Midnights In Paris | Jenlisa

If Only My Heart Could Touch You

It was dark when Lisa was finally making her way back to her hotel. The conversation, if it was even right to call it that, with Chaeyoung replayed in her head on a loop and she knew she didn't have a chance of it leaving her alone until she found something else to obsess over. Because, she had quickly learned with time, the cure for an obsession was to simply get another one.

Obsession. She was nine the first time she had heard that word. Yet, she didn't tie it with its meaning until a few years later, when she heard it again; the verdict leaving her therapist's mouth rather than her mother's.

She didn't have much memories from that time. It was all a blur, countless days tied together by the ironically unforgettable routine. It was only later that the word "rituals" made an appearance, too. Until then, she had thought that doing the same exact things everyday, tirelessly, was totally normal. Actually, Lisa could swear that was the exact same reason adults complained about their lives. They were boring and repetitive, that was what they always said.

That's why she had personally never thought her way of being, of thinking belonged to a certain category. She thought that everybody obsessed about a certain thing. She had seen her mother spend her whole paycheck in clothes in a day until she reached a point when she literally had to freeze her credit card in ice. Her dad watched religiously the sport channel at every meal of his life. She couldn't see why what she did, whatever that was, could classify as different than what they did.

Her walk was unsure and somewhat irregular and she managed to score another few funny looks by some pedestrians. Her feet were still sore from her infamous walk down the river (Or, as Jennie had called it: La Seine) since her blisters hadn't healed yet. Wincing in pain every few steps, she was just then regretting not choosing a different pair of shoes to go out with. The fact was, she had truly wanted to look nice for her date. It wasn't something that had happened frequently during the last two years and yet, she had managed to ruin it.

She couldn't say why she had felt the urge to leave the table and go to meet Chaeyoung. Now that she thought about it, she wished she hadn't. But that might as well be her life motto at that point.

Walking down a bad lit street, being involuntarily careful not to step on any crack of the concrete, she was slowly coming to a realization. Maybe what Jennie had told her the other day in the coldness of her hotel room was true. Maybe, she always stayed focused on someone and something else so that she didn't have to think about herself and the way her own mind sabotaged itself to the point of self destruction.

Bad things did happen to her, that was true. But she certainly never did anything to stop them. Once that ignition started, it was only free fall from there. And she just let it.

The ride home from the restaurant is painfully quiet. But it's not something Lisa isn't used to. Indeed, it's not the silence that's scaring her, but what inevitably comes after that.

Jennie is, as usual, driving. But, Lisa notices, she is uncharacteristically slow, not even surpassing one car, as if she, too, dreads what is about to happen. Lisa keeps her head against the window and forces herself not to overthink her every thought. After all, she has learned with time that it is of no use with Jennie.

She is out of the car while the engine is still on in an attempt to run away, prolong a little more the sad attempt the two of them are making at avoiding the inevitable.

She greets their doorman who quickly stands up from behind his desk as soon as he sees her, a scared look on his face. Lisa thinks he is scared she is going to scold him for not opening the door but, on the contrary, she barely even notices how he hurriedly goes to call the elevator for her and apologizes with sleep still in his eyes.