Golden Girl | Chaelisa

7

Lisa can't sleep.

She stays up all night, running through a rush of different emotions—grief, sadness, and fury. She never settles on one for long, always jumping to the next feeling, always uncertain, always afraid.

Her brain plays the memory on a constant loop.

"Oh god—is, is something going to happen to me now?" Lisa croaks out. "Because of the bond?"

Jieun shakes her head. "No, Lisa."

"How do you know?"

"Because..." Her voice sounds underwater. "The doctors pulled Taehyung's shirt open, trying to save him. He's got wings, right on his hip. I'm sorry. He didn't have the same mark as you."

So, first there is anger: Lisa curses his name for lying to her, for leading her on and disappearing without telling her truth first. She feels raw waves of rage, thinking of that stupid letter and that day he got his mark, when he had tried to hide from her instead of just talking. She swears she hates him. She regrets ever meeting him at all.

Then, there is grief: Lisa thinks, over and over, that it would be okay if he lied and left her, just as long as someone didn't have to die on her again.

And, finally, sadness: Lisa blames it on herself. It was her fault. She had said such mean things to him, the night before he left. She didn't love him enough. She wasn't enough. Maybe if she had tried harder, the universe would have made things right and he wouldn't have felt the need to leave her at all. Sure, they dated, but he was also her best friend, and he was so young, and there must be something wrong with her because people just keep on—

Lisa exhales, playing around with her phone, tossing it between her hands.

She can't sleep.

At this point, she's beginning to believe that she's cursed. Who's next? Jieun? Jennie? Jackson? Roseanne? There are only so many people a girl can lose before she goes insane and Lisa is close to that limit.

It's been days of this. This cycle of not sleeping, avoiding everyone, dodging Jieun's attempts to talk. Lisa is exhausted.

Her chest aches.

She tosses and turns but the weight beneath her skin only shifts with her, never goes away. It feels different from grief. This weight is new (or maybe old, but just now noticed) and equally as heavy, but it feels more like longing. Lisa stands up on instinct alone, padding over to the doorway. Her legs and feet groan in protest—somehow, they fell asleep while she was awake—but she gets this feeling, this odd churning in her gut, that tells her where she needs to be.

Lisa leaves the garage, slips out of the house, and walks barefoot across the lawn. Her feet are soundless, damp from the grass underneath her.

She begins to climb the tree beside Roseanne's room.

It's instinct. She's on autopilot again. She doesn't even realize that what she is doing could be very creepy until she is slipping through Roseanne's open window. Some strange part of Lisa insists that Roseanne left the window open for her, but a more logical side reminds her that this is trespassing. Lisa stays planted on the windowsill for far too long, going over her options. The light inside the room is faint, mostly the moonlight and the stars, but she can spot the defining features of Roseanne's form, anyways—a long, slim body tucked under the sheets, a hand curled up around her face, a red tint to her nose, and a tiny furrow in her brow.

Lisa should go. This is weird. She would judge anyone else for doing this exact thing. It's creepy.

Brown eyes suddenly shoot open.