I throw my arms around her with tears filling my eyes. I hold her so tight, too afraid to ever let her go. My heart is shifting within me. The rush of love I feel for her is like an unstoppable tsunami. My whole body is being flooded with such wonderful warmth.
I pull back, needing to see those precious amber eyes that have had me so hopelessly hooked ever since I first saw them. "I love you," I boldly say, holding Lisa's face in my shaky hands. "I really do love you," I tell her again, just in case she didn't hear it the first time I said it. There is also the fact that I actually enjoy hearing myself say it out loud. It somehow makes it seem all the more real. I just want to say it, over and over again, to her. Rosé always said I was in denial but not anymore. I'm not denying how I feel any longer. In fact, denial can come and kiss my so in love ass.
We remain cocooned in a bubble of temporary happiness. We've admitted how we truly feel about one another. We love each other. She loves me and I love her. There is no question of that, but reality soon comes to burst our beautiful bubble. It wants to tear apart everything we have just built together.
The enormity of what has just happened; of what Lisa wants me to do, taunts me. Crawling its way inside of me, infesting everything that I want with its unforgiving common sense.
Common sense is telling me that this is crazy. This. Is. Completely. Insane.
Mum will go absolutely mental, Dad will desperately miss his little princess, and Lisa's parents may not even agree. No, this isn't something that can just be decided overnight. A move to Montana needs to be seriously thought through. It's a huge decision and an even bigger risk.
My happiness and relief is soon thwarted with the realisation that everything is happening too fast. I go from elation to suffocating sadness in the blink of a sorry eye.
Tears of happiness quickly become tears of terror. If I choose to go home, Lisa is going to be so hurt and angry. Worse than that, she may decide to walk away from us altogether.
It's one thing to say that we're going to try and work at being in a long distance relationship. It is quite another to declare our love and set up a home together.
This is a big fucking deal.
I love her and want to be with her, but I can't make that decision overnight. I need to go home. I need to be sure that we're making the right decision. I can no longer handle my confused thoughts and feelings. They keep crashing into me and knocking me down. I collapse into Lisa's lap.
"Sshh . . . please don't cry." Lisa lovingly rocks me like an unsettled child, kissing my hair, and cradling my over emotional self.
"I love you with all that I am, Lisa, but I feel so torn," I say between choking sobs. I'm such a wreck. My wretched body curls up tighter into a ball on her consoling lap.
Lisa tries to comfort me by draping her upper body across me. "I know," she whispers in my hair.
I continue to shatter within her hold, sobbing uncontrollably. "I really don't want to leave you, but realistically I don't think I can stay."
"Why not?" Lisa asks gently, aware that I'm already in a fragile state.
I turn my head in her lap, pushing away the sticky hair from my flushed wet cheeks. "Everyone will think we are mad."
Lisa affectionately strokes my damp cheek. "Don't think about what other people think. We're the only ones that matter. If this is what we both want; it doesn't matter what other people think or say."
I wipe away a fresh tear that falls from my stinging eyes, wishing this decision was an easier one to make. I lift my tormented eyes to hers. "I want to say yes, I really do," I say between breathy sobs. My heart feels like it's being ripped apart and stamped on, until it is nothing but dust in the ground.
"But?" Lisa looks thoroughly exhausted . . . beaten.
I reach for her chest, resting my palm on her beating heart. "I just can't . . . at least not right away."
She frowns. "What do you mean?"
I try to reassure her with the tender touch of my fingers across her chest. "I just need some time to think about it. Once I'm back in Korea, we can really think things through. If we both still want this, I can return."
Lisa looks up at the fairy lights, looking broken and hurt, just as I knew she would be. I hate myself for what I am doing to her, but in the long run she will thank me for it.
Rushing into things could destroy us anyway. If I return home, it will give us the breathing space we both need to do this properly. We have to prepare our families and ourselves.
I turn Lisa's cheek back towards me, my eyes silently pleading for an answer. Summoning a weak smile, she quietly responds. "Maybe," she concedes, unable to look me in the eye. Her compelling body, tense and tortured.
"I'm just trying to be realistic, Lisa," I murmur.
She momentarily closes her eyes, just gathering her thoughts. "I just have this feeling that if you go back home, you'll never come back to me," she says, running her hand roughly through her hair.
"Why do you say that?" I ask.
She sulkily shrugs his shoulder. "I just have this feeling," she replies, looking just like a lost and confused little child, who seems in need of a comforting cuddle.
I shuffle closer; wrapping my lonely arms around her, the sweet and gorgeous her. "Can't we at least try?" I ask, tenderly rubbing the tip of my nose across hers.
Her sad face begins to soften, with cheekbones that lift with her glorious smile. Slowly bringing her arms up around my back and letting out a long, resigned breath. She whispers against my cheek, "We can try, Jennie."
