she counts to herself under her breath to calm herself down. Jennie’s hands find yours in your lap and she squeezes them once before she speaks again. “I’m okay.”

At first you don’t know if she’s saying this for own sake or yours. Until she repeats the phrase once more and lifts your hands to press a kiss to your knuckles.

“I’m okay.”

“Jen—”

“Roseanne, I promise you. I am okay. Just… Don’t go anywhere right now.” Jennie keeps her eyes closed as she makes her request, her breathing steady despite the desperation you hear in her words.

“I won’t. I’m not going to leave you, Jennie. Okay?” You scoot closer and brush her hair away from her face. Jennie’s been letting her bangs grow out but that only meant her hair fell into her face a lot more often. You keep a hand on it so it stays out of her face, but Jennie keeps her eyes closed. When you scoot closer, she wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you against her.

“Thank you.”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen her look so small.

“Jen, shouldn’t we call someone? Like Marie or maybe your mother?”

“No.” Jennie hisses. Her defensive tone catches you off guard. Jennie must notice because she immediately lowers her voice. “No. My mother is working right now. You can’t call her.”

She finally opens her eyes again and it’s a bit unnerving knowing she’s seeing nothing. You can’t even imagine how you might feel. Jennie seems to have accepted the new development now. You just don’t know if she’s just pretending to save face or not. You know asking wouldn’t really help anything so you don’t.

“But we should call some—”

“Call Marie.”

“Marie?”

“Yes. Marie has the number to my optometrist and can get me an emergency appointment. We… Have an agreement with their offices.” You wonder if you should care about this agreement that allowed Jennie to just make appointments whenever she wants, but decide not to worry about it right now. Jennie hands you her phone from her back pocket and lays down with her head in your lap.

You’re not exactly sure where to put your hands. In one hand you hold her phone, the other stays in the air beside your head. You swallow slowly.

“Are you comfortable?” You ask and she grins.

“Very.” Slowly, you move a hand down and when you run it through her hair she relaxes further into you. Seeing her completely relaxed despite how bad this situation might be to you makes you feel better. You unlock her phone and scroll through her contacts until you find Marie’s number. You hit the call button and she picks up almost immediately.