YOU & ME | JENLISA

Chapter 43

Jennie

Macaroni and cheese clung to the end of my fork as I watched 'The Vampire Diaries'. It was warming my belly and filling my soul with simple happiness. Kraft dinner, Coca Cola, Damon Salvatore, what more could you want?

Ask and you shall receive.

There was a knock at my door which was unusual for nine in the evening when my dad was working the night shift. Instantly my mind went to dark places. What if someone came to tell me that he's hurt or worse, passed away? I threw the blanket off me and took myself to the door with a racing heart, praying that it wasn't Deputy Kwon.

"Who's there?" I asked nervously.

"Lisa." the voice replied.

Lisa? I unbolted the door and unhooked the chain, opening it wide and setting my eyes on her quivering body. She didn't lie, it was her. Just not in the usual form that I expected her to be in.

Her caramel brown hair could've used a brush through, her posture was bent, leaning against my door frame for support. Her eyes looked exhausted, dark circles and bags sitting beneath. Her skin had small beads of sweat like she had ran here and her whole body trembled in an uncontrollable way. To vaguely put it, Lisa looked like hell.

"I'm four days clean." She informed me with a jittery stammer. "I'm not good company right now but I don't want to be alone. If I'm alone right now, I'm gonna shoot up or snort blow."

There was a moment, I hesitated, and she hesitated. That awkward silence which gets in the way of our conversations fell upon us like a thick blanket. Of course I wanted to help her but my father had told me not to let her in the house when he's not here. Then there's the simple matter of sexual assault charges against her and with my history, did I really want to chance it? Was she really capable of the crime that she's been accused of? Was I in danger being alone with her?

"My dad is at work, I'm not supposed to have anyone in the house when he's at work." Not entirely a lie. Good, we're doing well so far, Jen. "You'll have to hide in my bedroom and sneak off tomorrow morning." And ergo, my stupidity.

Lisa looked at the house behind me, for the first time since turning up on my doorstep she seemed to realise herself and she shook her head.

"I don't want to come into your house. I don't want to be alone with you. I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, we're not even friends. It's weird that I showed up here, right? It's just that... you're kind of the only one I told and you live close by. I'm sorry. Forget I came here, see ya Jennie."

She swivelled her heel, my porch light flickering on and casting a glow on the back of her black windbreaker. I couldn't let her leave, not when she just told me that she was going to relapse if she was left alone.

"Wait." I called out to her. "Let me just go grab some stuff, hold on." I disappeared back into the house, grabbed a blanket, two forks and my TV dinner. When I returned to her, she was standing awkwardly on my porch. "We can sit on the porch swing." I pointed to the little swing surrounded by twinkling solar lights and took a seat, patting the cushion next to me.

Lisa sat down, not next to me but as far away from me as she possibly could without no longer being on the seat. I threw the blanket over myself and offered her to share it but she just shook her head. Her posture was weird, and uncomfortable. She tilted her body to face away from me, just like you would if you were forced to sit next to a stranger on a public bus. She didn't want to get close, she didn't want to touch me in anyway. She wanted her personal space and she wanted to respect mine. It was awkward.

I held a fork out to her and used my own to split the macaroni down the middle, pushing half the dinner to her side and kept half on mine. She said nothing but she started eating so I was satisfied with that. The fork shook so bad whenever she tried to get the macaroni into her mouth. It was like all of her fine motor skills had evaporated.

"Is this the longest you haven't used?" I asked, scooping up all the melted mozzarella onto my fork because that was the best bit.

She dragged her eyes to look at me, everything seemed like an effort for her. Silently, she nodded her head. I chewed on my inner cheek, not really knowing what to say to her.

"I've never made it five days clean." She answered, with broken, and jittery text.

"This time you will." I offered her a reassuring smile.

Crickets chirped in the mildly overgrown lawn surrounding us. It was a soothing sound but it was mixed with the unsettled heavy breathing coming from Lisa. She wiped the sweat from her brow, squirmed in her seat and continued eating the macaroni. Silence stretched wider between us and my heart rate picked up with my ever growing nervousness.