Through Her Eyes (JenLisa)

From the Other Side

Jennie took the rejection better than Lisa did.

There was a routine to life, a norm that Lisa needed to hold onto. Even when Lisa hated the routine, it was still comfortable, it was still the way things should be. The puzzle pieces fit in a certain way, the same way Lisa's beanies fit on her drawers, organized and perfect.

Jennie wasn't supposed to want her that way. Lisa wasn't supposed to want Jennie that way. If she didn't know anything else, she knew that.

So Lisa did what Lisa was best at. She took the memory of the kiss and shoved it to the back of her mind. She pretended it hadn't happened.

Lisa didn't think of what could have been or even if she would have wanted it to be that way. She didn't wonder if Jennie would leave now. She didn't wonder what she would do without Jennie. Lisa didn't think of the feel of Jennie in her arms, Jennie's stupid smile and the stupid way she talked and the stupid way she made Lisa's life so much better. She didn't think of Jennie's soft lips and her possessive fingers and her trusting eyes.

Lisa didn't count the moments, the seconds since Jennie's lips had met hers.

She did count the days.

The first day was the hardest. Everything faded with time.

With her heart trying to knife its way out of her chest with every breath, Lisa had to hope everything faded with time.

It was the first night Lisa slept alone in a bed that had almost been theirs. She woke to emptiness and, in her sleepy haze, she didn't know why.

Lisa grumbled sleepily, patting her hand across the pillow where Jennie's head should have been but inexplicably was not. "Nini...?"

Lisa hoped Jennie wasn't in the closet rearranging her beanies again.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, looking around the empty room. Silence was extremely rare in Jennie's presence. Even when she slept, Jennie mumbled and huffed and talked sleepily about the evils of lamp posts.

The silence in Jennie's absence was louder than Jennie ever could have been.

"Oh," Lisa said to the empty room, awareness retuning to her in a sickening rush. Oh.

Somehow, still, Lisa knew Jennie hadn't left. It was the difference between silence and deafness.

The smell of coffee was wafting under the door frame. Lisa dressed slowly, trying to prepare herself for Jennie's unhappiness, trying to prepare herself to say no to Jennie's clinging fingers and wanting looks.

When Lisa walked into the kitchen, Jennie was wearing a faded apron with butterflies on it and one of Lisa's red beanies on her head. She was dancing with a spatula.

Lisa glanced frantically around the room, half worried that Jennie had started up the stove and was attempting some elaborate dish made of inedible ingredients. The stove was off, to Lisa's great relief. Jennie did not appear to actually be cooking, simply dancing with a spatula.

"Lili!" Jennie called with unexpected cheerfulness, skipping over to drape herself over Lisa's shoulders. Her touch made Lisa's skin prickle like she'd just woken up.

Lisa would have pulled away.

"I made a friend," Jennie said, tapping the metal of the spatula merrily against Lisa's cheek. Lisa hooked her fingers around Jennie's wrist without thinking.
"What's his name?" Lisa asked, her voice scratchy from sleep.

"Her name," Jennie corrected, tapping Lisa again on the cheek in emphasis, "is Ariana." When Lisa nodded vaguely, Jennie huffed discontentedly against her neck. "Don't be rude, Lisa! Say hello. She likes you, of course."