so close to hope

VII

You never really knew what love was until you met Roseanne and Lisa.

You're learning about natural resources in school, and you think their love is one of them -- like it's stitched into the very fabric of the universe.

Their love is tender and gentle, but it has teeth, too. It's not hard to tell that they would fight and die for one another. (And some days you allow yourself to think that they'd do the same for you.)

You want to know everything about them -- how they met, their first date, what it felt like when they first held hands. You want to gobble it up like ice cream, but you think it's too decadent for that.

You want to steep in it, the story of their love.

***

Your teacher said that if you want to know what's important to someone you should look at what they take photos of, but for Roseanne that's not entirely true. Everything she holds dear is tucked away in a drawer in her study, filled with sketchbooks upon sketchbooks of Lisa.

She let you flip through them, once. The two of you lied down on your bellies on the floor of her study and started at the very beginning.

At first it was drawings of nature -- trees and sunsets and the quad of their college campus -- but soon there was a kickball field and, sure enough, a thin girl with a scowl and a long, dark braid.

You couldn't help but trace the sketch with your fingers, eyes stinging with the promise of it; Lisa on the brink of becoming your Lisa, and the Roseanne who drew it on the brink of becoming your Roseanne.

"Spring semester of sophomore year," Roseanne said with a sigh. "She was kind of scary, back then -- pegged me right in the head during our first practice. Hardly even apologized! Can you imagine, Ami?"

You laughed and hid your face in the crook of your elbow, because, no, you couldn't imagine it. The Lisa you know would probably cry if she hit Roseanne in the head with any kind of projectile.

"I was so pissed, I ranted and raved about her for a week, at least. Couldn't shut up about her. Of course, Jennie and Jisoo eventually had to point out that what I was feeling wasn't anger."

You cocked your head to the side. "It wasn't?"

"No," Roseanne smiled and ran a hand over your hair. "Sometimes emotions masquerade as other emotions. I wasn't angry -- complaining just gave me an excuse to talk about her."

You didn't quite relate, but you thought you got it, anyway. "So what did you do?"

Roseanne grinned at you, teeth sinking into her bottom lip, and in that instant you knew exactly what she did.

"Guess," she said.

You raised your eyebrows high, already scandalized.

"You hit her with the ball."

Roseanne clapped her hands together, beaming at you like you just aced a spelling test.

"Square in the back," she said. "But at least I had the decency to apologize over dinner."

You imagined them eating pizza on the couch in Roseanne's college apartment, one with a bump on her head and the other with a bruise near her spine, and a giggle built in your throat.

You couldn't help but let it out -- a high pitched peal of laughter -- and Roseanne looked at you like you were crazy, but after a minute she joined in, too. You don't understand grown ups sometimes, and this was one of them. You've heard of love striking like a bolt of lightening and about Cupid's arrows, but flirting with flying kickballs was just plain ridiculous.