Heart on Your Sleeve

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tw: brief mentions of child abuse/ drug use/ self-loathing/ homophobic slur.
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maybe we are a generation of romantics, violent stirrings and cannibal hearts . but i don't think thats a weakness, we feel it all.
- rachel wolchin

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Lisa never asked to be rich.

She knows, she gets it, she does. Why the fuck would you not want to be rich, why would you take something like that for granted? Why throw it all away when others starve and beg to even have a fraction of what you have?

Those thoughts make her head hurt, so she rephrases it in her diary; underlined in bold letters.

I never asked to have rich parents. Someone better deserves the life I have.

Because rich parents means busy parents, rich important mothers and fathers means being raised by three nannies her entire life and never getting to hug her mother. Or kiss her father's cheek. Or laugh while they taught her how to ride a bike. It means learning her first language, Thai, from a teacher, not her own mother as they cook meals and laugh at stupid jokes. Rich parents means un-loved in Lisa's case. It means thrown away and used as a mantel piece, something to be shown off when others come around. I don't know, she writes.

Sometimes I think my problem is not having any friends. There's that too. Don't be friends with rich kid Lisa they say. Don't talk to her, don't breathe the same air as her, she'll just look at you like you're worthless. She never has. She never ever has looked down at anyone in her entire life; her parents do it. And she never wants to be her parents. She has one friend though.

Jennie.

And Jennie's nice. Lisa likes Jennie.

Sometimes, Lisa might even think she loves her.

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A lot of images go through people's minds when they think of Lalisa Manoban.

Prissy rich girl. Owns like, five IPhone's. A giant bedroom. A pool to herself. (Some of them are true, but she sleeps in the nanny's house out the back behind her mansion of a house because its warm and makes her feel normal and sane and safe) People think of short skirts and braided hair and pearl earrings when they think of Lisa. Like a doll, porcelain and breakable.

But Lisa likes leather. She likes high waisted jeans and boots and she likes the above description more on other girls than herself. (Maybe that's why she likes Jennie. Jennie wears black skirts and crop tops and always wears the pearl earrings Lisa got her for her eighteenth birthday. She always smells of lemongrass and spring)

"You always smell like smoke Lili," Lisa remembers how Jennie laughed, kissing her on the cheek.

"And cherries. Cigarette smoke and cherries" Lisa's okay with that description, Jennie likes it, so that's how she'll be.

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"Nini?"

"Hmm?"

Jennie's lying her head on Lisa's stomach, lollipop in her mouth as Lisa breathes in her cigarette. In. Out. Filling her lungs with the smell of Jennie's hair and nicotine. She blows out through her nose, directing it away from the girl beneath her. They're in the nanny house, in front of the fire place it has, it's small and homey and this is where Lisa could live forever. If it was in the middle of a forest and it was just her and Jennie.

"We should runaway. Take my car and just...go"

Jennie giggles, she looks up to Lisa; the moon catches her eyes and Lisa thinks maybe she can love her. Maybe Jennie can love her fucked up life back. She also thinks maybe she should kiss her, lollipop lips and all.