Five Steps | Chaelisa

Chapter 37

Lisa's POV

I turn the page of the book I'm holding, but the words all blur together. Every sentence I've tried to read for the past hour is impossible to retain.

Letting out a sigh, I close it, surprised to see a flash of red when I turn my head, sparkling sequins shimmering faintly under the dim library lights.

It takes me a minute to register what I'm seeing.

Roseanne. Here. In a sparkling red dress, her hair pulled away from her face, her lips a matching ruby.

She looks... beautiful.

And happy. Her smile practically outshines her dress.

She's probably made things official with Suzy at their little art museum gala. Maybe they even kissed, tucked away in the corner of an exhibit on pastels or watercolors.

I clear my throat and stand, sliding the book back into its place on the shelf. "I didn't pin you for a sparkly-red-dress kind of girl," I say, my eyes fixed instead on the book's gold lettering along the edge, the peeling tape sitting over the faded label.

When she doesn't say anything, I know it's my time to talk. To apologize. I take a deep breath, slowly pulling my fingertips off the spine of the book.

"I, uh. I took my mom to rehab last night," I say. "And the whole ride back to Pittsburgh, all I could think about was how you were the only person I wanted to tell and how I'd screwed it all up. How sorry I am for what I said the night of the concert. Because you were right. About Samantha. About everything. But I didn't want to hear it, so instead, I just tore it all down and hurt you." I let out a long sigh and turn to face her. "Roseanne, I didn't mean what I said—"

"Is she okay? Are you okay?" she asks, and I can't deny the tears that swim into my eyes.

"Yeah. She ran a car into a telephone pole, but... she'll be okay. We'll be okay," I clarify. "But I want us to be okay too."

There's a moment of silence, and then she takes a tiny step closer. "Did you ever think we'd date?" she asks over a ragged breath.

I freeze, her words catching me off guard. "What?"

She raises her eyebrows at me, and I notice her chest is heaving, a pair of heels hanging in her right hand. Was she running?

"Me and you," she says, pointing between us. "Did you ever think we'd date?" I open my Coramouth, struggling to find the right thing to say. All that comes out, though, is a single word. The truth. "Yes."

"Do you still?" she asks, rubbing salt in the wound.

I shake my head, pulling my eyes away from hers. "You like Suzy."

She's silent for a long, heart-pumping moment. All I can do is look at the hem of her dress, the tiny rays of light reflecting off the sequins onto the floor.

"Every second I've spent with Suzy this past week, I was thinking about you. About how I wanted to be with you." I hear her let out a long breath of air. "It was like you talked about. Real versus fantasy. It took me a long time to realize, too long, but being with you made me feel better than any fantasy I'd ever played over in my head. Like the person I never knew I could be. The person I am."

I lift my head to see her taking a step closer.

"That's how I knew you were lying that night. I know the real you. Just like you know the real me," she adds.

Her face is inches from mine, her eyes warm and earnest, the air between us buzzing with electricity. She parts her lips, hesitating before she speaks around her smile.

"It was always you, Lisa."

And with those words, the barriers I've put up to shield myself from the world are finally knocked down. The boxes where I've locked my feelings away completely disintegrate. Until it's just Roseanne and me and that force that's been pulling me toward her since the very beginning. But neither of us is fighting it anymore.

I close my eyes, frozen in place as Roseanne starts closing the gap between us, and I almost entirely forget how to breathe. Her lips barely graze mine, but somehow they manage to set my whole body on fire.

I reach for her, but before I can even pull her closer, she lunges forward, knocking me back into the shelves. A few books fall onto the floor with scattered thumps, but she doesn't stop kissing me. I wrap my arms around her, my hands grabbing on to her hips as I pull her body up against mine. I hear her heels hit the floor, and then her hands are sliding up my neck, into my hair. There isn't a single inch of space between us, but somehow she still doesn't feel close enough.

I've kissed... plenty of people, but it has never been like this. The floor and the ceiling and the stacks of books all melt away, everything fading except for the two of us, the feel of her sequined dress beneath my hands, my heart hammering so hard in my chest that I'm sure she can feel it.

When we eventually pull apart, she rests her forehead up against mine, and a small smile dances onto her lips as she sways back and forth in my arms. "You know, you never told me what step five is," she says.

I laugh and give her a small shrug. "That's because I've never gotten to it." She pulls away, raising her eyebrows at me.

"What is it?"

"It's pretty simple," I say as I reach up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Step five: tell her how you feel."

My hand slides down to rest against her cheek, my thumb gently tracing her skin.

"And how do you feel?" she whispers, like she doesn't know she stole my heart, piece by piece, that first day in biology class, and that night we got frozen yogurt, and at our roller-skating date, bruised forehead and all.

"I feel like every fiber of my being is in love with you, Roseanne Park."

And... it feels right. The words I've been so scared of for years suddenly come easier than I ever thought possible.

As I look at her, I see her smile grow slowly into the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. A rosy flush making its way across her cheeks but instead of stuttering and getting shy like she once would, she stands taller and more confident than I've ever seen her.

"I love you too, Lisa Manoban," she says, and it's all the things I never knew an "I love you" could be, meeting me exactly as I am, without a single condition.

It's coming home instead of running away.

Her hands unlock behind my neck, sliding down in between us and interlocking our fingers as they were meant to be "Well, I guess I got the girl after all," she says.

"See? I told you my plan would work."

"Shut up." She laughs and reaches out to grab the collar of my T-shirt, tugging me into another kiss.

And for once I actually do.

THE END