Choosing you | LisRene AU [BOOK 2]

15

Lisa got no sleep that night. After going through the mail the night before, she'd set her NYU letter neatly on the table and escaped to the bedroom, changing and readying herself for bed. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be alone when she opened it, but she definitely wanted Irene to at least know that she was going to open it before she did. Or maybe she didn't care. She wasn't exactly sure why she didn't tear it open right away.

When opening her acceptance letter to YGU years earlier, she'd wanted to be alone, and she took incredibly long to get herself to finally read whether or not she'd gotten in. This time, maybe the weight of the result felt too heavy for her to do it by herself. Once she'd decided not to open it that night, though, she'd crawled into bed next to her sleeping girlfriend and tried her best to drift off to sleep.

She failed miserably. She tossed and turned far too much, nearly waking Irene up sometime around two in the morning. Every time she would almost drift off to sleep, she would jerk awake again. Lisa's eyes found themselves staring at the door, wondering if she should just give up and go open the letter.

Her resolve was too strong too, however, so finally at around five in the morning, she cuddled into her girlfriend, burying her face in the brunette's neck, and fell asleep like that.

It was only a few hours later that she felt kisses being peppered across her neck and her cheek, and she slowly woke up. "Mm?"

"Hey, you didn't open this last night?" Irene murmured, and Lisa realized that she was now fully clothed and laying down next to Lisa. She didn't seem at all upset about the previous day, but it took only a second to realize that that was because of the letter she had in her hand. The NYU letter.

"No," Lisa confirmed, "I... don't think I can open it by myself, not this time. I want it too badly to be an acceptance letter. I couldn't sleep, though."

"Looked pretty asleep to me," Irene said, frowning.

"What time is it?"

"Eight. I know that you have to head to work soon, which was why I woke you."

Lisa smiled. "Thanks. Yeah, I couldn't fall asleep until about five."

"Oh shit. I would've let you sleep longer and just called the psychologist's office if I'd known," Irene admitted worriedly.

"I'll be okay," Lisa insisted. She looked at the letter in Irene's hand. "I should probably open that, though, or I won't be concentrating at all at work anyway." Irene extended the envelope to the younger girl, and they both sat up on the bed as Lisa turned it over in her hands. "Fair warning, it probably took me like twenty minutes to actually open my acceptance letter to YGU."

Irene laughed and Lisa blushed as she said, "Oh come on, you were basically guaranteed acceptance to YGU."

"Yeah, which is why you needed a warning. Could take me up to an hour to open this one," she teased, biting down on her lip to keep her smile from spreading too widely.

"You're just going to build up more and more suspense the longer you wait. You already sacrificed a whole night of sleep waiting. Just open it," Irene prompted softly. Lisa nodded, taking in a shaky breath as she flipped the envelope over. She pulled away the seal at one end and tucked her thumb into it, deftly and neatly unsealing it all the way across. She pulled the pristine, white paper out of its casing and realized that her hands were shaking.

"Fuck, I'm so nervous," she murmured.

Irene placed a hand on her leg and squeezed. "No matter what it says, it'll be okay. You know that."

Lisa glanced up with hopeful eyes, and then back down at the paper. Her fingers were suddenly working with or without her say, unfolding the paper whether she wanted it to be opened or not. Her eyes fell on the first line of the body of the letter before looking at anything else and immediately released a relieved breath. "Thank fuck."