I'm almost me again (She's almost you)

Chapter 18

"I've met someone else."

Lisa's stomach dropped at the words, catching her off-guard as the breath was forced from her lungs, leaving her breathless as she stared with wide, doleful eyes, full of confused agony. Her lips barely moved as her voice came out as a confounded gasp.

"What?"

"Lisa," Jisoo softly sighed, giving her a look of such pitying sadness that it made Lisa's gut wrench, "come on. We were never going to be together, you and I. That night was a mistake, we both know it."

Shaking her head, Lisa choked on hitching breath, her heavy brow drawing together as a distressed look crumpled her face. "No. No it wasn't, don't say that."

"Lisa-"

Jisoo reached out to touch her arm, and Lisa jerked back with a flinch, giving Jisoo a sharp look of anguish and accusation. "I don't- why are you doing this? I love you, you know I do. Why- I don't-"

Shoulders going slack as she hung her head, Jisoo stood there for a moment, a forlorn air about her as her eyes swam with remorse and a silent plea for Lisa to understand. Taking a slow step forward, she reached out again, taking hold of Lisa's cold hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry," Lisa choked out past numb lips, feeling some part of herself close off.

It was like a switch had been flipped, plunging her into the darkness that had always been waiting there beneath the surface, the darkness that Jisoo had pulled her out of over the past few years, full of all the grief and bottled up feelings Lisa had refused to deal with. All of a sudden, she could barely feel a thing. Only the devastation that tore through her as she stood there helplessly, heart breaking into pieces over just a few words.

"I didn't want to tell you, but I- well, this just isn't healthy. We can't keep going on like this. I love you, Lisa - really, I do - but... just not in that way. I'm sorry if I led you on, if I made you think that you and I- that we'd-"

Snatching her hand back, Lisa stood open-mouthed, unable to find the words as she felt everything around her crumble. She wanted to scream, to collapse to her knees and wrap her arms around herself, hold herself together when every bit of her was falling apart. But she was frozen. It was like she couldn't move, couldn't feel, couldn't breathe. There was only one thought circling around in her mind; who? Who was the person that could give Jisoo what Lisa clearly hadn't been able to?

"Will you at least tell me her name?"

"Nayeon."

-----

Lisa woke in the small room in Jennie's cottage the next morning, beams of pure sunlight shining through a cloudless sky slanting across her face through the open curtains, blankets twisted around her legs and a loose-limbed ache throughout her body. It only took a few moments for the events of yesterday to catch up to her, jolting her wide awake as guilt and shame crashed into her.

Sitting up, pink-cheeked and frazzled, running a hand through her tangled hair, Lisa sat in bed blinking for a few moments as the weight of her actions settled down on her. And surprisingly, she found that she didn't regret it. The guilt was there, the brooding feeling of betrayal nagging at the back of her mind, but Lisa knew that was just the part of her that loved Jisoo. The rational part of her mind knew that it was stupid to feel that way, when things with Jisoo were so uncertain, and as she climbed out of bed, stretching out sore muscles, she found that she felt good.