Need You To Need Me | Jenlisa

XLVII.

The clothes inside the washing machine swirled from one side to the other, scattering, hitting the aluminum walls with a soft, lulling rhythm. Jennie found herself hypnotized.

After a couple of weeks in Bangkok, she barely had any clean clothes left. To her incredulity, she, Jennie Kim, had to track down, in a language she couldn't even read, the closest (and, even more incredulously, cheapest) laundromat.

When she finally found it (thanks to a desperate pantomime to the "receptionist" at her hostel), her arms ached from carrying her heavy load of dirty clothes.

The place was small, wedged between shops on a chaotic street. But inside, it was peaceful: old ladies watching muted soap operas, bachelors in wrinkled shirts staring blankly at their phones, mothers trying (and mostly failing) to corral restless kids.

Had her mind been emptier, she would have loved a good session of people-watching. If Jisoo were here, she would've loved it too.

But of course, Jisoo was thousands of miles away and unaware of Jennie's last-minute, reckless plan, which, knowing her, and more importantly, knowing Lisa, she never would have approved.

Jennie's gaze drifted back to the spinning clothes.

Lisa's face flickered in her mind: that slight fall in her expression when Jennie said I love you. No hope. No pleasure. No joy.

Jennie's heart had frozen in the seconds that followed, and even more so in the ones after, heavy with the realization that even if Minnie hadn't interrupted them, it wouldn't have changed a thing.

Lisa didn't believe her. Lisa hated her. And Jennie couldn't even blame her.

She glanced once again at the machine's timer: 17 minutes left. Seventeen minutes of pretending she wasn't holding back tears. Seventeen minutes before she'd pack wet clothes into a plastic bag and walk back to a hostel that smelled like cheap cologne and tourist desperation.

She hadn't really eaten anything if not for some cheap candy bar, whose name, or flavor, she couldn't decipher. She had 21 dollars left on her bank account. Her parents had yet to call and as far as her knowledge went, they probably did not even bother looking for her.

Jennie imagined her mother, dressing up for work and having the driver get the car ready while her father sipped his espresso at the dining table. The scene would repeat itself for dinner but not one word would be spared for her. Because to acknowledge her departure meant accepting that they, somewhere along the line, had made a mistake. And that, was simply unacceptable.

She leaned her head against the cool, cracked concrete wall behind her. It felt rough, unforgiving. Kind of like Lisa's eyes the previous night. Or maybe like herself.

The small tv on the high corner of the ceiling played a thai soap opera. A modern version of what she imagined was a traditional thai song played from the speakers. It was clear that the main actress was not hired for her vocals. But even if she was out of tune, the final effect wasn't bad at all. Maybe in another moment, she wouldn't have thought anything of that trashy song. But right then, she could use the distraction.

As soon as she closed her eyes, her mind pictured Lisa sitting in the same laundromat seat: legs stretched out, teasing grin on her face, cracking jokes about how awkward it was to do laundry next to strangers. Knowing her, she would have sang along to the terrible song, out of the blue, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The truth was, it used to be her normal. But Jennie was too dumb to realize it.

She would have carried the whole load of laundry without even asking. She always did. Because that's who Lisa was: someone who carried things when they got too heavy. And Jennie had let her. Again and again. Until it got too much, even for her.