KILL THIS LOVE | JENLISA

Chapter 124

Jennie

Isn't that how it all began? My mind started sprinting a million miles. For one small second I imagined how things could have been if I'd just joined community college, or worked a simple job, anything but apply for the scholarship.

Even if I did take the scholarship, what if ProfessorLee just happened to assign me a different subject, one from the county jail perhaps. Maybe I'd be out and about like other kids my age, living life with Hanbin, with Mino.

"I'll let you go first." Sliced in her voice, an undecipherable look gracing Lisa's smooth face. She was urging me to ask her a question. There were hundreds if not more, that ran through my head, that I'd been dying to know the answers to before I landed myself in this predicament.

'Who is your accomplice? Is it So-yeon? Where do you hide? Why did you do this to me? What is going on in your head right now?'

But strangely enough, I didn't give in to my curiosity, composing myself. Not going to give her the satisfaction. "No. No questions."

She raised a brow in surprise, "Really? You could ask me anything you want and you choose not to?" Taking my silence as my response, Lisa continued, "Alright then. My turn, I believe."

I continued to remain silent, making Lisa lean in closer, "Humour me, Ruby Jane."

Damn it. "What do you want to ask?" I whispered robotically, hoping she wouldn't come any closer.

Lisa blinked, her irises focussing in on my torso,"How did you get that?" I glanced downwards, realizing the hem of my top had ridden up, exposing parts of my mid-riff. But the dread in my throat expanded as I realised she was referring to one particular chestnut gash in a sea of scars. One that rained a galleon of bottled up memories down on my form, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

Hanbin had never asked me about the scars on me.I presumed he thought it was self-harm and left it alone out of respect.But Lisa being as ever perceptive and invasive as she was, had caught onto it.

With my wrists I dragged the material back down to cover the exposed surface, not meeting her eyes. The last person I ever expected to open up to about a ten year old trauma was a serial killer, yet there I sat, my pulse thumping as I finally settled my gaze on a frivolous spot on Lisa's face.

I'd lied to every person I had known for the last decade, if I was going to die, I didn't want to die an inveterate liar."My mother was an addict." I began slowly, a heavy exhale escaping my lips, "Of what? I don't know. They found all sorts of things, Heroin, Ketamine, Valium."

"But it was the cocaine we had come to recognize since we were kids. We were too young to know what it was, so we would call it the 'bad powder'." I winced at the word.

"We?"

I looked Lisa right in the eye, "My sister.Her name was.." I paused, the word caught in my mouth. It was a name I hadn't verbally spoken in ten whole years. "Ella."A single glistening drop of liquid trickled down my cheek. But suddenly my lips curved up, "She was... she was beautiful. She looked nothing like me, with her straight blonde hair and those big blue eyes."

I was looking at a random speck on the table as I smiled at the memory, unaware of how intensely Lisa's eyes were trained on my actions.And all of a sudden, the smile on my lips dissipated just as quickly as it had appeared, "For as long as I can remember, she would beat us both up, starve us. All without anyone ever knowing or suspecting any abuse." My eyes trailed down towards where that scar was and I sucked in a harsh breath;"One day, when I was nine, I came back home from school and found my mother passed out on the kitchen floor. Nothing unusual about it though," I shrugged, deeply engrossed in the recollection.

"But then I went up to my room and.. Ella."I squeezed my eyes shut, "She was on the bed, not breathing. There was blood coming out of her ears." When I opened my eyes, water cascaded down from them like a stream, "She had been hit with something hard on the head, and had a brain haemorrhage."

"She was seven." I whispered under my breath, blinking the tears away. "Of course,I didn't know about the haemorrhage part then. I didn't know what was happening to her so I went to the kitchen, to wake her up."

Lisa could see the visible tick in my jaw,"The second I woke her up, she charged at me. First with the kitchen knife," I motioned towards the gash.

"And then," I paused, "She attacked me with her heroin needle, injecting all of it into my arm."

I met Lisa's gaze again, "Next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital, being told how I almost didn't make it. Mother died of an overdose shortly after she injected me, and Ella... she was gone too."

A sense of catharsis washed all over me. This was the first time since Doctor Lee, that I'd open to somebody, even if it was a person with zero empathy or understanding of human emotions.

Lisa look back at me quietly.

"I'm sorry Ruby Jane."