Journey

Chapter 37

February 2031

Lisa lays on the nook by the bay window in the room that she now found herself calling her home. She stares out the glass at the expansive, snow covered, open field that sat next to the old house. There was a perfectly good bed a few feet away, but this is where she had decided to sleep for the last few months. Lisa had taken a liking to watching the sun rise in the distance over the still and silent hills that decorated the landscape. Every morning, as she watched this picture unfold, Lisa found herself thinking how life upstate was very different than life in the city. Lisa had never lived anywhere this small and calm before. It really did take a lot of getting used to after the chaotic pace she grew accustomed to.

Lisa looks at the pink and orange sky contemplating the last few months. Her first Christmas alone in the twenty one years since she had known Jennie had been grueling. It was the first big event to transpire after the fog that clouded Lisa's judgement since the shooting lifted. Lisa could see what the last two and half years had been for everyone around her and she was ashamed. She was disconcerted to step outside her body and see who she had become. Lisa was nothing short of disgusted when she took note of who she had been to and for the people she loved the most. That person, that rotten version of her, had cost Lisa everything she had ever wanted and she found herself alone in an empty apartment for both Christmas and New Year's Eve because Rose and Jisoo had places to be and things to celebrate. Places that Lisa wasn't invited to, things she wasn't a part of because her family would most definitely be there and Lisa was no longer welcome around them. Those festive nights where Lisa sat companionless in the living room of Rose's house while all around her she could hear families cheer and laugh forced Lisa to think. She spent hours going over what she had done and even longer trying to come up with ways to fix it. Ultimately, Lisa came to the conclusion that she had brought the loneliness she was feeling on herself and she was the only one who could mend it. No one but her could find a way to get her family back and that's what she was determined to do.

Lisa had every intention of repairing the things she had splintered over the last two and a half years and she figured the easiest place to start was her sister seeing as she was the one Lisa got to interact with on a daily basis, but after about three weeks of living with Rose (and Jisoo apparently), she couldn't take it anymore. Lisa understood that her sister was bent out of shape after what happened, but she wasn't even giving Lisa the opportunity to explain. Any time Rose had off work she would spend with Jisoo. More than once Lisa was inclined to believe that Rose was actively avoiding being alone with her. Before long Lisa realized that her presence made things tense for all of them and eventually evading was replaced by confrontations which lead to more than enough arguments with Rose. Lisa quickly came to comprehend this was the last place she should be if she was not only trying to salvage her relationship with her sister but also if she was trying to get better. Living with her older sister was enjoyable when she was seventeen, but it became considerably harder at forty one. That house wasn't big enough for two, let alone three stubborn and opinionated adults very set in their ways.

After one of their regular visits to the bar following the group meetings for grieving parents, Lisa casually mentioned to Gustus she was looking online to find a place to stay but that given New York's permanently skyrocketing rent prices there was nothing that was affordable but wasn't also a piece of shit. She couldn't justify the expense to get a place on her own and she was too old to have roommates in her twenties which was all she was coming across on the listings. Needless to say, Lisa's situation was complicated.

Much to Lisa's surprise, Gustus offered to open up his bungalow without any hesitation. Gustus had two empty rooms that no one had been in for years so it wouldn't be any sort of inconvenience to have Lisa stay over. He lived two hours from the city in a small town just outside Poughkeepsie meaning the arrangements wouldn't be exactly glamorous, but if Lisa wanted to come reside with him she was more than welcome to.