YOU & ME | JENLISA

Chapter 25

Jennie

"I like her. Oh my God. I like her so much. Are we sure she's a rapist?"

Rosé went on and on and on about what happened yesterday.

"I mean, who was she meant to have raped anyway?"

"I don't know, Rosé." I sighed, offloading books into my locker. The floors had just been freshly mopped and the bleach stench was making my eyes sting.

"It was someone in the grade below us, I'm sure it was. I'm gonna ask around. See what we're working with here."

She had that thirst for knowledge look in her eyes. I loved Rosé, I really did but sometimes her need for information got her into trouble. She planned to become a journalist and I had no doubts that she would be a great one. She's willing to go above and beyond, doing anything for the scoop.

"Rosé, you can't just go around asking those questions. It's personal and traumatic and raw."

She hip bumped me out of the way so she could look in the mirror hanging on my locker door. She raked her black acrylics through her glossy shoulder length hair and narrowed her cheeks out at herself. "Yeah, you're right." She agreed without taking her eyes off her own reflection. "I bet they're only rumours though." I tugged on her leather jacket to move her out of the way so I could continue adding my heavy textbooks into my locker.

She completely changed her tune on Lisa, a few days ago she was a serial killer, now they're just rumours.

What?

"Maybe they are, but let's look at the other rumours floating around about her." I counted on my fingers and she watched the motion of my hand. "Her family sucks, we know that's true. She fights, we know that's true. She takes drugs, we know that's true. It's not looking good for her, is it?"

She tilted her head to one side and blinked at me slowly, while pressing her lips firmly together.

"Well you still owe her a thank you, Taehyung is out for the rest of the school year." She tilted her chin towards the off limits fire escape stairwell. I turned quick enough to see Lisa disappearing through the door. Rosé smiled at me like she knew something that I didn't. "Let me know how it goes." She wiggled her dyed eyebrows at me and then bounced off towards one of her many crushes.

I looked at the fire escape door and chewed on my lip. I did owe her a thank you. As the school bell rang, I slammed my locker closed and sneaked up the stairwell, all the way to the rooftop. The autumn breeze hit me as soon as I stepped out, tousling my hair into buoyant curls. The fragrance of Earth carried in the air all around me, a beautiful mix of crisping leaves, wet soil and cinnamon swirls from the cafeteria below us. As I got closer to her, the smell of smoke evaporated all of the goodness.

Lisa sat leaning her back against the brick building, smoking. She seemed peaceful, like her troubles were a million miles away and her mind was as light as a feather. I almost felt bad for crashing her serenity. Her head was tilted towards the cyan sky, watching the clouds morph into shapes and a warm breeze blew through the strands of her caramel brown hair.

I tucked my hands up into the sleeves of my sweater. She really was a good-looking person, I've never really noticed before now but with fading bruises and healing cuts, she almost looked normal. She had a chiselled face, strong nose, sharp cheekbones and an angular jawline, ticking all of the boxes. Her features were masculine but accompanied by a contrast of soft lips, kind eyes and delicately light freckles. I could stare at her forever, but that would be weird.

"Um... hi." I uttered nervously. Her head darted in my direction and her whole body shuddered.

"Jesus!"

I made her jump. She stood up and backed away from me and I frowned at her reaction. "What are you doing up here? I mean, you can't be up here." She kept looking around, being paranoid, looking over the edge and moving slowly towards the exit door, like she was searching for someone to help her or contemplating making a run for it. She seemed jittery and nervous.