so, do we like each other or not? // JENLISA

Chapter 38

She'd gotten thinner - that was the first thing Lisa noticed. Jennie's cheekbones had always been pronounced enough to sharpen a knife on, but now her face was verging on gaunt. Even beneath her buttoned coat, Lisa could see that the imaginary weight that had been bothering her since the day she'd hit puberty was long gone.

Lisa so badly wanted her to look terrible, but she didn't. She was paler than before and she somehow also looked three inches shorter, but her eternally intimidating presence still lingered around her just like her rich perfume did. Her hands were thrust into the pockets of her black pea coat, and Lisa knew her well enough by then to know that it was because she was nervous.

Lisa, meanwhile, was wearing her pyjamas, her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she was pretty sure she must have peanut butter around her mouth. She rubbed the back of her hand over it just in case, all the while begging her heart to stop pounding.

"Jennie," she said. No matter how much she'd thought it, she hadn't said that name in a while. It tasted strange. "What are you doing here?"

Jennie was peering over her shoulder, taking in the mostly unfurnished apartment and its already-drawn curtains. It was warm, at least, and Lisa had gotten out of the habit of leaving her dirty clothes lying all over the floor, but nonetheless - it was pathetic. The sorry fucking state of how she was living told Jennie everything that Lisa herself wouldn't about just how badly she was doing.

"I wanted to..." Jennie started, before realising that she was still staring at the apartment and shaking herself back to reality. "I wanted to talk to you."

Lisa felt her nostrils flare. "Well. Thanks for calling first, I guess."

"I didn't think you'd want to hear from me."

"You're right. I wouldn't have," Lisa said. "So, what? You came over anyway? Does what you want matter so much more than anything else that you decided to just show up even though you knew full well I wouldn't be happy to see you?"

Once, Jennie's eyes might have flashed at that. Now she just pursed her lips. "No. I told myself I shouldn't. But..."

She was being too timid, and it was already getting on Lisa's nerves. "Could you get to the point, please?"

"Can I come in?"

"No," Lisa said flatly. "Luckily for me, I don't have to do what you want anymore. So if you have something to say, say it from the doorstep. Then you can leave."

Of all the times Lisa had imagined this scenario in her head - and there had been plenty of them - her voice had never sounded so cold. Usually Jennie showed up at her door and Lisa just shut it in her face, although there had been many occasions when Jennie had fallen to the ground begging for forgiveness, her 'no apologies' rule be damned. In those scenarios, Lisa had usually forgiven her, because in that world of imaginary reconciliation, Lisa was the bigger and better person, not Jennie.

Sometimes Lisa imagined other things. When it was really late - late enough for the sky to be turning from black to navy blue and her eyes to be itching from exhaustion - she would imagine Jennie not saying anything at all. Instead, she would just back Lisa up against the door and kiss her hard enough to tell her everything she wasn't brave enough to say out loud. Whenever Lisa imagined that, her hand would slide down beneath the covers and into her panties, and she would writhe beneath the sheets with Jennie's name on her lips. When she came, it never satisfied her. It only seemed to empty her out entirely.