Five Steps | Chaelisa

Chapter 29

Lisa's POV

I can't get up the apartment stairs fast enough.

I whirl around the banister, my head spinning as I push through our door and almost run smack into Heather.

"You good?" she asks, a steaming Styrofoam cup of noodles in her hand. "You look a little..." Her voice trails off as she gives me a once-over. "Frazzled."

Frazzled?

Lisa Manoban does not get frazzled. Definitely not over Roseanne Park.

"Yeah, I'm totally cool," I say, letting out a weird laugh as I head down the hall to my room. "Totally fine!" I add, closing and locking the door behind me. I rest my back against it, sliding down to the floor.

What the fuck was that?

I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing the palms of my hands against them, but I still see Roseanne's face painted against my eyelids, steadily leaning forward, her lips close enough to...

I pull my hands away and shake my head, the image fading.

"Come on, Lisa. Don't make it more than it is," I mutter as I slide my legs straight out in front of me, my shoes knocking together.

I mean, I haven't kissed anyone in a whole month. That's practically a record!

It's no wonder this fake date had me all flustered.

But my brain keeps circling back. To the skating rink, the smell of her floral perfume, the feeling of her hands in mine. To the library, her brown eyes in the soft light, her gaze filling my stomach with butterflies. It didn't feel fake.

"Shit."

I slide farther down, lying completely flat on the carpeted floor. I watch the headlights of a car driving past outside dance across my tile ceiling, my heart thumping through the fabric of my T-shirt.

I like Roseanne.

The thought comes to me out of the blue, shocking at first, but then... I repeat it over and over again, finding a scary truth in the words.

I like Roseanne.

Roller-skating-for-a-first-date Roseanne. Can't-even-ask-a-girl-out Roseanne.

Dresses-like-a-sixty-year-old-woman Roseanne.

I groan and roll over onto my side, tucking my legs up as the thought of her clothes brings with it the thought of Mrs. Park, her smiling face and her salt- and-pepper bob of hair. The adoring way she looks at Roseanne. The conspiratorial way she winked at me when we met.

... How much she'd hate me when I would inevitably break Roseanne's heart because apparently Samantha's right.

Samantha.

The girl I have history with. Who said she loves me, despite all the reasons she shouldn't. The girl I just spent the last month working my ass off for, to prove that I can be a good person. That I can be real and honest and open up to people.

Only... all I did was open up to the wrong one.

It was just... for the first time it didn't feel claustrophobic or awful. It was... so easy. Tonight, at the library. Two weeks ago, in her dorm room.

My stomach sinks through the floor, and I reach out to pick at an unruly carpet strand.

I guess I'm exactly the person Samantha said I was. Someone who can't be trusted all the way in Pittsburgh.

Although, this... this is worse. I've never had this happen to me before. Flirting and dating and hookups, sure. But not... whatever this is.

I mean, it's not like it even matters anyway.