And all that I've known to be of love

And I am gentle

You ran off with it all

And I am desperate

And all that I dream

Where do you run, where do you run to?

(Mercury by Sufjan Stevens)

Golden light and brilliant blue.

A breath-stealing look across the gymnasium floor, a stellar collision in the corridor.

A first kiss under the stars, a first time under the rain.

Ever since they met, Lisa has been in love with Jennie.

Where her mother had loved her father with quiet, measured grace, and her father adored her mother with not-so-quiet and immeasurable ardour, Lisa is the product of both.

With grace and ardour, she has loved Jennie. For sixteen years, Lisa’s heart has been in constant expansion making room for her boundless, radiating warmth (a brilliance so hot that sometimes it burns).

She has been gentle and faithful. Patient and kind. 

Confident and steadfast. Desperate and broken. 

She has felt weightless and been left speechless.

But not once has her love wavered. Even after Jennie’s did, heartbreakingly and without cause, Lisa’s love remains, tender and true.

*****

“Lisa, what happened?”

Lisa shakily lifted her arm to reveal the small velvet box clutched in her hand. She shook her head, with greater violence than the soft, almost inaudible ‘no’ that had precipitated the tearful trek leading her to stand heartbroken in front of her sister’s apartment door. Hours since, the rejection still reverberated in her chest, a substitute for where her heart should be beating.

She was immediately drawn into a crushing embrace. Unable to find any words, Lisa could only sob into Rosé’s shirt, distraught and gasping in spurts of uneven air.

Rosé rubbed a soothing hand up and down Lisa’s back. “You’re okay.”

Lisa weakly mumbled an unintelligible reply into the now wet shoulder. She was far from okay.

—

Two months later, Rosé was already waiting halfway down the same hallway, wordlessly taking the duffle bag while the other arm pulled Lisa in.

“She—” Lisa had to pause for the crack in her voice to finish its break, “she said no,” and a tear to fall, “again.”

Rosé held on tighter.

“You’re okay.”

*****

Her heart is pounding.

It’s screaming for her to turn around and go back to Jennie.

But as her feet carry her out the door farther away from their apartment and faster than she has the wits to stop, it takes everything in Lisa not to break. For the third time.

Her cheeks are stained, her breaths short and vision blurred from witnessing the pain that rived across Jennie’s face when Lisa revealed she was leaving for London.

Driven by her own pain and the stifling, hot sensation she’d unexpectedly felt upon hearing the three words, and then magnified by the accusation that her actions of the past months amounted to a cruel, meaningless fuck, Lisa found herself running.

She had to get out, flee the scene before she had the chance to say anything of what she had planned and rehearsed to share with Jennie.

She should have known better. Plans and Jennie rarely make sense in the same sentence. Lisa is a planner and a list maker. Jennie has never fit neatly into any timetable or semblance of order, especially not within the narrow width of a spreadsheet column.

Lisa doesn’t stop moving until she’s sitting on hardwood floor with her back against a familiar black door, blocks away from the sounds of heaving sobs that still ring in her ears and are a struggle not to echo.

She doesn’t remember how she got here or for how long she’s been sat but then a different blonde is suddenly in front of her, kneeled down and looking alarmed.

“Jennie,” is all she has the capacity to whisper before her sister’s arms protectively wrap around her. Lisa pitches forward into the comfort, unmindful of the awkward position.

A second set of concerned eyes come into her view.

“Shhhh,” Rosé coos and tries to reassure, “you’re okay.”

The worn refrain makes Lisa cry harder. She didn’t think she’d be here again.

—

They’re arguing.

Or more like, Jisoo is speaking with her outside voice in flurried frustration while Rosé’s calmness is likely motivating her volume.

Lisa can hear them all the way in the bedroom from where she sits near-catatonic on their couch. Her head is in her hands with elbows on her knees, hair curtaining to shield from the too-bright streetlight and shut the world out.

Were she not lost in her thoughts and focused on abating the deafening rush of blood in her ears, she’d be able to catch snippets of the one-sided conversation, “What the hell happened?”, “I knew things were going too well,” and “They’re both fucking idiots, you can’t trust them with themselves.”

It goes quiet for awhile, maybe Rosé is filling her wife in, but of what Lisa wouldn’t know as she’s been scant on specifics about what happened with Jennie. Aware of her plans, Rosé may have guessed how they’ve gone awry but she wouldn’t betray Lisa’s confidence without first consulting her.

When they at last re-emerge to the living room, brown eyes softly meet Lisa’s gaze, tender and empathetic and completely in contrast to the previous yelling.

“Lisa,” Jisoo says, combing back her hair behind her ear and wiping away another fallen tear, “I owe you an apology and we should talk later.”

That momentarily snaps Lisa out of her haze, confused by Jisoo’s remorseful look. It would make more sense for Jennie’s best friend to be angry with her.

“I’m sorry, I should have been a better friend to you back then,” Jisoo continues. “To both of you.”

Lisa doesn’t understand but nods nonetheless, no energy to question.

“Is Jennie home? She’s not answering her phone,” Jisoo asks, tapping out a text, worry lines knitting her brows together.

Hearing the name involuntarily draws another small sob from Lisa. She nods again.

“Ok, ok,” Jisoo rubs her back and then turns to mouth something to her wife.

Lisa quickly loses track of their hushed conversation, returning to her prior numb state and only vaguely aware of their movements. Then she hears a faint, “Hyuna, meet you there in fifteen,” trailing out the door before Jisoo is gone.

Lisa doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t make a sound. All her effort is concentrated on not letting the near permanent ache consume her whole, the one she had first carried across the ocean and then back again, the same dull throbbing she thought was beginning to ease these last few months only to flare up tonight. Acutely.

Rosé silently sits with her, a stalwart presence. She lets the younger Manoban steep in her melancholy for awhile before she retrieves two tumblers from the kitchen and a bottle of whisky. She returns to retake her place on the couch, sitting crossed leg this time as she silently pours their drinks.

Lisa stares as the burnished golden liquid fills the highball glass. She had picked up the single malt Scottish whisky during a day trip to Speyside after a business meeting in Aberdeen. Her host wouldn’t let her leave without a visit to Aberlour’s distillery so that she could get a better sense of the Highland heartiness with which their office would be partnering. Not much of a whisky drinker herself (that had been Jennie) Lisa agreed if only to catch a glimpse of the spectacular scenery of Ben Rinnes, its natural springs and pink granite.

During the sampling portion of the tour, when their guide had described the A'bunadh finish as “robust and intense with bitter-sweet notes of exotic spices,” she’d immediately thought of her sister. Much like Rosé, it takes a little bit of getting used to for the uninitiated, but once past the numbing first sip, the strength of its rich, complex taste stays.

(A different bottle still sits in her London apartment, the 12 year old malt purchased on the whim that one day she’d get to share its warm and lingering finish with Jennie, the amber colour a placeholder for the sunsets that they might one day watch together again. The age of the malt purely coincidental.)

“Has the appropriate amount of time passed by yet?” Rosé asks, breaking the silence after finishing the pour.

Lisa looks up and raises an eyebrow for clarification.

“For the touchy feely part to be over,” Rosé says while handing Lisa her drink, meeting her gaze, a mixture of apathy and empathy that only an older sibling could countenance in equal measure.

That cracks a tiny smile out of Lisa, followed by a small wet chuckle that loosens the tightness in her throat and finally allows some air to enter. She takes a fortifying sip before she slumps on the couch, resting the back of her head on the cushion and stares up to the ceiling, pushing her long exhale upwards.

“Fuck.”

“You told her about London?”

Lisa slowly shakes her head. “Not exactly,” she says. Thinking of how the evening spiralled out of control, she feels a renewed sense of despair. “She told me she loves me, is in love with me, has never stopped and wants to give us a real second go.”

Rosé looks unmoved as if Lisa had just revealed the sun sets in the west but nonetheless tips her chin for Lisa to continue, intuiting more to the story.

“I’ve waited so long to hear those words,” Lisa quietly relays, eyes going misty again. She can recall with devastating clarity the exact last time they had spoken of love, when she had asked—begged Jennie to not break them—and didn’t receive an answer.

“Do you love me?” She asked, cupping Jennie’s face and searching for some resonance. Lisa tried in vain to see past the distant look, the taut expression that revealed little of her heart’s mirrored break. “If you still do, then nothing else matters except us. Except you, love.”

On her last thread of courage, Lisa leaned in and kissed the corner of Jennie’s mouth, holding her hope in place and wishing Jennie would make the millimetre of adjustment to press their lips fully together.

She waited, tense and trembling.

She could have sworn she felt Jennie’s lips part, could have sworn there was a perceptible press.

Instead, Jennie took a deep, shaky breath then slowly pried Lisa’s fingers away and just as slowly took two steps back putting a hurtful distance between them, the millimetre stretching into a million miles.

Jennie wouldn’t meet her eyes as she sealed their fate, biting her lip so hard that Lisa feared she’d break skin.

“You should go, Lisa. There’s nothing here for you.”

Her insides twisted in indescribable pain. It would have been a greater kindness for Jennie to have punched her instead. Yet, after months of nothing, it was eerily fitting for those to be her final words to Lisa.

Only white-knuckled, clenched fists betrayed Jennie’s steadfast resolve—like keeping her hands by her side would prevent her from reaching out—otherwise Lisa’s last effort to breakthrough to her was met with deafening, stony silence.

They stood wordless in shared aching solitude for an eternity before Lisa, with the little strength she had left, picked up her duffle bag and said with as much steadiness as she could muster, “Despite nothing, I still do. I still—,” Lisa choked out, “I love you.”

She waited, giving Jennie another chance—a small infinity—to reciprocate.

When parted lips formed a soundless answer, Lisa left their home, turning her back on the sight of wet blue eyes and their muted tears, with a gaping hole in her heart for the words that never came.

Jennie’s unreturned I love you has stayed with Lisa, vacant and haunting. The memory sends a bone chilling shudder through her body. She thought she was over it, but apparently the pain laid dormant waiting for the ripe moment to resurface, the trauma of separation and abandonment reasserting itself with disruptive effect.

Rosé waits, calmly drinking her whisky while Lisa works through the cobwebs.

Lisa tucks her bottom lip in to keep it from trembling and goes momentarily silent, scratching at a loose thread on the couch and stalling for how to articulate her reaction when Jennie finally voiced her love—years later.

“When she said them, I don’t know … it freaked me out.”

When Jennie looked at her with such love and hope, suddenly everything felt too incredibly real, which also meant a real possibility for things to fall apart again. The suppressed memories came flooding back and drowned out the speech she had prepared. They reopened wounds that she thought were finally healing.

“I was scared.” The fear of abandonment made her question precisely the things that she wanted, saw for them—what she was ready to reach for again. She tells Rosé of how her rational brain took over to stupidly put Jennie on the spot.

“Lisa,” Rosé sighs exasperated.

“I not so eloquently blurted out about leaving but before I was able to finish, she panicked, then I panicked some more and left without really telling her anything,” Lisa rushes out on a bluster, winded by her own daftness.

She recounts the hurtful things they’d exchanged.

Lisa looks down at her hands, at how empty they currently feel from the mess she and Jennie have both made. Rosé doesn’t say anything, perhaps as taken aback as Lisa was by the complete derailment of her plan to talk to Jennie.

“I know, I could’ve handled the conversation bett—” Lisa’s follow-up is cut off by a sharp pain to her upper arm. “Ow!”

Rosé retracts her fist and looks unimpressed by her little sister’s wimpyness, like she’s personally affronted by Lisa’s physical and emotional flakiness. Lisa glares at her while rubbing her arm.

“Fuck sakes, Lisa,” Rosé reproaches and grabs the tumbler away from her. “You don’t deserve this. I thought you were crying because she rejected you again.”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask.  She straightaway assumed New York has been one big lie,” Lisa defends. She pauses feeling hurt at the utter lack of faith Jennie put into what they had been rebuilding, how easily and quickly she doubted the veracity of Lisa’s actions and affection only moments after declaring her own. “She accused me of faking it this whole time. Like none of it meant anything. That I’d be cruel enough to deceive her into thinking we were headed in one direction while I was going another—like what she did to me.”

The second punch is just as unexpected but delivered with a little less sting.

“Of course she would think those things. You haven’t told her how disgustingly in love you are with her.”

“I thought she knew from what I was telling her without words,” Lisa says quietly.

She doesn’t think any combination of twenty-six letters is sufficient to communicate what she felt—feels—for Jennie, so she relied on the skim of lips and the slip of skin, the small acts of love to tell the story instead. Far from being a good fuck , every act of intimacy was an act of deep and fulfilling and profound love—an embodied experience with far greater depth of meaning than the poverty of verbs and nouns.

In every kiss and every look, in her quiet non-verbal presses of I love yous, in the way Lisa gasped into Jennie’s mouth while their bodies reached the height of connection or in the way she linked their hands and pulled Jennie closer and whispered morning prayers into the mess of golden hair, she thought the truth was bare.

For Jennie to have dismissed all that in the split second of her anger at perceived betrayal was a gut-punch reaffirming once more that Jennie did not trust in their love. That contrary to her promise of steadfastness this time around, as soon as it got hard, her instinct was to cast doubt over what they have.

“I was about to elaborate on London but she threw me off.” Lisa rubs her face, feeling the toll of reliving the conversation. “I was starting to tell her that I was trying to figure things out, trying to move on with her not from her, but then she drew the wrong conclusion that I’ve just been fucking around, mindfucking with her. I didn’t think she’d be so easily dismissive.”

Lisa takes a moment to blink away the new tears forming.

“Do you know how hurtful that is, Rosé?” Lisa continues, her voice croaking, “For me to be so hopelessly still in love with her, after she abandoned me, after she fucking rejected my marriage proposal, and I spent years feeling unwanted, only to have her question my motives, to think I’ve just been waiting around to exact revenge. Like what, breaking her would somehow un-break me.”

It hurts for Jennie to have reduced Lisa’s feelings to something as trivial as being spiteful. That she’d be motivated by pettiness rather than anything other than a desire to heal, to mend a still broken heart. Each act since her visit to Jennie’s gallery had been a scrap of duct tape, clumsily torn and applied, but an earnest attempt nonetheless to put the pieces back together.

Somewhere between the Standard and that fateful Sunday, Lisa’s heart had fallen back irrevocably in step with Jennie’s, accelerating every time they were in the same room, skipping a beat whenever they weren’t. From the first hug to their last touch and kiss, she’d given herself over to Jennie again and again. It cut her deeply for Jennie to assume any other intent but love.

“I know my reaction was poor and it may have set her off, but I wish … ” Lisa doesn’t know what she wishes.

A deep sigh breaks her out of her thoughts, reminding her that Rosé is still there. She hasn’t said anything for some time, probably having checked out after learning of Lisa’s dramatics. She looks almost bored, attention diverted to the ripped part of her jeans that is more fascinating than the perennial tearing of Lisa’s heart.

Lisa retrieves the whisky from the coffee table and takes a careless drink, regretting right away when it quickly burns down her already scratched throat. The reason Lisa isn’t much of a whisky drinker is because she can’t hold the liquor. It takes very little before she’s babbling nonsense.

“I’ve tried,” Lisa commiserates on a random note, once a good percentage of the 40% alcohol kicks in. On Rosé’s pitiless expression, which Lisa interprets as, Did you really?, Lisa mutters, “Shouldn’t she be the one trying?” but immediately feels guilty for her childishness when Rosé stares in silent disapproval.

This must be what the one-sided conversation Jisoo had with Rosé was like earlier.

“I know, I know, she’s more than tried,” Lisa retracts, an unbidden smile forming thinking of all the ways that Jennie has tried, “she’s such an amazing tryer, Sé. Like the best. She’s well overpaid her debt with how hard she’s tried.”

Rosé props her legs on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle, links her fingers behind her head, elbows out, and leans back against the couch.

Lisa steam rolls on, “But, you’re gonna say, it’s not about who owes whom more. There’s no ledger or debt in relationships, Lisa,” she chastises herself, approximating Rosé’s voice, “just two people figuring shit out together, working their way through the hurt.”

Rosé nods to show she’s listening but has closed her eyes and is probably not actually listening.

Lisa continues anyways after a few more healthy sips of the Aberlour, its smoothness facilitating surprisingly lucid thoughts, “You’re also thinking: my heart-eyes may be picked up by satellites but I have to realise that from Jennie’s perspective, she needs verbal confirmation. She’s terrified that she’s screwed things up so irreparably that I wouldn’t, haven’t, forgiven her let alone be broadcasting blinking codes into the universe for everyone to know but her.” Rosé hums and Lisa’s eyebrows scrunch like she’s come to a realisation as she pushes on. “She says I love you and I question her intentions, then tell her I’m leaving. She doesn’t know of my plans, hasn’t had a front row seat to the Lisa tragi-comedy like you have, no idea that I gush about her until your ears bleed. So, it’s valid for her to feel blindsided.”

“Mhm-hmm.”

“Fuck, you’re right!” Lisa slaps a hand to Rosé’s thigh, eyes widening like she’s just discovered the earth isn’t flat. “And even though Jennie and I have talked a lot I’ve also been holding out, probably because I’m still traumatised and likely safeguarding this jello heart of mine. But, if I want us to work, I have to let her in fully. I trust her, I do, but I have to let her know that I—”

“Are you done with your soliloquy?” Rosé interjects, abruptly taking the sail out of Lisa’s next monologue.

Lisa reluctantly concedes the floor to her sister who bluntly but not unkindly informs her, “As enlightening as it is to witness your self-actualisation, I’m not the person you should be telling all this. You have a crying girlfriend who might not be crying if you were having this conversation with her instead.”

Lisa nods, taking Rosé’s word as law.

The word girlfriend sends a stab to her heart at the same time warms her belly. (It could also be the malt fermenting.) Minutes of meaningful silence pass between them. The warm thoughts turn contemplative.

“I don’t know how not to love her, Sé.”

In the amber haze of a waning whisky-soaked night, it’s the surest statement Lisa has made of the last couple of hours ( years ) and causes a flutter in her chest.

“You were a goner from day one.”

*****

“Dad, I demand a new model. This one’s broken.”

At the sound of the front door slamming, Henry looked up from his reading on the couch, past his eldest daughter to his youngest for some context, finding a starry-eyed Lisa covered in white paint.

“Look,” Rosé protested, waving a hand gesturing to Lisa’s general personhood, “the little gay hasn’t said a word since I picked her up walking home like a zombie. Worse, she won’t stop smiling.”

“Rosé, you are also gay,” their dad pointed out, unable to hide his amusement.

“But I’m useful. I do your taxes.”

Rosé started poking her sister for a response. Lisa absently swatted her hand away and plopped down on the couch, joining Henry, backpack still on and, by the beaming smile on her face, the only thing keeping her from floating away. She pulled the bottom of her shirt out to have a better look at the new fabric art she’d acquired that afternoon.

“Good luck trying to get her to wash that shirt ever again,” Rosé hedged, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Lisa ignored the jibe and revealed in whispered reverence. “She’s beautiful, Dad. I’m going to marry her.”

Henry chuckled while Rosé made a disgusted face. “That’s a productive first week of school, honey.”

“She’s beautiful,” Lisa repeated, breathing out her awe and thinking of the mass of blonde and blue that had physically assaulted her in the hallway, “so incredibly beautiful …”

“Say beautiful again,” Rosé lowly threatened.

Henry looked on with fondness. “Does she have a name?”

“Jennie Kim-Manoban.”

Rosé emitted a vaguely intelligible retching noise, arms uncrossed and hanging indignant, before silently stalking out of the living room with brooding contempt for her sister’s indefatigably gay heart.

—

Lisa’s crush on Jennie grew. As she sat in the girls locker room astride the wooden bench, facing her best friend while kohl was being applied to her face before the start of the baseball game, Lisa’s crush was becoming an unmanageable thing.

“Hold still,” Jennie whispered though both knew the command was unnecessary given that Lisa hadn’t been breathing for the last ten minutes.

Lisa was in the midst of smudging the black powder under her eyes, a mirror held up in one hand and the kohl stick in the other, when Jennie had entered the locker room looking a little winded and a little lost but a whole lot hot.

The locker room was buzzing with excited chatter, players strategising and smack-talking while mid-dressed, with more skin on display than not. Yet, Lisa only had eyes for the jean-clad blonde outfitted in her away jersey. She watched interestedly as Jennie scanned the close quarters for the owner of that jersey number. When their gazes locked, there was a shared hitch of breath that closed the distance between them before Jennie was sitting down in front of her.

In a surprising move that had them both gasping, Jennie placed her hands behind Lisa’s knees and pulled her closer with unknown strength neither expected. Lisa had to brace a hand against Jennie’s thigh to keep from face planting into her chest, a scenario that wasn’t undesirable but not helpful to her already erratically beating heart. More unhelpful was Jennie shooting her hand out to stop Lisa’s forward momentum, her palm warm against Lisa’s bare ribs.

They simultaneously flushed coming to the same realisation that Lisa was still only in her sports bra and boy shorts.

Jennie had become a fixture during practice and in and out of the locker room, so thankfully, none of Lisa’s teammates paid them any attention or gave her flack for their questionable proximity and the rosy tint of her cheeks it produced. Jennie’s hovering presence was a sweet torture that Lisa was sure would lead to self-combustion soon.

A flicker of a stolen glance down at Lisa’s abs and the tiniest poke of tongue were Jennie’s slightest giveaway of her equally affected state, otherwise she immediately took to their recently adopted routine, grabbing the kohl from Lisa and taking over.

Lisa loved baseball for its rituals. Players at-bat dances, pitchers wind-up routines, coaches gum-chewing fervour, the sport’s compulsiveness and idiosyncrasies. Smearing kohl to absorb light and prevent glare was another one of them, and quickly moved to the top of her list ever since Jennie had invited herself to disrupt Lisa’s pre-game peacefulness. What would normally be a time to gather her thoughts had been co-opted for gathering her wits.

That seemed to be Jennie’s operative mode, co-opting Lisa’s time and inviting herself into Lisa’s life as if she had always belonged. Lisa hadn’t expected their first meeting to be a literal run-in, nor their second for Jennie to have impinged on her solitude given the vacancy of seats around the bleachers. Where it should have been jarring with how much Lisa values personal space, Jennie’s presence had felt like an undiscovered part of Lisa was simply making itself known.

Nothing about Jennie was expected or predictable. Everything about her was addictive.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jennie said as she expertly swiped the eye black onto Lisa’s skin, moving her fingers in blind practice with a deft softness of which Lisa was getting far too attached. “Some new soy-base inks got delivered at the last minute. If I didn’t snatch them up then the nerds from the Print Club will drool over them.”

Jennie went on to describe the rivalry between the Art Club and the Print Club before detailing her enthusiasm for the new paints. Lisa barely heard anything past the burning sensation of Jennie’s hand that still hadn’t left her ribs. When Jennie swooned over magenta her fingers pressed into the spaces between bones, when she got excited about experimenting with some new brush technique her thumb unconsciously mimicked the motion, nearing perilously close to the band of Lisa’s sports bra. Besides the physicality of her storytelling, she was close enough for Lisa to count the freckle-to-fleck ratio, a futile, inconclusive task interrupted by attention-hogging blue.

Lisa didn’t think she’d survive to the first pitch.

“Lisa,” Jennie called, “Lis,” she repeated chuckling, “I asked you a question.”

“Huh?”

“Does it still hurt?”

During the last game, a bad bounce of a hard hit grounder ball had struck Lisa under her left eye. As she went tumbling to the ground like a collapsed house of cards, she clocked a flash of blonde, Jennie scrambling off the bench and arriving by her side before any of her teammates or coach could move a muscle. While the medic tended to the pitcher, and determined it’d be nothing more than a nasty bruise, Jennie had glared menacingly from her crouched position at the batter who looked genuinely apologetic if not frightened by the not-so-empty threat of violence gathering storm in closely-held fists. It took Lisa groaning and reaching out for her hand to comfort her as if she was the injured one for Jennie to accept the incident as an accident.

Jennie gently touched the tender area that had since eased in swelling and discoloured to a faint purplish-blue. Lisa shook her head in reply but before she could elaborate that her current worry was a swell of a different kind, Jennie trailed the pads of three fingers down over her cheek. She did the same to the non-injured side.

“There,” Jennie pulled back and held the mirror up for Lisa to evaluate her handiwork, “that should cover it.”

Lisa sucked in a breath at the sight of black tears running down her cheekbones. Her green eyes stood out dramatically against the midnight of the kohl, looking like a hardened warrior.

“Your enemies will think twice before they attack you again,” Jennie said seriously, without hint of sarcasm.

Lisa laughed. “Jennie, it’s high school softball, not a battlefield.”

“Tell that to your face when you get hit by a ball. Not very soft, is it? Besides, it gives you a commanding presence.”

Lisa couldn’t deny that she felt more fierce behind the mask,  far more intimidating than the cute raccoon of her jersey currently stretched over Jennie’s chest. “Thank you.”

The fuller eye coverage also helped to hide her deepening blush when Jennie leaned in and kissed her on one cheek, answering, “You’re welcome, Commander,” and then the other, wishing, “Good luck.”

Then she was gone in the same blustered way she had arrived, leaving Lisa certain that the luck she needed wasn’t for the game.

—

As usual, the dining table had been set by Jennie’s dad, a whimsy of mismatched plates and Star Wars-themed napkins. As a professor at NYU, he ran more regular hours than his surgeon wife and could take on a fair share of the time-based domestic duties, including preparing dinner. Though Jennie was the resident artist of the household, Josh took creative liberty when it came to making the Kims’ meals colourful.

As with every Wednesday, as Lisa had come to know for the past year, the aromas of lemon and herb slow-roast chicken wafted in the air, the main paired with a couscous and mint beet salad and a side serving of honey-glazed potatoes.

Normally, Jennie would be onto her second helping by now, savouring the tender and juicy meat and the way it melted in her mouth. Her moans would have Lisa shifting nervously in her seat.

This Wednesday was different.

Jennie had insisted on taking over chef duties for the evening, adding an avocado risotto to the menu that Lisa knew to be for her benefit. Knowing the labour put into replicating the original meal—letting the marinade sit overnight, giving the chicken a shoulder massage as per Josh’s insistence that the technique was what makes the dish, and watching the oven for over three hours—Lisa confusedly eyed Jennie’s untouched plate, and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t reaping the reward of her efforts, not consuming any of it.

Jennie seemed oddly nervous and too distracted to even properly take in the compliments after the first bites.

“This is excellent, Jennie.”

“Well done, sweetheart. I think she’s got you beat, Josh.”

“Maybe you should cook every Wednesday,” Josh gamely lobbied and received two supportive nods.

For the next minutes, the sounds of scraping metal against china competed with Josh’s hearty laugh, Minzy’s chiding at his dad jokes, and Lisa’s enthusiastic but well-mannered chewing. But amid the pleasant murmur of contented dining, Jennie remained uncharacteristically quiet.

Her eyes were cast down on her lap, nodding absently while her parents chatted animatedly with Lisa about their day. Lisa slipped a hand over Jennie’s to remind her of the comforting presence to her right.

It was a wordless gesture. I’m here, it reassured.

Lisa was giving Josh her full attention as he described the plight of teaching undergraduate students about quantum physics. There was no indication that she wasn’t completely enthralled by his digression into the elemental composition of the universe, but she gently rubbed a thumb on Jennie’s hand to let her know that the summer freckles there were the only galaxies Lisa was truly interested in or currently in tune with. When Josh had moved on to Stephen Hawking and the multiverse, Lisa threaded their fingers, converting the current of her excitement into tingles that she hoped communicated, however many verses exist, that Lisa would always want to hold Jennie’s hand.

The anchoring touch seemed to bolster Jennie’s resolve for what she looked to be building silent courage to do next.

“Mom, Dad,” Jennie visibly swallowed her nerves, taking a careful minute to look up at each parent before turning to Lisa purposefully—an adoring gaze that made Lisa’s stomach flip—and then settling her sight back across the table. The conversation petered out at her serious tone and prolonged eye contact. Lisa firmed her hold of their hands, as three pairs of curious eyes waited on Jennie.

“I would like you to meet my girlfriend.”

The unexpected announcement was met with two unreadable stares and one very large, hard gulp. This was news to Lisa too. Since that night in the outfield, she and Jennie had kissed (a lot) and been on a handful of (secret) dates. They’d circled around the term, and had performed all the duties associated with its meaning, but had yet to tack on any labels to name what they had been doing.

Lisa had difficulty, as she always did around Jennie, to find the right words for what they were becoming to each other.

While others do it quietly or loudly, the way Jennie had come into Lisa’s life had been a degree of brightness in addition to a measure of volume. She had arrived like a lit matchstick to kerosene. From friendship to more, being with Jennie was akin to getting lost within a glowing forest of dusky, lucent depths trying to find the source of that wild fire. The word girlfriend failed the metaphor and paled as a descriptor.

Jennie’s public declaration was surprising. There had been no prior discussion.

An extended moment of silence stilled the air as no one moved, the scene pausing over a collective held breath. That was until Josh started bobbing his head side to side as if trying to peer between Jennie and Lisa and then behind and beyond them.

“Where is she?” Jennie’s father asked, neck craned anticipating an invisible person to pop out from the corridor.

Jennie rolled her eyes. “It’s Lisa, Dad.”

Lisa shyly waved her right hand, giving Josh and Minzy a sheepish smile. Jennie squeezed her left in solidarity. A stupid grin eventually crossed Josh’s face, while Minzy’s look of consternation worried into the creases of her forehead.

“Honey, we know,” Jennie’s father beamed, while her mother took a decidedly different route on the same beat, “Are you using protection?”

“Mom!” “Minzy!” came the simultaneous cries.

Lisa’s head whipped down, her attention suddenly fixating on the risotto on her plate. Her face had taken on an unhealthy pallor at an alarming rate, trying to hide the loss of blood behind a curtain of hair. Her grip on Jennie’s hand went from a soothing hold to a painful tightening.

“We were your age once,” Minzy said knowingly to her daughter and then pointedly turned to her husband, “We were their age once.”

At that, Josh’s eyes bulged comically and then narrowed suspiciously at the pair of nervous teenagers. His gaze lingered especially on Lisa, and then to both their horror, on their hands that were visible on the table. Even though they hadn’t done anything yet, it was the first time in their short dating history that Lisa cursed having long fingers. Jennie not so subtly jerked her hand out of view to solve half the problem.

“No, you were never,” Jennie argued, “you’ve always just been old.”

“How do you think you came about?”

“I willed myself into existence.”

“Nope, that stubbornness is definitely inherited from your mother.”

Blue eyes, identical to her apparent-girlfriend, looked mirthfully back at Jennie, while a pair of thin upturned lips relayed disapproval at the slight. Physically-speaking, there was no argument as to where Jennie came from.

“Well, I hope you’ve also inherited my sensibility,” Minzy said sternly. “You haven’t answered my question. Are you practising safe sex? Are you protecting yourselves?”

Lisa thought she heard what sounded like a choking sound only to realise it came from her, the singular noise she was capable of emitting while the Kims volleyed back and forth. The intensity of her stare at the risotto could turn it into soup.

“You can’t be serious, Mom,” Jennie whined.

To Jennie’s chagrin, Minzy’s tone turned to doctor mode, as she persisted. “As serious as a STI. I know dental dams aren’t popular, but—”

“Oh my god,” Jennie groaned, “Dad, make her stop.” She looked to be seriously contemplating banging her head down on her plate if the uneaten chicken wasn’t in the way. “We haven’t gone past third base anyways.”

That didn’t give Josh or Minzy (or Lisa) any relief. Leave it to Jennie to retain the least useful and currently most inappropriate sports information.

Jennie’s bisexuality had never been an issue, so Lisa wasn’t concerned about a negative reaction to their new relationship status. Certainly it wouldn’t have escaped Jennie’s astute parents, or anyone with a pair of working eyes, why they’d been grinning like fools ever since Lisa’s playoff games.

Nonetheless, something about making it official to parents was scary, even if they were the most left-leaning and free-love embracing. Lisa just didn’t think Minzy would leap-frog right over acceptance and onto sex education.

“What your mother is trying to say is that we’re happy for you, kiddo.”

“That’s not at all what she said,” Jennie pouted.

“A loose translation.”

“That’s not what I said,” Minzy parroted her agreement, but then relented, seeing her daughter’s pursed lips and frown lines, and softened more in line with her husband’s gentleness to say, “But yes, we are very happy. We know you care a great deal for each other.”

“It’s hard to miss the way you look at Lisa. Let’s face it kiddo,” Josh tagged in, “you are about as subtle as your girlfriend’s eyeliner.”

Lisa had been listening intently but hoping to avoid active participation. No such luck. Face set seriously, Josh turned his attention to her. “Speaking of,“ he said, drawing out the words and making sure to catch Lisa’s eyes, “now Lisa, I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly, but if you hurt my daughter …” and left the sentence hanging ominously with a smile. The threat was delivered deceptively kindly, over-dripping with saccharine.

Lisa sneaked a glance at Jennie in a silent plead for backup. But between the uncool dad and bad-cop mom routines, Jennie looked to be plotting, if not their demise, then how she could draft up her emancipation papers and run away to Vegas with Lisa.

Left to save herself, Lisa finally found her words to insert into the family drama, “I won’t.” She straightened up in her seat, and adjusted her posture as if she’d been called into the principal’s office. “I look at Jennie the same way too,” she said softly and turned her head to do exactly just that. A warm fluttering in her chest brightened her already love-struck expression. “I promise to always protect her.”

Jennie returned the look and they shared an intimate moment, causing the wings of the butterflies to flap more urgently. Lisa continued, “I can assure you that I will take the utmost care to be safe with Jennie’s heart.”

Jennie beamed at her and lifted Lisa’s hand, first to rest against her chest for one suspended heartbeat, and then to her lips to kiss it gently. Before Lisa could bask in the unexpected sweetness, she felt the press of lips on her cheek, and forgetting where they were, she tilted her head for a proper kiss, getting briefly lost in Jennie’s softness before two loud clearing throats reminded them of their audience.

They both flushed pink.

“Hands on the table where I can see them,” Josh cautioned prompting the girls to scramble to follow his directive.

His wife nodded in support then abandoned the doctor mask entirely to return to full mom mode again. “I will hold you both to Lisa’s promise. Thank you for telling us, sweetheart. It’s quite obvious you have a very special bond. Take care of each other.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, Mom.”

The teenagers smiled tenderly at one another with a final squeeze of their on-the-table held hands before Jennie started to dig into her chicken with earnest and Lisa happily polished off her risotto.

—

“Thank god it turns out one of us can cook,” Lisa breathed into Jennie’s neck as she drew back for some air after another deep kiss while straddling Jennie on her bed.

After being waved away from clean-up duty as reward for cooking tonight, Jennie had grabbed Lisa’s hand and dragged her upstairs. They haven’t left her bedroom since.

Jennie panted as her hands deliberately sought out Lisa’s ass and started kneading. “Yeah?”

“I can’t survive on the taste of you alone,” Lisa explained but contrary to her statement she licked Jennie’s neck and then sucked for several distracted seconds, then returned to her point, “no matter how delicious you are.”

Jennie tipped Lisa’s chin up to kiss her again in answer. She dipped her tongue in, and despite having just finished dinner, Lisa felt indescribable hunger once more.

“Girlfriends, huh?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When were you planning on telling me?”

“I thought you knew.” Jennie then nibbled behind Lisa’s ear, “I don’t do this,” and then squeezed Lisa’s ass, “with Jisoo or Hyuna.”

They both shudder at the thought.

“Give a girl a little more warning next time,” Lisa implored. “Your mom scares me.”

“Her bite is bigger than her bark.”

“Don’t you mean it the other way around?”

“No.”

“Besides, it was for your sake.”

“How so?”

“You like brevity. I couldn’t go on referring to you as the girl I really like, and despite the nervous mess she renders me every time she smiles or looks my way, I want to spend every second with her, being nervous and messy,” Jennie unfurled in a stream of consciousness, then shrugged while shyly avoiding eye contact, “So, shorthand, girlfriend.”

“I really like you to” Lisa returned, heart eyes on full blast, “like, a stupendous amount.” There was nothing short or brief about how much Lisa liked her.

Jennie then got serious, her expression set in odd apprehension. “Lisa, will you be my girlfriend?” She asked and waited with a bit lip as if there was any chance at rejection.

Lisa chuckled at her backwards sense of timing, and before Jennie could feel offended by her laughter, she leaned in to pull Jennie’s lip from under its hold, covering her mouth over the slight opening, and passed the yes between one breath and the next.

Jennie tilted her head and celebrated their official newfound status with a bruising kiss. As her tongue slipped in, Jennie slipped further and further into the recesses of Lisa’s heart and burrowed herself deeper and deeper. Hands took on minds of their own and before Lisa knew which way was up, Jennie was bucking up into her and Lisa was pushing down.

With quickened heartbeats and the dampness of her arousal that she’d hoped didn’t betray her, their upcoming camping trip couldn’t come soon enough.

“Girls, door open!” Josh shouted with parental prescience as he walked by Jennie’s bedroom, startling Lisa into taking a tumble off the bed.

It was only three feet between bed and floor but when Jennie leaned over and looked down at her with concerned eyes while struggling to stifle her laugh, a mirth of crinkling blue against pale, rosy cheeks, Lisa felt like she was still falling and would never reach the ground.

—

Lisa shifted nervously on her feet. She looked furtively from side to side. The alley was still empty.

“Stop fidgeting,” came the muffled sound from below her. “You’ll draw more attention.”

Since their first time in the tent, and many enthusiastic subsequent times later, Jennie on her knees would normally have Lisa’s heart palpitating but currently its hiked rate was for a less pleasurable reason. The syncopated hissing sound of the spray can was the main perpetrator behind her nerves. She decided then and there that a life of petty crime wasn’t for her, too much anxiety.

“I’d like to put it on the record that I’m here against my will,” Lisa commented, even though she had voluntarily and eagerly followed Jennie after practice to the alleyway three blocks down the road from their school. “You’re really hot, babe, but I don’t know if I’d go to jail for you.”

“Your fickle love is noted.”

Lisa blushed and was glad to have Jennie’s attention elsewhere than her reddening cheeks at the mention of the four-letter word. She’d been waiting for the right moment to express it.

“Why are you painting white on a white wall?” Lisa whisper-asked for the fifth time.

Jennie sat back on her haunches, and lifted her mask. She looked at her creation and seemed pleased, though there was nothing to the naked eye that Lisa could find pleasing. It looked like a blank white wall. She had helpfully carried a collapsible ladder and large stencils for Jennie then served as lookout for the past hour while Jennie swept up and down and across the wall in fluid movements but Lisa couldn’t quite piece together what the big picture amounted to.

She knew Jennie had been making daily trips this week with her backpack to some unknown location, up to no good, but today was the first time Lisa was available to tag along on the covert operation. Lisa had expected some resistance to her company given how secretive she’d been but Jennie seemed oddly receptive to having a co-conspirator.

“Now, we wait,” Jennie said, sidestepping her question. She patted the spot next to her, settling in a few feet away from the graffiti, back against the wall.

Lisa eyed her suspiciously. “For what?”

“You’ll see.”

“Kinda hard to, it’s getting dark soon.”

“That’s the point.”

Lisa had given up long ago on following Jennie’s logic so she hummed and took her spot next to her girlfriend. They sat holding hands as the orange glow of the sky turned deep blue, Jennie listening distractedly to Lisa’s baseball anecdotes. For some reason, as daylight faded, Jennie’s palm got sweatier. She kept oddly looking over at the wall and her invisible artwork with increasing degrees of trepidation.

“… and then we won the World Series,” Lisa threw in to test her attention yet knowing she lost Jennie long ago.

“Uh-huh,” Jennie turned and sweetly kissed her on the cheek, “well done, babe,” and looked proudly at Lisa as if she’d announced she’d won the Cy Young award.

“Jennie, you’re not even listening.”

“I am too. You’re still talking about a ball, right?”

Lisa narrowed her eyes at her but then couldn’t handle the adorable look of confusion so she leaned in for a kiss which Jennie took to like a sunflower to sun. She seemed to blossom under Lisa’s touch, her lips opening invitingly that had Lisa moving with the enthusiasm of butterflies to nectar. This may be close to approaching their 800th kiss, that Lisa was definitely not keeping count of, but in any event generated the heat and electric feel of the first.

Lisa was still in her practice uniform, wearing a tank top with arm holes wide enough for Jennie to slip a hand in and send chills down Lisa’s spine as it softly grazed in search of purchase over her stomach. The kiss deepened and stretched out for toe-curling minutes until Jennie sagely pulled back before sex in an alleyway became a real possibility. The lustful eyes didn’t make her case for stopping but Lisa forced herself to back away from the too appealing thought of taking Jennie up against the brick wall.

At least, the momentary distraction settled Jennie’s nerves. She appeared calmer now, rising to her feet and taking Lisa with her. The encroaching night soon blanketed them in darkness, a flickering street lamp their new dim source of light. Curiously, Jennie walked her a few paces away from the wall, with wordless instruction to wait there while she went to retrieve something from her backpack.

Lisa watched mesmerised as Jennie fiddled with whatever additional equipment she brought, crouched low to the ground, her tongue cutely poked out in concentration that Lisa caught a glimpse of whenever she turned her head to make sure Lisa hadn’t moved.

Lisa would not move for the world even if it shook under her feet. A low buzzing sound emitted from Jennie’s bag where a wire connected it to a long black tube. Then, a bright light projected up from the ground and onto the wall. Lisa didn’t know what to expect until Jennie stepped aside and joined her.

She gasped as the image became visible, awestruck by the glowing white writing and the blue and green floral artwork wrapping and twisting delicately around the letterforms.

Lisa,

will you

go to prom

with me?

“I used UV reactive invisible paints,” Jennie shyly muttered, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the gravel, “it goes on clear but can be seen with a blacklight.”

All Lisa could do was reach an arm out and blindly pull Jennie in front of her, pressing them closely together as she continued to stare speechless over her shoulder at the personalised graffiti.

“Jennie,” she exhaled when air returned to her lungs.

Her girlfriend turned in her arms and looked up at her with unwarranted concern that Lisa’s answer would be anything but an emphatic yes.

Nothing had ever come more naturally to her than her next actions. She cupped the back of Jennie’s neck and kissed her yes into her hair, then another on her forehead, her nose and chin, and a final affirmative press into her lips, a lingering hold there that was only parted to make room for long overdue words to slip between them.

“I am so in love with you,” Lisa professed.

She felt the warmth of Jennie’s hitched breath before her girlfriend contracted the sentiment and returned, “I love you.”

Lisa felt the words more than heard it. Her stomach flipped and her heart skipped a beat.

Jennie tucked her head shyly into the crook of Lisa’s neck afterwards, smiled into her skin, and asked, “So, is that a yes?”

Lisa shook her head. “I have to check my iCalendar later. It’s a busy month for me, I’ll see if I can squeeze you in.”

She yelped when Jennie did exactly that, squeezing her sides in scolding displeasure, nails digging into her skin as hands took up permanent residence inside her tank top. “Our iCalendars are synced. Indexing your library by colour, genre, and spine width doesn’t count as being busy.”

Lisa took Jennie’s face in her hands, tucking a blonde strand behind her ears. “The answer will always be yes, Jennie,” she said before kissing her fully with the certitude that when it comes to whatever Jennie asks, Lisa will never deny.

The kiss didn’t last long, not when their smiles hindered it.

“But if your criminal activities escalate from misdemeanour to felony then we’ll have to revisit case by case,” Lisa footnoted.

“I promise your pretty face will never see the inside of a jail,” Jennie vowed. “Trust me.”

—

“Lisa, do you trust me?”

Six years of dating and nothing expected ever came from that particular glint in her girlfriend’s eyes so Lisa should be weary of the question’s misdirection. Jennie’s hands hidden behind her back should be warning enough. The mischievous grin an obvious flag.

Lisa slowly took off her glasses, dog-eared the page of her novel and set both on the bedside table. She straightened up against the headboard, eyeing Jennie with a degree of suspicion, exerting monumental effort to look past the boy shorts and threadbare tank top that was on its last days.

Despite the warning signs, Lisa didn’t dwell long on her answer. “Of course,” she affirmed. She trusted Jennie implicitly, even with the sway to her hips and the widening of her smile as she sauntered to the edge of their bed.

“Good,” Jennie said in a low gravel, a drip of prurient intent in her voice that had Lisa gulping and considering a retraction. She watched, throat going parched, as Jennie kneeled on the bed and scooted up until she was straddling Lisa’s lap, “because I want to try something new.”

What was to be new wasn’t quite clear as Jennie leaned in to kiss her with all the familiarity and oldness of an act performed thousands of times. No haste to the way Jennie moved her lips despite the urgency of Lisa’s hands that had responsively gripped onto her hips. When Lisa tried to introduce tongue, Jennie pulled back and chuckled, “Not yet.”

Lisa’s pout drew another chuckle but she dropped her complaint when Jennie finally procured the something in her hands, a piece of red fabric. Lisa curled her lips in lieu of the Really? that bubbled excitement in her chest.

“Do you trust me?” Jennie asked again and then unfairly kissed up Lisa’s neck to coax out the yes that was already on its way up her throat but got lodged mid journey when Jennie started gently rocking against her and palming her breast. A few more yes ses were yolked from her with a slow thumbing of her nipple over the thinness of her shirt. It never took much for Jennie to make Lisa wet and wanting, utterly bendable to her girlfriend’s every will.

Jennie rolled her hips while unnecessarily asking, “You sure?”.

As an alternative answer, Lisa turned her head to catch Jennie’s lips in a competing agenda of needing to kiss her again as much as needing to breathe. Jennie allowed it, tilting for the right angle of melted warmth and midnight longing. They fell into the kiss, so deep and lost that it threatened to preempt any follow through promised by the fabric still clutched in Jennie’s hand. If this was all they’d get up to for the rest of the evening, Lisa would be nonplussed at the shortened itinerary.

Jennie couldn’t be detracted though. She put a hand to Lisa’s chest, gently pushing her back, and then whispered in her ear, “Close your eyes, love.”

Again, Lisa had a hard time saying no. Laced in love and lust, she had no desire to disobey the quiet command, wanting forever to do exactly as she was told. Just as Jennie was about to blindfold her she lightly held her wrist from advancing further, “Wait, give me a second to remember,” and then carded fingers through Jennie’s hair before cupping her face, looking deeply into the pool of blue that was part amused, part aroused, and all adoration.

“You’re such a sap,” Jennie joked, her eyes twinkling as her cheeks bloomed pink.

“If you see what I see you’d never want things to go dark.” Lisa remarked with no small amount of affected awe for the brilliance of that deepening blue. If her sight was to be compromised for the next while, she wanted the last image to be of golden cerulean light.

Her sappiness earned an endeared eye-roll and an inuit kiss.

“Ready,” Lisa finally gave the signal and closed her eyes, abdicating complete control of her pleasure over to Jennie who didn’t hesitate once granted permission.

Jennie tied the cloth around Lisa’s head, keeping it loose enough for comfort but tight enough to hold. “How many fingers am I holding up?” She asked and seemed satisfied with the blindfold’s effectiveness when Lisa wrongly guessed four.

With cutoff visibility, Lisa’s hands instinctively pressed harder into Jennie’s hips, bringing them closer, the weight on her lap a safe anchor.

“If it gets too overwhelming, say Rosé,” Jennie instructed, her voice still close enough to be reassuring.

Lisa laughed, not sure if the request was serious but it helped to lessen her nerves, while also increasing her arousal and anticipation that things would escalate to a point where they may need a safe word. “Do we really need a word?”

“Probably not but I want to make sure you’re completely comfortable. If things get too intense, just say the word. You can take the blindfold off any time, ok?” Jennie gently kissed the fabric over her eyelids for emphasis.

“Okay, but I’m not invoking my sister during sex.”

“Exactly, if you have to call her name then I’ll know we really need to stop.”

“Still no. How about avocado?”

Lisa didn’t need to see to know Grumpy Jennie made an appearance. “Lisa, I will break up with you right now if that fucking tropical fruit comes anywhere near our bedroom, least of all between me and an orgasm,” Jennie said. “Pick something that isn’t on your brain 24/7 and you’re not likely to say while I’m inside of you.”

“Chris Hemsworth.”

“That’s what you’re going with?” Jennie replied, laughing.

Lisa shrugged and nodded. “I doubt I’ll ever accidentally scream his name.”

“Oh, you’ll be screaming something,” Jennie intimated, and those were the last words before her girlfriend made to manifest the prophecy.

It quickly became clear that being at Jennie’s mercy was terrifyingly exhilarating. There was a long pause where Jennie seemed to be calculating her next move, the stretched-out silence causing goosebumps to form and the surface of Lisa’s skin to heat. She felt the throb between her legs as much as the uptick in her heartbeat.

The indecision ended with a light pressure against her bottom lip which jutted out instinctively to chase the feeling. Lisa realised it was Jennie’s thumb when it started to softly sweep across. She should’ve known and wanted to laugh at the predictability of the first touch. It was no small secret that her lips, especially the bottom one, were Jennie’s favourite landing spot for her gaze, the takeoff point for every intimate act they shared. On the rare occasions that Lisa would sleep in and not be up before Jennie, she’d wake up to a nibbling sensation. Or even when she was the first to open her eyes, she’d find that her bottom lip was tucked between Jennie’s, like she had dreamt about it during the night, latched on, and was unwilling to let go.

Then a different sweeping softness replaced the first, a little wet, a little humid. Jennie lightly held her chin and instructed, “Open, love.”

When she did, the tip of Jennie’s tongue dipped in and stroked her own, drawing it out and then sucking on it. Lisa whimpered, her nails digging into Jennie’s hips which increased their tempo with greater intent.

Feeling the dampness of Jennie’s shorts, moaning was all Lisa could do not to flip Jennie onto her back, pin her to the mattress, and turn the whole affair into a quick fucking, burying her fingers deep inside as the soiled state of her own panties was encouraging to happen.

But with unfettered access Jennie wasn’t focused on speed tonight, her goal appeared to be a touch-by-touch dismantling until Lisa begged to be the one to be fucked. She withdrew from Lisa’s mouth and nosed along her jawline, tracing its sharpness with delicateness in contrast to the wantonness of seconds ago.

Without visuals, Lisa’s other senses heightened, her hearing especially attuned to the minutest of movements.

So on the slightest shift of her shirt, rolled up and over her breasts, Lisa’s breath hitched, and when Jennie’s thumb returned to her nipple in direct contact, the sensation was tenfold stronger than earlier. Another hand joined in to palm her other breast, kneading it to matched attention. Lisa arched into the dual stroking. She couldn’t tell if it was she or Jennie who released a low whine. Likely both.

Seconds later, one hand abandoned its task to cup the back of Lisa’s neck and pull her into a deep, dirty kiss before Jennie breathed into Lisa’s mouth, “I’m going to make you come so hard,” rasped full of filthy promise that had Lisa already on the edge. She worried for her soaked underwear if this was only kissing and fondling.

“You shouldn’t,” Lisa panted between Jennie’s kisses to her neck, “make promises,” her sternum, “you can’t,” and down her belly, “keep.”

Jennie scoffed like Lisa had just accused her of not being able to paint, and then re-travelled the journey back up to kiss her as well as she could paint.

But then the warmth and weight were gone, Jennie lifted off of her lap, leaving Lisa’s lips in puckered confusion and her hands pawing at nothing. By the sounds and changing pressure on the bed, Jennie must be undressing. Lisa took the spare seconds to regulate her breathing. Jennie then returned to help remove her clothes before straddling her again.

The momentary loss of contact was more than made up for when Jennie started to grind against Lisa’s abs. Lisa eagerly accommodated, hardening her stomach, hands returning to their position on Jennie’s hips to guide her search for friction. This was the sole reason Lisa still committed to doing two hundred sit-ups a day, just to feel the slide of Jennie against her, dripping and trailing.

But something felt slightly different now. She nearly fainted when her fingers grazed against lace and on further investigation realising Jennie was in a thong, Lisa must have let out the smallest gasp of air; small because her lungs were having a hard time holding onto any.

Though she didn’t really need the help, Jennie’s wetness painting against her skin, separated only by the thinnest, smoothest of fabric, was triggering more of her own.

So far, nothing they were doing was out of the ordinary but the lack of visibility somehow made it new and so incredibly erotic. Lisa had to rely on tactile memory to navigate the unknown but that alone made the experience all the more arousing. The way her hands sought out Jennie’s body, the sinking relief they expressed when met with a familiar expanse of skin, how cupping Jennie’s ass and then fingers catching on the string of the thong and a string of wetness felt like reaching a hidden stream after a long day’s trek lost in mountainous ruins, it was all unbelievably amazing.

She blindly fingered Jennie from behind as Jennie moved fervently against her, coating Lisa’s index on every push back.

Suddenly there was something soft and hard, and oddly silky, pressed against the seam of her lips. More lace. Cluing in to what was on offer, her jaw unhinged without prompt this time.

It was Jennie’s turn to arch into her as she laved around the pebbled breast, licking and sucking then getting creative with circling and tugging. From texture alone, there was more skin than lace for her to work with so not much stood to obstruct her goal of rendering Jennie just as puddled of a mess as she was feeling. Given the amount of time Lisa liked to spend here, she didn’t require any visual cues to find her way around. She did, however, miss being able to look into Jennie’s eyes to watch her reactions. Lisa had to settle for the whimpering noises above as encouragement that she was doing well.

Another breast neared Lisa’s mouth. She took up a different pattern to the previous, alternating between a rapid flicking motion of her tongue and a soft grazing of her nose. It always took seconds between switches to find her destination but when she did the lost time was more than recovered by her enthusiasm.

“Really really well done, Lis,” Jennie panted.

Lisa nearly bolted off the bed when she suddenly felt a finger brushing through her folds and circling her entrance. It was the faintest, most teasing touch but its unexpectedness caused a spike in her heart rate. The surprise soon gave way to a lip-biting build up of heat between her legs as Jennie stroked up and down and around, dipping in only the slightest to gather Lisa’s desire but never fully entering. Lisa could no longer concentrate on Jennie’s folds when hers was being softly spread and stroked with excruciating slowness. While Jennie’s grinding increased in rhythm, she seemed content to keep her finger to an unhurried pace until it stopped moving altogether.

Lisa only understood why when her head was gently pushed back when the soft flesh that was in her mouth was replaced with wet firmness, Jennie’s finger slowly pushing in and waiting. Lisa moaned as she tasted herself and readjusted her sucking technique to wrap more fully around the digit. Jennie then started pumping her finger in matched rhythm to her hips.

Two fingers then entered Lisa, timed as well to Jennie’s bucking hips. They pushed and massaged against Lisa’s walls just as the finger on her tongue pressed down. Lisa’s body tightened at the tripled intensity, but that apparently contravened with Jennie’s plans. “Don’t come yet,” she breathed out despite hypocritically sounding and feeling like she was on the verge of doing just that.

Lisa mumbled her barely discernible assent, another rush of fluid coming out when all three fingers curled simultaneously. She helplessly let Jennie’s hands and body move on her. The blindfold seemed almost unnecessary at this point with the bright light that was forming behind her eyelids and the heat flaring between her thighs and traveling up her chest that was its own illuminating beacon.

A few more thrusts and Jennie finally granted her some reprieve, removing the finger from Lisa’s mouth, giving her the opportunity to groan out, “Fuck,” and beg, “baby, please—” but for what she didn’t know.

Jennie pulled out and also stopped her grinding, resting her forehead against Lisa’s and giving them time for their breaths to even, to recharge their air supply. Jennie kissed her achingly slowly. Lisa felt herself contracting around nothing. It was an intimate interlude that tethered Lisa to the moment and to Jennie while her heart and stomach had been soaring to new heights.

It was perhaps too lullingly soft compared to what Jennie had in mind next. So Lisa was unprepared when Jennie dismounted and nudged her to lie flat on her back, considerately adjusting the blindfold so the knot wouldn’t get in the way.

Lisa couldn’t tell what was happening but knew Jennie was no longer on the bed. Her feet were then tugged until her body was positioned closer to the bottom and her legs dangled over the edge.

She laid exposed without knowing what was to come, yet Lisa felt entirely safe, her heartbeat tracked to the inhale and exhale pattern of Jennie’s breathing. She realised in that moment how much she entrusted her vulnerability to Jennie, the degree to which Lisa was unguarded in her presence, literally naked or emotionally bare.

“Still okay?” Jennie asked breathily as she parted Lisa’s knees and slotted in between her legs, affectionately stroking her belly with one hand and a thigh with the other. The soft touches reassured her of Jennie’s presence, that she was only a breath and a brush away.

Lisa nodded while searchingly reaching a hand down that Jennie was quick to lace their fingers. “Good,” she confirmed and received an anchoring squeeze.

It was a good thing they were holding hands because the next thing Lisa felt and was completely unready for was Jennie licking into her without warning. Jennie’s tongue probed and parted her folds before pushing and pushing as far as she could reach. Lisa’s hips bucked up but Jennie’s other hand was quick to hold her down, wrapping tightly around her thigh and keeping her grounded. When Jennie established the desired rhythm, she disentangled their hands to slide up her ribs and then greedily grope Lisa’s breast as Jennie’s mouth carried out its mission in ravaging devastation. Lisa mewled and placed an arm over her eyes out of habit, only to remember they were already covered.

She was seconds from coming when Jennie edged away.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Jennie cooed when Lisa whined her disapproval aloud, gently squeezing her thigh and widening Lisa’s legs apart, “you’ll like this next part.”

Things were already dark but Lisa was sure she blacked out when something full and soft came in contact with her dripping cunt. She came to the realisation it was Jennie’s breast when her hardened nipple was used to trail up Lisa’s wetness, circle around her clit, before it rested invitingly at her entrance.

Jennie then adjusted for the right angle, positioning one of Lisa’s legs over what Lisa can only guess to be her shoulder. She rubbed against Lisa tentatively at first but once she received the appropriate cues Jennie moved with more confidence, dragging and pushing.

The feeling was intense. Being fucked by Jennie’s breast felt like she’d NASA-levelled up into the next stratosphere of pleasure. Lisa’s hands clawed uselessly for purchase on the bed sheets.

She was rapidly climbing towards orgasm once more when the blindfold was removed. At first, the unexpected light was harsh, but when her eyes adjusted to the room and the first thing she saw was Jennie backlit, one breast still covered in lace while the other spilled nakedly into her, Lisa’s whole body jerked up in reaction.

“I miss your eyes,” Jennie explained simply before she started moving again, pushing against Lisa and using her raised leg as leverage. She locked their gazes as she picked up the pace in thrusting dissonance to Lisa’s laboured breathing. “Hi, gorgeous,” she expelled in punctuated pumps.

Though it was only a shallow penetration, Jennie’s nipple physically unable to reach where her fingers can, it didn’t stop Jennie from trying to go as deeply as possible or Lisa from opening her legs as wide as possible to take it in.

Lisa’s mouth hung open and there wasn’t much more of the world she could ask than the sight of blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and utter adoration. There wasn’t much to be done before she came loudly on Jennie’s tender bidding, “Happy anniversary, love.”

When Jennie thumbed her clit in feverish passes, Lisa’s body further tightened into a bow and thighs clenched, the new level of sensual richness resulting in one of the most intimate and intense releases she had ever experienced. Seeing Jennie’s breast covered in her wetness, while slipping in and out of rhythm to keep up with her erratic hips, Lisa rolled right into a second orgasm. Her screams were matched by Jennie, whose hand she glimpsed pumping furiously inside herself.

She gestured for Jennie to climb up her body, needing Jennie’s breast in her mouth again. As incentive, Lisa positioned three fingers on her stomach for Jennie to mount which she was quick to do and even quicker to come riding them as Lisa sucked her dry.

“As much as I loved the blindfold, next time,” Lisa drawled out her suggestion as Jennie fell gracelessly on top of her after, “just say boob and lace.”

“Pfft,” Jennie replied, “you would’ve come on the spot.”

Lisa had no energy to deny it. “True.”

“Let’s nap. Then I’ll let you fuck me slowly with the strap-on,” Jennie mumbled as she lightly dozed off.

Lisa nodded and tucked Jennie’s head under her chin, making adjustments to bare the dead-weight as she strengthened her hold around Jennie’s waist.

Happy anniversary, indeed.

—

“Do you think we’ve peaked too soon?” Jennie asked sometime later while Lisa traced lines along her spine after waking up in the same position to the same weighted feeling whence they had fallen asleep.

Everything was a dull thrum, their timed heartbeat, entangled breaths, and the buzz of the streetlight that was their only companion at this hour.

Lisa knew Jennie meant their relationship, questioning their premature ascent to the height of young love. Six years weren’t that many seasons but their bond somehow felt like twenty thousand springs had already bloomed between them, pollen spread far and wide enough for several lifetimes.

This was the second time in recent weeks that Jennie had wondered about an invisible ceiling they might’ve already reached, but after mind-numbing and body-breaking sex, Lisa had no room for any philosophical meanderings. No concerns for expiration dates. She raised an eyebrow instead.

“Oh?”

Jennie didn’t miss the mischief in her eyes. “No, Lis, don’t do it,” she warned, immediately clocking her playful mood, but already smiling for Lisa’s anticipated response, “don’t pun me.”

Lisa flipped them, pinning Jennie down with her hips and started a slow deliberate grind that mixed their spent fluid together and restarted the throb of her clit. She took both of Jennie’s hands and entwined their fingers as she held them above her head, squeezing every time she ground into her flushed skin. And then, bending her head down, with the tip of her tongue she mapped a winding journey around the peak of Jennie’s breast that wasn’t tender, paying it attention for symmetry purposes, not wanting it to feel left out because Jennie had heavily favoured the other one during their earlier activity.

Once Lisa had Jennie panting underneath in writhing desperation, she placed a soft, barely there kiss inches shy of a nipple, and conjectured,

“I don’t think we’ve reached the summit yet.”

Jennie’s disapproving groan turned into a drawn out moan as Lisa gently sucked and pulled the nipple taut into her mouth, then let go of one hand to brush through Jennie’s wetness but not enter her.

“You think you can come from just this?” Lisa paused to ask before laving and licking again, “or do you need more?” and then stroked Jennie with purpose.

Jennie in the end didn’t have to choose because Lisa made her come from what little or much she dinned to offer, reaching several peaks that her girlfriend refused to acknowledge to Lisa’s smug satisfaction.

“I love you,” Jennie said between heavy breaths into the pillow, on the tail end of her fourth orgasm.

They both winced when Lisa pulled out from behind her. After the third one, Lisa had flipped Jennie on her stomach and they abandoned themselves in ecstasy when Lisa started fucking her with their favourite toy. She carelessly flung the strap-on across the room now that it’d served its purpose. Jennie’s laugh was cut short when Lisa replaced its length with her own fingers, fitting three in easily. She didn’t move them, only wanting to feel Jennie’s warmth, to revel in its intimate comfort.

“I love you too, baby,” Lisa breathed against her neck and then kissed behind the shell of her ear.

As they lazily laid on their sides, Lisa’s fingers inside and body curved around her, holding Jennie’s other hand where it was tucked near her chest while their heads shared the same pillow, Lisa felt the thrumming return.

She drifted off to sleep on the thought that no, this wasn’t the height of love. There was no measurable limit that Lisa could imagine reaching when it came to loving Jennie. Not in breadth or depth, and certainly not in height.

She shifted closer, erasing any physical space between them, in silent argument with the universe about the fixity of what she and Jennie meant to each other, certain that they were nowhere near what they were still yet to become.

*****

“Alright, that’s enough softness,” Rosé decides, getting to her feet.

Lisa looks up at her through glassy eyes from under a thick cloud of whisky stupor. The memory of that halfway anniversary fades out as her focus on her sister’s stance fades in.

Rosé leaves her in the living room momentarily to go in search of something in the bedroom. She remakes her entrance by flinging tiny pieces of stretch fabric at Lisa, a duffle bag hanging off her shoulder and an unamused look on her face.

“I do not wallow,” Rosé simply says by way of explanation as she crosses her arms and waits patiently for Lisa to catch up with her programme. “At least, not like this.”

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the way Rosé likes to wallow involves a springy floor and some boxing gloves. Lisa allows a small smile when twenty minutes and a full bottle of water later they enter the old ring where their father used to train. It’s a 24-hour gym that they’d frequented in their youth to watch Henry, a giant soft teddy bear of a man, take out his anger with the world on naïve, arrogant opponents who had never faced a grieving husband before.

It’s the place where Rosé had learned to deal with her bottled rage through controlled violence, where Lisa was taught how to release pain through precise movements, and jabs and hooks, crosses and uppercuts became the Manoban’ adopted language.

“Let’s get a few in and then you’re going back to Jennie and she can deal with this brooding mess,” Rosé informs Lisa of her no-choice plans for the rest of the night as they suit up.

She gulps another bottle of water before Lisa finds herself slowly dancing around Rosé whose boxing technique involves a lot of glaring and very little moving. Bouncing ridiculously side to side on her feet, Lisa is motivated by her overloaded bladder more than anything but she does find it unnerving how Rosé simply observes her with quiet judgement. When not slightly intoxicated, Lisa makes for a great sparring opponent.

In the moment, distances appear like car side mirrors, closer than they actually are. Or was it the other way around? Lisa isn’t sure but her first attempt at swinging her arm is met wildly with empty air and, confusedly, Rosé’s smirk from ten feet away.

Lisa tries again, moving in closer. More air. At one point, it looks to be like Rosé’s casually leaning against the ropes with her elbows hanging off of them and her legs kicked out crossed at the ankles. Lisa scowls, not understanding why none of her hits are landing. She’s never had a problem with eye-hand coordination, not like Jennie. Her heart pangs at the thought of the blonde and how Lisa had long given up on teaching her to hit a baseball. The adorable furrowed concentration and how much better her girlfriend looked in her jersey were the only reasons she tried in the first place.

Lost in her Jennie-fugue, Lisa’s already-compromised concentration lapses at an inopportune moment when Rosé’s first right crosses into her field of vision and she fails to block it. The hit connects with her left cheekbone and knocks her down.

“Shit,” Rosé exclaims. “Why didn’t you move?” she asks reaching a glove out to help pull Lisa up who waves her off, preferring to roll over and die on the mat.

“Whose idea was it to ply me with Scottish whisky and then punch me?” She groans through gritted teeth while cradling her face with her gloves.

Rosé sighs in exasperation though not without an edge of worry when she crouches down to assess the damage and intones, “I didn’t think you’d be that emotionally unstable not to see a giant glove coming right at your face. You’ve been wiggling around like an idiot, why would you choose then to stand still?”

After she determines that the damage is minimal, Rosé helps Lisa to her feet. Lisa sways into her hold, feeling the slosh in her stomach from the too-quick rise. “Fucking lightweight.”

Lisa bristles and then pouts, “I can drink you under the table if it was anything other than whisky.”

“Avocado smoothies don’t count.”

Lisa glares at her, then reaches up to gently touch the tender spot under her eye, wincing when her gloved hand misjudges the distance and effectively lightly punches herself.

“Ugh, just as well that my outside matches my inside.”

Rosé rolls her eyes but nonetheless walks her to the ropes and off the ring. “So goddamn dramatic,” she mutters as they make their way to a bench.

Lisa slumps on it while Rosé disappears to the kit room and returns with supplies.

“Here,” Rosé shoves an ice pack at her.

*****

“Here, love,” Jennie said, placing the bag of frozen peas over the tender spot, earning a hiss and scowl from Lisa.

Lisa had disappeared for fives days and returned with a nasty cut under her eye and bruised knuckles. She was currently slumped on the floor, back against the lower kitchen cabinets with Jennie crouched in front of her, a mixed expression of relief and worry, anger and sadness.

“You should see the other guy,” Lisa tried to play off as humour. The other guy being the hard edge of a bar counter when she had slipped off the stool on her fourth beer and fifth shot. Her tipsiness helped to dull the ache but now the pain was avenging itself in full force.

The bartender had dialled the first number on her phone and Jennie had showed up twenty minutes later, still in her sweats and eyes red-rimmed likely from crying and another sleepless night spent alone in their bed. She’d wordlessly hooked Lisa’s arm around her shoulder and shuffled them out to the waiting cab with its engine still running.

Lisa had expected shouting and yelling considering this wasn’t how she’d intended their first meeting to be since she went MIA after her dad’s news. Instead, Jennie let Lisa curl into her the entire ride back to Brooklyn, and cooed soft words in her ears as Lisa quietly sobbed into her chest.

“I bet,” Jennie responded sympathetically, adjusting the bag of peas for wider coverage. “Was he responsible for this too?”

Lisa looked down at her mangled hands, still stinging in closed fists, and shook her head to slur proudly, “Nope, that was all me.”

Jennie nodded, and then brushed Lisa’s damp and wild hair out of her face. “Please don’t do that again.”

“What? Get in a fight with mahogany wood?”

Jennie predictably didn’t see the humour and ignored her sarcasm. She gently took Lisa’s hands in hers, careful to avoid the cuts and bruises.

“Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa told her with a tremble to her lip.

Jennie looked up then and reached a hand to cup her jaw, brushing a thumb to her lip. She gently kissed it still, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

It wasn’t. After learning of her father’s cancer, Lisa turtled into survival mode and hid away from the world, from Jennie, at the gym. She slept on the cot in the backroom, when sleep actually came, and when it didn’t, whiled the hours away with punches and jabs until her body was an aching collection of wiry muscles to match the battered state of her heart. Only Rosé knew where she was and reassured her girlfriend that Lisa hadn’t fallen off the face of the earth.

Jennie kissed her nose, “It will be,” and rose to retrieve the elaborate medical kit that her mother insisted on them keeping around the apartment.

That night, after Jennie cleaned her wounds, bandaged her up, and helped her to shower, Lisa laid in bed with Jennie’s arm protectively wrapped around her stomach. Jennie was snoring heavily behind her, as if finally allowing herself to catch up on elusive sleep once certain of Lisa’s safety.

The thought of losing her father kept her up but the knowledge that Jennie would always be by her side gave Lisa a deeper sense of peace. Whatever was to happen over the next few months, at least she had Jennie this time.

“I’m sorry I left,” Lisa whispered then silently promised, “but I will always return.”

—

“Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Dad.” Lisa leaned in and kissed her father’s cheek. She then turned and gave an affectionate kiss to the blonde lump poking out of the blanket burrito in the armchair two feet away, adjusting the blanket for some ventilation, before setting down the paper bag and trays of coffee cups next to his hospital bed.

Lisa laughed when Henry pawed for the bagels she started pulling out of the bag. They were his reward, a secret between father and daughter, for passing his last test with a clean bill of health. Doctors were optimistic that he could be discharged for out-patient care within the week if things continued positively. Though the cream cheese and smoked salmon were at odds with the dietary restraints that Lisa would be sure to institute as soon as they left the hospital’s doors, she thought to make one exception today after how loudly he had been complaining about the diminishing quality of even the jello.

Really, Lisa was just thrilled that he’d regained enough energy after the surgery to be vocal about gelatin.

“Eat fast,” she instructed him conspiratorially, turning her head to the door wary of being overheard, “they’ve started rounds. You’ve got maybe two, three checks before we get busted.”

Henry nodded and hastily took a giant bite out of his breakfast bagel, consuming almost half in one go. Lisa shook her head and handed him a napkin.

“Please don’t choke to death,” she admonished, “that would defeat the purpose.”

His coughing caused a slight shifting in the armchair. Lisa looked over affectionately at Jennie, wanting nothing more than to smooth out the worry lines and thin lips.

“She finally closed her eyes when you left to pick up breakfast,” Henry filled her in. “I think her odds for daughter of the year are really high. You and Rosé better step it up.”

“Hey!” Lisa defended, “Some of us have real jobs and can’t spend day and night with you playing chess.”

“The life of an artist, a lady of leisure.” They both laughed knowing how offended Jennie would be by their dismissal of her  profession, aware that she worked as hard and long hours as her surgeon mother.

In reality, Lisa and Rosé had been grateful for Jennie’s unwavering commitment to their father. It wasn’t only an emotional toll but also a physical burden she had voluntarily taken on, shuttling Henry to every appointment they couldn’t, keeping him company during his chemo sessions, and tending to his fevers and aches and pains with little regard for her own discomfort and loss of sleep. Between her and Jisoo, they were  able to tag team his care such that the nurses had assumed he was a very lucky father of four.

Lisa knew that Jennie undoubtedly loved her but didn’t realise how fully until she watched the way Jennie over-extended herself, the way she loved him just as selflessly in sponge baths and spoon feeds and midnight songs. Lisa had stumbled on them once playing Never Have I Ever with Jennie’s homemade jello shots, both giggling like school girls. They’d refused to let her in on the joke but Lisa hadn’t cared because Jennie had silently waved her over and spent the next hour sitting between Lisa’s legs pressing her back into her front while they continued their game. (She confided in Lisa later that there was no alcohol content in the shots but allowed Henry to think otherwise.)

Something struck a chord with Lisa that day watching her girlfriend and father engage in a battle of wits and learning more about his misappropriated youth than she needed to. When Jennie had laughed breathily into her neck and then kissed her in triumph at having tricked Henry to admit he preferred her over Jisoo, Lisa could taste their future on the slip of Jennie’s tongue.

“Dad,” Lisa paused nibbling on her bagel and played with the crinkled wrapper before asking, “how’d you do it with Mom?”

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“Ask her.”

“Ah,” Henry said when understanding dawned, catching the way Lisa’s eyes fleeted to Jennie’s form, her lovestruck gaze. He gamely launched into the tale, a smile only reserved for her mother taking over his entire face.

Lisa had heard the story many times before—involving orange blossoms and a poor attempt at replicating the same meal from the Parisian cafe where they first met—but she wanted to hear it again. She found comfort in listening to how her father had fumbled his way through dinner, a meal that her mother had barely touched because coq au vin shouldn’t look blue, then insisted on serving her dessert despite her wariness of his history with a high-speed mixer, and ending on tears for when a sapphire ring sat waiting at the bottom of her madeleine cake.

“I think she only said yes so she wouldn’t have to eat any more of my food,” her father chuckled, a permanent fondness at the corner of his eyes for his late wife.

Lisa smiled, recalling her mother’s version of the event wasn’t quite the same. Though she had joked that they were tears of relief for having reached the end of the meal, unbeknownst to him, her mom had discovered the ring weeks earlier in an unused thermos sitting high up on the kitchen cabinet. It had been a crisp October morning, winter making an earlier appearance than usual, and she’d wanted to supply him with soup on the construction site instead of the usual lunch box sandwiches that she’d pack each day for him. He didn’t end up getting soup that day but there was an extra heaping of last night’s leftover grilled chicken in his sandwich.

“Honey, can you get my wallet?” Lisa didn’t understand the abrupt change in topic but indulged Henry’s request anyways.

When she returned with his overly padded leather wallet, one that she and Rosé tried many Christmases and birthdays to replace, he rifled past an exorbitant amount of receipts that were likely no longer useful to pull out a small wad of tissue, handing it over to Lisa.

“Dad … ” she gasped when she unfolded the tissue to find her mother’s engagement ring.

“It’s yours to give to Jennie, when you’re ready.”

Lisa whipped her head up and looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“What about Rosé?”

“She was the one who actually told me you should have it. Your sister refuses to participate in the patriarchy,” Henry recounted, using air quotes around the word and a little lost for what exactly it meant, “and is grateful that sappiness skipped the first born.”

Lisa’s attention returned to the ring, too busy admiring its iridescent blue that was strikingly familiar to reply with anything other than an acknowledging hum. She couldn’t believe her father had been carrying this around in his wallet like an outdated Subway stamp card.

“Your mother would have loved Jennie,” Henry said, a mist to his eyes and a crack in his voice that had Lisa’s throat constricting. “God knows she’s done a better job of taking care of the both of us than I have.”

“Yeah,” Lisa concurred then pocketed the ring inside her jacket. Her heart seemed to beat louder where it rested against her chest.

“If you’ve found a girl who’s willing to give your hairy beast of a father a sponge bath after he’s puked up the special meal she’d spent hours making for him,” Henry said, “and don’t marry her, then you’re not the hopeless romantic sap I raised you to be.”

“Thank you.”

On hearing a rustling, both Manoban turned to see the subject of their mutual affection letting out a yawn looking like a lion rising from slumber before she mumbled groggily, “Were you guys just going to eat them all without me?”

“The awake are hungry, Jennie.”

Jennie padded towards Lisa and just as sleepily laid a kiss on her, soft and slow that Lisa melted into and made her forget her father was still in the room.

Only an intently loud cough kept things from escalating. Lisa stole one last kiss before whispering, “Good morning, beautiful,” into Jennie’s hair and looping an arm around her waist.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Jennie said as she settled on Lisa’s lap and took over her bagel sandwich.

Jennie snuggled in close, her hand resting on Lisa’s chest that made Lisa nervous for its nearness to the ring. As Jennie and Henry chatted, reviewing the strategies of their last chess game, Henry itching for a rematch and vowing to obliterate Jennie next time (“very unkind to defeat a man after his guts have been opened on the table”), Lisa was preoccupied with strategies of the sort involving flowers and candlelight, possibly a sunken knee under a sunken sun.

She didn’t realise how deeply she’d been concentrating until fingers smoothed out the lines of her forehead and Jennie tipped her head forward to quietly ask in her ear, “Everything ok?

“Fine,” Lisa answered, receiving a sweet kiss to the underside of her jaw, “more than.”

With her father in recovery and her future wife on her lap, Lisa couldn’t think of anything that could be more fine.

—

“Will you love me until I’m seventy?”

“Did you just ask me an Ed Sheeren lyric?”

“Answer the question, Jennie.”

“It depends. Are adult diapers involved?” Jennie laughed loudly as Lisa walked away. “See what I did there?” She shouted after her to an empty room. Lisa smiled despite herself, faintly catching Jennie’s smug satisfaction, “Doesn’t feel so good to be punned, does it?”.

A week later.

“Would you give up forever to touch me?”

“Just touch? Can we do other things?”

“Sure.”

“Like what?”

“Come find out.”

The next day.

“Would you do anything for love?”

“Meatloaf didn’t, why should I!”

“You’re killing me here, Jennie.”

“What’s with all the questions, Lisa?”

“Just practising.”

“Practising what?”

“Asking.”

“You’re practising asking?”

“Yup.”

“What for?”

“Someday.”

Lisa smiled, kissed Jennie’s forehead and left it at that.

—

That someday did come, but not with the ending Lisa had in mind.

Maybe she should have read the signs sooner, maybe there was something not quite right with her weather app forecasting sunshine when the overhead clouds told a different story, maybe the bleachers of their old high school being unexpectedly under construction forcing Lisa to change the venue at the last minute was the surest clue that it wasn’t meant to be.

Maybe if she had paid more attention to Jennie’s growing distance and not easily accepted her girlfriend’s excuses of being overworked at her gallery assistant job while toiling on art pieces for submissions to various group shows then Lisa would recognise that the blank looks and vacant kisses and tentative touches were the canaries in the mine of her now hollowed out chest.

Maybe she shouldn’t have proposed in their bedroom, nervous and unplanned, the words slipping out and she slipping down to one knee when the sight of Jennie, beautiful and radiant if not worn, asked her if it was okay they stayed in tonight instead of the fated dinner Lisa had planned. Both already in their cocktail dresses, the ring weighing heavy in her skirt pocket, Lisa hadn’t seen a reason to wait another hour. The speech about wanting to spend every night with Jennie for the rest of their lives, whether staying in or going out she didn’t care as long they were together, came out before Jennie could let out her next breath.

Maybe she should’ve waited. Another hour, week, month. Maybe then Lisa’s heart wouldn’t be shattering.

The thing with love that Lisa had learned as she struggled to rise from her bended position was that it doesn’t keep a counter. Twelve years, six hundred Sundays, and several thousand kisses mattered not when one word could undo a lifetime in the making.

Growing up, Lisa was fascinated with the stars and the cosmos.  Many assumed she became an architect because of her mother. That was mostly correct. But when she was young, she dreamt of building a ladder tall enough for her to climb the sky. If she built enough ladders, enough vertical structures in different designs and makes, then the constellations would always be within reach.

It was the same way that she’d love Jennie, adding a rung for every year, Sunday, and kiss; scaling every height imaginable to pull the stars closer.

But she had never made a rung for the word, no. And when Jennie said it, whispered it, tears in her eyes and a hand to stop Lisa from opening the velvet box, Lisa felt herself slipping on the ladder and then falling precipitously.

Her heart was not prepared for the steep drop.

It hurt like nothing else ever had.

—

Lisa had never raised a voice at Jennie, never once expressed anger, but she felt something rising inside her, reaching a boiling point when she awoke wrapped tightly in a second blanket that she knew wasn’t her doing.

She sat up to find the building code book she’d been consulting set aside on the coffee table with her glasses sitting atop, neatly piled on the set of architectural drawings she’d brought home to study. Her gaze then caught on the uneaten plate of food that had been left out on the counter for her last night when she returned after another late hour at the office. She had no appetite for it, exhausted from burning both ends of the candle at work so that she didn’t have to face the arid, emptiness of home.

After the failed proposal, Jennie hadn’t left and Lisa had chosen to stay. Although it ached that marriage was a denied possibility, the truth was her heart was already bonded to Jennie’s. It had long ago made its commitments and vows, tethered irrevocably to always follow the beat of another’s rhythm.

So, she stayed and waited.

The acts of kindness, the minutiae of love, should have made her happy, should have enveloped her in warmth; instead they simply hurt.

Lisa, finally, snapped.

To greet another day alone on the couch, fifteen short steps away from their shared bed while the emotional gulf widened between them, she couldn’t hold it in anymore when Jennie emerged from the bedroom, heavy bags under her eyes and looking as weathered as Lisa felt.

“Jennie, you can’t keep doing this.”

Her short, biting tone stayed Jennie’s hand from reaching for the french press. She looked up like a deer in headlights, the sound of Lisa’s voice startling for how long it had been since they had said anything to each other besides good morning and goodnight. Lisa’s stomach sinking more and more everyday, yet not getting any closer to reaching a merciful bottom.

“Stop tucking me in. Stop making me lasagna,” Lisa nearly shouted in agitated frustration, gesturing wildly. At Jennie’s scared look, she softened and pleaded, “It’s not fair to give me hope.”

Jennie opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. Lisa waited with imploring eyes but once more, as it had been for the past month, nothing came.

Lisa braved approaching her, looking past the stiffened posture. She placed her hands on Jennie’s hips and was relieved to not be rejected. She stepped in closer, venturing to make their bodies flushed and overjoyed when Jennie didn’t object, seeming to need the physical connection as much as she did.

For a minute they were the old Jennie and Lisa, sleepy-eyed and embracing one another in the kitchen as they waited for their coffee to steep, content to do nothing but stay in each other’s arms and steal a few more blissful moments of quiet until the rush of the day pulled them in different ways.

For a moment, Jennie pressed in closer, and laid her head against Lisa’s chest, listening for her heartbeat which Lisa tried to slow down from its elevated rate.

For a moment, Lisa thought they just might be okay.

Then Jennie tilted her head and Lisa braced for the moment to be over, for them to separate and things to return to excruciating silence. Instead, Jennie searched for her lips and kissed her with trembling need. Lisa was taken off guard only for a second before she kissed her back, hard and desperate.

Jennie fisted her shirt, clinging on with equal desperation. They changed angles, deepening the kiss. Lisa swallowed the lump in her throat to swallow as much of Jennie’s palpable hurt as she could.

She felt Jennie’s hand grabbing for hers and placing them near the top of her sweatpants. This was a terrible idea but Lisa couldn’t stop herself, especially not when Jennie begged, “Please, I need to feel you.”

Within seconds she untied the drawstrings and rid Jennie of her pants, spinning them around and smoothly lifting Jennie on the counter. She moaned her appreciation at the wetness found when she went to cup her. In their hurry to be close again, she didn’t want to waste time removing Jennie’s underwear so she inelegantly pushed the fabric aside, slicking her fingers in purposeful swipes through her folds. Jennie whined her approval into their kiss that hadn’t yet broken, neither wanting to give up any contact. Jennie’s bare feet wrapped around her waist and dug into her backside in encouragement.

Lisa pushed two fingers in slowly, pausing for the stretch and the feel of Jennie taking her in. She went as deep as she could before pulling out then began thrusting. It was clumsy and intense but she didn’t care, not with the way Jennie was pulsing around her, walls slick and contracting greedily. They kept to the fraught rhythm for some time, Jennie’s lips moving to her neck and sucking her pleasured reactions into Lisa’s skin.

Somehow Lisa knew it wasn’t enough. With how Jennie’s nails raked her back, she needed more, needed for Lisa’s touch to stay for days.

Lisa withdrew and pulled her off the counter. She turned Jennie around so they both faced the same direction, and commanded softly but firmly, “Bend over.”

When Jennie did, locking her arms and bracing her hands against the counter edge as she raised her ass, Lisa didn’t give her time to adjust before she yanked her underwear down, kicked her feet apart and Lisa re-entered in one swell motion. They gasped in unison, air punched simultaneously out of both lungs. She kneaded a bare cheek with one hand while the other worked feverishly pushing in and out, the sound of slapping skin ringing loudly across the kitchen tile until the slapping became actual contact between Lisa’s palm and Jennie’s ass. They didn’t do this often but once in awhile Jennie really enjoyed submitting to Lisa, especially when she was feeling vulnerable and needed the rough play as distraction.

“Is this what you want?” Lisa asked with the smallest hint of hesitation, making sure she’d read the situation correctly. She landed another loud smack to Jennie’s cheek, the sound more forceful than the actual impact.

Jennie consented between shallow breaths by lifting her ass higher in show. “Please make it hurt,” she whimpered, pleading to feel any other pain than the one currently stifling them.

Hearing the need in Jennie’s voice, Lisa committed to the role and fucked her as hard and as fast as she could, grunting in effort behind her, both hands working overtime in opposite goals of pleasure and pain, the former neutralising the latter until she had Jennie mewling on the counter.

Lisa abandoned the slapping to pull her own pants down so that she could rut against Jennie skin on skin, using her pelvis to drive her thrusts in deeper. The position was somewhat awkward as Lisa strained for purchase but they made do until Lisa gave up on finding the right angle for herself and dropped to her knees to use her mouth instead to heighten Jennie’s pleasure.

Her fingers stayed in, continuing to fill Jennie on every other stroke of her tongue. The urgency of the fucking made for an uncoordinated affair with none of the smoothness and synchronicity typical of their lovemaking. But it didn’t matter that Jennie’s hips stuttered or Lisa’s fingers slipped, they chased each other with the same hunger of two lost souls trying to find their way back together.

Jennie was keening by now, lowly whining as Lisa worked her jaw harder and her fingers deeper. Lisa reached her free hand round and pressed against Jennie’s swollen clit. The effect was immediate, more fluid gushed out as wailing cries broke the thick air. Lisa continued to pump and press at a blistering rate until Jennie’s orgasm crashed over them both, a mess of sweat and arousal coating her chin.

She gently kissed along Jennie’s spine before turning her back round. Jennie lifted her head gesturing for a kiss which Lisa more than eagerly gave. Lisa kissed her until the aftershocks subsided, a softness at odds with what they’d just been doing.

She tasted salt on her tongue and didn’t need to look to know Jennie was crying, making her own eyes water.

“I’m sorry,” Jennie sobbed against her lips and then clung onto Lisa’s shirt as she buried her head into the crook of her neck.

Lisa didn’t want it to end there, not like this—in tears with Jennie shaking under her—when it’d been weeks since they were last intimate, the longest they’ve ever been without touch. She kissed the top of her head then wrapped Jennie’s legs around her waist before carrying her into their bedroom.

Lisa finished undressing them in quiet, wiping away Jennie’s tears, before she moved to lay Jennie on her back, intent on making love to her for as long as the spell would last, knowing she was working on borrowed time.

Jennie was on the same page but had a different idea about execution. She took Lisa’s hand and led her to the shower where they spent more quiet minutes intimately cleaning each other, washing as much of the hurt away in gentle swipes and grazing kisses.

Once clean and returned to the bed, Jennie indicated for Lisa to lie on her side but in the opposite facing direction, her head towards the end of the bed so that they can both have equal access to each other.

“Together, okay?” Jennie prompted and demonstrated her intent by licking into Lisa who was already soaked from the kitchen warm-up and shower. She struggled not to buck into Jennie’s face from the unexpected sensation.

Lisa followed her cue and copied the action. They proceeded like that, Jennie would initiate a movement, Lisa would follow on par with every lick and curl, push and pull until they were nearly synchronous, three fingers deep inside each other. Their tongues worked slowly, opposite to the previous frenzied pace. The earlier clumsiness was exchanged for a murmured calm, full of aching attentiveness.

“You feel so good,” Jennie awed, stilling her fingers to savour the fullness. Her tongue gathered fluid that was seeping through and spread it to other areas, pausing near the rim of Lisa’s smaller hole. Lisa shuddered in anticipation, having no wits left to answer, only to wait for the next action to mimic.

She imitated Jennie when the tip of her tongue traced the rim and then slowly pushed inside. They worked each other up, stretching the tight hole until a full tongue could fit. Anal wasn’t new to them, but in this position, with fingers buried to the hilt, working in mutual pleasure, it gave way to heightened intimacy that they were connected in every way possible.

Lisa held off tears for how close they were now compared to the distance that had slowly crept into their relationship since her dad’s sickness. For the first time in a long time she felt incredibly close to Jennie and wanted to feel everything she could. So Lisa mirrored whatever Jennie did, an echo of every sigh and moan as they slowly, gently fucked each other, attentive to every cue and noise, speaking in shared body language while morning light spread its way into their apartment.

They took occasional breaks to kiss along inner thighs when things got too intense but they weren’t yet ready to go over the edge, and played with each other’s nipples while caressing and massaging whatever flesh was within reach. Need would soon win over again and they’d return to their mime routine, increasing in tempo with each pass, fingers and tongues twinning in time to fill both openings. Their bodies contracted and expanded to the other, contorted in bliss, making tactile reparations of what their hearts couldn’t verbally articulate.

Lisa felt the pressure building in her lower belly and could sense the same in Jennie’s tightening walls.

Things precipitated quickly when they started bucking into the other, no longer able to control the pacing. They reached simultaneous orgasm when Lisa pressed a thumb to Jennie’s clit and the immediate feedback sent them both hurdling over.

Taking initiative, Lisa increased the thrusting into Jennie’s ass, using her free hand to pull the cheeks wider and push her tongue in deeper before replacing it with a thumb and started pumping. They released a string of expletives now that both their mouths weren’t preoccupied.

“Jennie!”

“Lisa, baby, I’m coming, fuck!”

The pet name and Jennie’s newly spent desire triggered Lisa’s second and stronger orgasm that had Jennie’s mouth returning to eagerly lave up the overflow. A third height was reached when her thumb withdrew only for an index finger to fill Lisa with bursting pleasure as it hit its mark again and again. Unable to copy, Lisa took to sucking on Jennie’s clit to ride the crest of the overwhelming feeling. Their cries rang out the apartment, a series of broken wails as they clung onto the moment. She has never experienced a more beautiful wreckage.

They eventually rolled away from each other when their panting sent shivers through their still fluttering folds. Lisa then realigned her body to orient correctly on the bed. Jennie didn’t hesitate to nestle in when Lisa opened her arms in invitation.

Lisa kissed her lazily, mixing their fluids and buying time for their breathing to slow. To her surprise, Jennie re-entered her minutes later, like she hadn’t had enough and needed to be inside of Lisa as soon as possible and for as long as desired. Lisa continued their kiss while Jennie twisted her fingers and hit the back of her walls over and over in tender passes. Every time Lisa neared the edge, Jennie would pull out and then repeated the whole process until she came silently into Jennie’s mouth. No air left to make a sound.

They laid quietly after, neither wanting to disturb the tentative peace.

“Please talk to me,” Lisa whispered hoarsely into Jennie’s hair, running her fingers through it in a soothing pattern. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

Jennie had already fallen asleep. In one final mirrored act, Lisa did too.

She hadn’t known it then, buoyed by the hope that this would be a turning point, but it was one of the last times they’d do anything together.

—

Lisa felt like she’d been living under a half light since leaving New York after finally severing ties with Jennie, no other choice when her Jennie ceased being hers. Floating among the scattered mote of dreams turned into dust, haunted by the ghost of what was and could have been, Lisa had to let go. Staying was too painful. But going had meant turning her back on the brilliance that had kept her warm for twelve years, and stepping into the shadow of a new place, sad and lost among unknown streets.

During her first months in London, despite it being her choice of destination, she harboured unreasonable, misplaced anger towards the city—for being everything New York was not. It was damp and grey, people drove on the wrong side of the road, bagel was spelt wrong, there was too much tea and not enough sunlight.

After her mother passed, Lisa thought Jennie was the universe’s way of apology, its corrective measure for her early heartbreak. An irreplaceable loss softened by a devastatingly beautiful gain. She thought their love was sacred ground untouchable to further grief because Lisa had already paid her dues. So she tended and cultivated the wild land in blissful ignorance. Where her heart had been shattered, it had found peace in growing the garden with Jennie, tilling and milling the fertile ground daily with quiet love. She never thought that devastatingly beautiful could also be just devastating, that the very ground she felt safe on would split asunder and swallow her whole.

With her young heart darkened by the wounds of watching her strong and stunning mother fade away, she naturally gravitated to Jennie’s new light. Being with her was like partaking in a luminous, poetic reverie that had Lisa too absorbed in private discourse with the starry sky—head always tilted up—for her to notice the erosion happening afoot.

She should have known that such an oneiric place couldn’t exist, the product of a spatial imaginary too pure, too idyllic, too good to be true.

Lisa was angry at herself for being so stupidly, blindly in love, for a weakness for blue and her surrender to the comfort of a morning rasp and a soft hand always reaching for hers. It was a self-betrayal that could’ve been avoided had she hardened rather than softened all those years ago.

So Lisa was angry on the Tube, angry on her walk to work, angry at not knowing how to tender British pounds, angry when she discovered and finally heard Jennie’s voicemail, not at Jennie, but at herself that her first instinct was to book the next flight home with little regard to prematurely abandoning her new life.

It took weeks before the anger settled. The repressed rage had kept her company so she didn’t feel so alone but it did little to quell the aching melancholy. She channeled her anger and heartache into useful toil, clocking in countless hours at the office, until it turned into a dull pain.

When it became too much, the nights too lonely and the days too empty like the terrible sad songs playing on repeat in her flat, she decided to finally respond to Jennie’s voicemail.

She called and texted. No answer. She drafted several letters and sent the most legible one that had the least blurry words and smudged ink. No returned post.

That should have plunged Lisa into despair but the resounding silence—an undeniable and resolute affirmation of what would not be—in an odd way forced her to pull up her socks, swallow the pain and try to move on. She endeavoured to make London home, as in vain as the effort may prove.

Life carried on and Lisa did her best to bend to its changing wind and not break.

—

Sundays were holy. Not because Lisa was religious but because they had belonged to her and Jennie as the day of rest and reconnection with one another.

Sunday breakfasts, crosswords and sudoku, and stretching the afternoon light by the stretch and sighs of bodies in search of familiar and new heights. Her To Do list would have numerous bullet points but only one repeated task, Jennie. After every round, Lisa would reach over for the piece of paper and emphatically cross out Jennie’s name, making her girlfriend laugh without fail each time. Once in awhile Jennie would append specific activities before or after her name that had Lisa blushing while enthusiastically nodding.

Two years on, and Sundays were still the most difficult day of the week for Lisa.

It got a bit easier with new routines, new workers and casual friends. But on this particular Sunday, curled up as she was in the downstairs bookshop in her usual spot, tea and book in hand, Lisa felt the ache more palpably than she had in recent months. Maybe it was because it was her birthday, and instead of a cupcake it was a scone, and rather than the warmth of yellow and blue she was met with the concern of white and grey.

“Is everything alright, dear?” Cassie, the shopkeeper’s grandmother asked, drawing Lisa out of her thoughts.

It had been a quiet morning, Cassie covering for Kath and keeping Lisa company since the heavy downpour kept the usual Sunday book-sniffers off the streets and allowed them to have a tea-party for two.

Lisa stalled but then seeing the sympathetic gaze, she answered honestly, “There’s this girl,” at Cassie's gentle prod for elaboration with kind, patient eyes, Lisa finished saying, “we used to be in love.”

She looked down at the tea cup and saucer on her lap.

“I see,” Cassie said with the sort of understanding that came from years of life experience, the kind that also knew there was more that Lisa was yearning to say but holding back. So she stayed silent without question or judgment, distilling her wisdom through stillness.

“I mean, I’m still in love with her,” Lisa said quietly, stirring her tea and trying to keep the want out of her voice. “She, not so much with me.” When she looked up and saw compassion in Cassie’s expression, her eyes watered as she croaked out, “I miss her.”

Lisa had never felt the presence of an absence more acutely than today. The Portuguese call it saudade, that nearly untranslatable word of the profound longing—a hope of return—for an absent someone or something, a melancholy and nostalgia for a love that remains when the person has not.

She didn’t know why she was telling a complete stranger her sob story but something about the pattering of rain against the shop’s window and the memory of books abandoned in favour of a different kind of reading of bodies made Lisa want to unload all her longing, to let it be heard among the novels and short fictions and poems that carry far greater or more tragic love stories. That maybe her words could find solace within their margins and end pages.

Cassie smiled empathetically and offered her handkerchief.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cry into your tea,” Lisa said, wiping the moisture from her cheek. She took a moment to recover her voice, “It’s been over two years, I didn’t think I had any tears left.”

The grandmother waved her off. “When you get to my age, time is an elastic thing. One day you’re young and in love and the next, your husband has passed away after more than fifty years of marriage.”

Lisa looked up and suddenly felt silly for her romantic trifles. Cassie squeezed her hand to indicate it was okay.

She gave Lisa a sad smile before she continued. “I used to get very cross with him for leaving his socks willy-nilly around the house. Two weeks after the funeral I found the missing half of the polka dot pair he had been driving me crazy looking for. I cried more than I did at the funeral. It was in his bloody toolbox. He must have gotten hot while working but lord knows why he’d store it in there or only took off one sock.”

They shared a quiet chuckle.

The sombre mood returned when Cassie revealed, “My sons can’t trust me not to fall apart in the men’s section of Marks & Spencer. My grandchildren have clear instructions to keep me away from the sock aisle.”

Cassie then surprised her by getting up and going to one of the stacks. Lisa watched curiously, half expecting her to pull out the errant garment, but she instead scanned the shelf for a particular title, opened it to the desired page once located, and nodded her head when she found the right passage. She then shuffled back to show Lisa, her finger pointing to the particular line.

Love words, agonise over sentences.

And pay attention to the world.

“I’m a retired librarian and have had my nose in a book for most of my life,” Cassie began as Lisa read the two sentences trying to parse their meaning against her intent, “so, what I know of the real world will be of little value to you.”

Lisa quirked her eyebrow, a counter-argument on the tip of her tongue but she stayed quiet knowing Cassie wasn’t finished.

“Susan Sontag wrote that as advice for what writers ought to do but I’ve always taken to applying it more liberally to how one should conduct life. To love, to agonise, to pay attention. I know my poor heart is still beating if I’m agonising over a sock. It’s been years now but I’d rather cry over misplaced footwear than be numbed to this persistent ache,” Cassie said putting a hand to her chest. “It means he loved me well.”

Lisa didn’t fully understand Cassie’s point but more tears fell anyways. She could only imagine her loss, its depth and intensity even years on. Though Lisa’s longing was critically incomparable, she empathised with what it was to live with the spectral of love, to make do with a faded light.

“If you are still attentive to the way your heart stutters, dear, then I suspect you’ve been in a similarly fortuitous situation. It would be more worrisome if you weren’t crying over my tea.”

Lisa let out a wet laugh. “Jennie was the one who did all the crying in our relationship. I guess I’m catching up,” she bashfully admitted as she blinked the tears away. Taking a deep breath, Lisa voiced wistfully, “I can’t help but wonder if I gave up too soon. Maybe if I had waited a little longer …”

“Tell me about her,” Cassie kindly pressed, distracting her from the dangers of what ifs.

So Lisa did, telling her about what was. She spoke of Jennie’s smile, of her generosity and warmth, how they met, how hard Lisa fell and has never quite recovered. Cassie listened, her openness and calm a silent comfort.

“You know, you would make a great librarian,” Cassie mused half way through her story. When Lisa quirked her head in ask, she clarified, “My library is an archive of longings. Another of Sontag’s epithet.”

Lisa smiled despite again not quite catching Cassie’s drift. If that is the case, then Jennie’s is the only book she has ever wanted to read.

It wasn’t the Sunday Lisa had expected to have but a surprisingly heart-mending one nonetheless to spend it talking about Jennie, to sieve through the years and the abundance of moments that still made the butterflies flutter thinking of them.

There weren’t any cupcakes but in a small way, it felt like Jennie was there with her.

—

Lisa smiled as she watched from the living room, Minnie’s head tilted back in laughter as Minnie and her girlfriend shared a moment observing the Zurich skyline out on the balcony. She was happy for her friend to have found someone again.

They developed a kinship over their shared heartache. She’d met Minnie at a trade show two summers ago, striking up a conversation as seat neighbours during an extremely boring talk on cross-laminated timber, an alternative building material suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications.

“My ex is a rep for a concrete supplier. They’ve been losing bids recently to CLT. This is my passive aggressive way of getting back at her,” drew Lisa out of her near nap as the presenter droned on about an upcoming landmark project in Dalston that would become the world’s largest CLT building. The subject was fascinating but unfortunately the presenter had already lost most of the room with his constant fumbling of the laser pointer that would frazzle him from his script.

When Lisa realised the comment was addressed to her she turned to find an extremely attractive woman of similar age. Had Lisa had eyes for anything other than pale skin, golden hair and a dismantling beauty mark then this combination of dark skin, beautiful curls and charming smile would have hitched her breath. Instead, she smiled politely and raised an amused brow.

“I’ve decided to only spec wood in all of my projects from now on,” her companion continued in dry English humour. “That’ll teach her to cheat on me.”

Lisa’s eyes widened but she added helpfully, “It is more environmentally friendly.”

“Minnie. Inside architect.”

Lisa laughed at the interior designer’s self-description and shook the outstretched hand. “Lisa. Exclusively outside.”

They endured the remaining forty-five minutes of the talk together, entering into easy conversation that extended into a mutual desire to take the friendly banter to the pop-up bar. On their way, Minnie had paused to grab the presenter’s business card. Lisa had laughed when she handed her the card, after scribbling on the back of it, ‘Prefabricated wood paneling will save 2,400 metric tons of carbon compared to a concrete frame.’ “I’m going to mail this anonymously to her.”

Over drinks, they covered various topics and found common ground not only as designers but as jilted lovers of tragic romantic histories. “She cheated, how cliché. Didn’t even have the decency to be more original,” was brushed by with wilful nonchalance that betrayed deeper hurt than the slight shrug was meant to obfuscate.

In Minnie, Lisa immediately found a sympathetic heart that was also recovering and trying to make sense of the vagaries of love. The bond formed quickly and the friendship grew organically, the first person Lisa could confide in who had no attachment or accountability to Jennie, but who understood nonetheless the hardship of letting go despite all good and healthy reasons to sever the emotional ties.

“Hey,” Minnie nudged her to lift her legs so she could sit on the couch, disrupting her train of thoughts moments later.

“Rian's taking a nap?” Lisa asked as she placed her legs back down over Minnie’s lap when she settled. She could make out Rian's prone form on the outdoor lounger, tightly tucked in a blanket.

“Yeah, she’s regretting that third helping of raclette now,” Minnie relayed with endearment. She looked concernedly to Lisa. “You’ve been quiet all night.”

Lisa shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I can’t place it, but I have this weird feeling that this isn’t where I should be right now. That I’m in the wrong city.”

Minnie stole a sip from Lisa’s wine glass on the coffee table before shoving a piece of chocolate into her mouth and muffling out, “Feels fairly right to me.”

Lisa hummed but couldn’t shake the mood she’s in. “Cos, I—” she started to say but struggled to pinpoint the direction of her thoughts. Minnie waited patiently while Lisa arranged her words. “I think I need to go home.”

“What? Why would you trade the Limmat for Thames? Besides, your contract’s almost through. You’ve got, what, another month here?”

“No, not London.”

It took a second for Minnie to register her meaning and then she questioned, “That upcoming project in America?”

Lisa nodded. It’s a major commission that Lisa’s office was recently awarded as a joint venture with a New York firm—a mixed use multi-residential redevelopment in Queens. The Zurich placement was working out well so her boss had tapped her to represent them in New York. “Are you going to accept it?” Minnie asked, carefully reading Lisa’s expression.

It would be a great career opportunity complete with a promotion at the project’s end when she returns to London. She’d have more design autonomy than ever. “It’s a good offer. I’d start in December, get to run my own small team, and they’d pay for my apartment.”

“But?”

“She might be with someone,” Lisa quietly voiced her fear. Every time she thought of being in an adjacent borough to Jennie, let alone on the same side of the ocean, she felt a stabbing pang that was indecipherably good or bad. She wasn’t sure if the professional standing would be worth the personal turmoil, gun-shy to risk more collateral damage to her heart.

“I’m not sure I could handle that.”

It would be the cruellest joke to bump into Jennie with her now-husband or wife.

“But how much longer can you keep going like this?” Minnie asked with kindness despite the harsh reality of her question. “You work too much. You haven’t dated. Your only attempt has been with me and we can both agree that was a spectacular disaster. You’re terrible at snogging,” she teased poking at Lisa’s feet, “too much salt.”

Lisa pinched her side in protest, not willing to acknowledge how she couldn’t hold back the tears when Minnie’s lips had met hers and all she could feel was unreasonable guilt that they weren’t the right set. It had been a barely brushed kiss but the unfamiliar softness and sweetness had sent her into a panic. It took two tubs of ice cream and several horribly heterosexual movies (“look, your life could be worse or straight”) to salvage their first and only date.

“High standards,” Lisa joked then turned her head towards the direction of the light snoring filtering through the balcony doors. “Speaking of, Rian's great by the way.”

Minnie’s gaze softened, the goofiest smile forming. “She’s brilliant.”

“So,” Lisa leaned forward, eyebrows furrowed in a perplexed expression as if trying to solve calculus, “what is she doing with you?”

“Pot, kettle,” Minnie bristled, pinching Lisa’s leg in retaliation. “I’ve seen photos of Jennie, she’s too fit for you.”

“That’s probably why we’re no longer together.”

Minnie rolled her eyes. “Please, now you’re just fishing. You know how hot you are.”

“Seriously though, things look to be going well.”

“Yeah,” Minnie nodded, a light bloom to her cheeks. “Not just a rebound I don’t think. She’s a bit of a dream, to be honest.”

Lisa felt her stomach flip, mind immediately going to that one time she had whispered into the crook of Jennie’s neck, “You’re my dream girl, you know,” attributing the moniker between grateful bites of street fries, headed home on the A train after another late night in the studio, and Jennie’s reply had been, “You’re not mine because I don’t want you to ever be anything other than real.”

She shook her head to rid the memory and smiled at Minnie’s goofy look. “I’m happy for you, Nie.”

“I don’t want to jinx it and I know it’s early days, but it feels right. I can’t explain it yet but it does.”

Lisa understood the feeling. She went quiet for a second, another memory taking hold. “When we first moved in together, Jennie used to do this thing that drove me nuts.” She paused for the momentary swoop in her stomach to pass. “She’s a fantastic cook but shit at clean-up. A horrible dishwasher loader, never stacking it properly. Plates and bowls haphazardly thrown on top of each other where the water couldn’t reach and I’d end up having to rewash them by hand.”

She smiled and shook her head before continuing.

“But at her parents or my dad’s, she had no problem doing it correctly. When I finally realised she did it on purpose at home and confronted her about it, she told me that when I get upset, the vein in my neck bulges.” Lisa rubbed her hand in the area, her throat tightening at the touch. “She told me this was her favourite place in the world, just under my jaw. I’d get grouchy and worked up after excessive scrubbing in the kitchen, and it gave her an excuse to spend time here to smooth it out.” Lisa could feel the ghost of Jennie’s lips there as her eyes welled up.

Minnie gently patted her leg.

“Basically, she intentionally made me tense so she could relax me.” Lisa chuckled, a little embarrassed for getting emotional. “But she never needed a reason,” she disclosed quietly, looking up to the ceiling to keep the tears from falling, “nothing has ever felt more right than when her head was laid there. I haven’t been able to find that feeling again.”

She avoided Minnie’s gaze, sure to find pity there.

Minnie took a different tact. “Seriously, Lisa. Go to New York. Find Jennie. Get an answer, go from there. I don’t think you’ll ever find that feeling again, or be able to move on, unless you finally get some closure.”

Truthfully, Lisa’s decision was made as soon as her boss brought up the overseas assignment. She nodded even as she pouted and put up a fake fight, “Closure is overrated, I prefer open-ended uncertainty that daily chips away at my will to live.”

“So dramatic. How’d Jennie put up with your brooding arse for so long?”

“She was quite fond of my ass,” Lisa defended smugly much to Minnie’s feigned disgust.

“Gross, Lis.”

“Not what she said,” Lisa muttered but then chewed on her bottom lip as she considered how her life might change by year’s end. “Do you think exes can be friends?”

“Personally, no,” Minnie answered. “But my circumstances were different than yours. Is that what you want?”

“No.” It’s nowhere near what she wants, but it may be the start of what she needs. “I miss my best friend.”

“If things go to shite, you’ve got one waiting here,” Minnie reassured. “Though I have the vague feeling that you may not be coming back if it was an option.”

She didn’t answer aloud, not ready to give shape to a latent hope, but Lisa couldn’t quite help her heart’s murmuring agreement.

*****

It’s been a long road since that conversation with Minnie to her current late night one with Rosé in a dodgy gym while the pain in her cheek throbs.

When she found herself standing in front of Jennie’s painting in January, overwhelmed by the bleeding emotions on display in oil and artificial light and magnified by the immensity of being in the same space as her lost love, Lisa had no words. Nothing had prepared her for the way her stomach swooped and her heart skipped several beats when she heard Jennie call out for her. Nothing prepared her for the way Jennie would re-enter her life on the whim of a friendship request.

Slowly and surely, over the coming months, the half light had returned to a full light, she basked in the recovered warmth, as in love with the sweater Jennie knitted for her as she ever was with the fledgling knitter. Lisa has worked hard to move past heartbreak that has rend and eviscerated her, a difficult task of reconciling pain with possibility, not to replace one with the other but to make space for both.

The snowstorm and Jennie’s sickness, Wells’s concert, the auction and the rooftop, the weekend at the cabin, and all the kissing and hand-holding and breath-stealing in-between, were steps closer to the future originally denied her but that Jennie had been prodigiously making amends to reclaim. Their first kiss and first time together again, in the chase of sighs and shattering reach of highs, Lisa had felt her palpable want and had sought to live inside that feeling ever since.

Whatever reticence she held was purely out of self-preservation in case of a second devastating misreading of their hearts alignment.

It had been a breathless headlong rush that Lisa was only now coming up for air from. Her body aches from toiling to consign hurt to the past and sweep away sorrow as a firmer, fiercer love takes hold.

“I’m tired, Sé”

With the effect of the alcohol now somewhat lifted—nothing sobers like being knocked off one’s feet—Lisa suddenly feels bone weary. She pulls her knees up and lays her head on top of her crossed arms, exhausted by an inner dialogue between thinking and feeling.

Rosé doesn’t say anything. They both stare ahead watching a new set of boxers take a turn in the ring. Watching the fluid motion and intricate footwork distracts them for awhile until Lisa raises the subject again.

“My night wasn’t supposed to end like this.” She looks expectantly to her sister for some sage advice, anything that might lessen her pain.

Rosé doesn’t break her gaze from the ring, unsympathetic to Lisa’s plight. She harrumphs when one of the boxers walks right into a mean left cross and finally turns to Lisa, “I didn’t raise you to be this wallowing twig.”

“You didn’t raise me at all.”

“Lisa, the only surety in life is death and property tax. Nothing else is inevitable or supposed to happen.”

Lisa narrows her eyes but Rosé is unmoved.

“What? I’m not a Chinese fortune cookie dispenser.”

Lisa huffs in askance of expecting anything other than snark from her sister.

“Does that hurt?” Rosé asks a minute later, gesturing to Lisa’s cheek. Before Lisa could determine the direction of the tangent, she’s caught off guard by a punch to her upper arm. “How about that?”

Lisa glares at her for both the unnecessary violence and the obvious question, but relents an answer nonetheless, “Yes.”

“Are you still alive?”

Lisa sighs, “Yes.”

“There’s your fortune,” Rosé concludes with the sensitivity of a hammer meeting glass. “Stop fucking brooding. It’s unbecoming.”

“You brood,” Lisa pouts while rubbing her arm.

“Only because I’m always one selfie-stick away from slapping humanity.” On Lisa’s continued jutted lip, she softens imperceptibly and delivers the next part with tempered kindness for the shortness of her words. “Look, you’re hurt. Jennie’s hurt. But you’re both still alive, still here in the same city. So, stop crying over spilt milk. Wasted dairy is only a tragedy for cows. Are you a cow?”

“No?”

“Problem solved,” Rosé determines conclusively. “You owe me another bottle of whisky. I wouldn’t have shared had I known you were just being dramatic.”

“How generous of you.”

“My magnanimity knows no bounds.”

Lisa cracks a smile and opens her arms in affectionate gesture.

“Hug me and you’ll lose a limb.”

She doesn’t heed her sister’s warning and crushes her in a hug anyways.

“That’s enough,” Rosé lightly pushes her off after an extended hold. “Let’s go, wuss,” she beckons with a shove to her shoulder, seeing that the ring is free again, “try to stay standing this time.”

Rosé’s ways are unconventional but they work, at least for tonight, despite being worse for wear, Lisa feels a smidgen more settled than when she had come crying to her.

—

After leaving the gym, Lisa drags herself back to her apartment to freshen up before returning to Jennie to set things right. Her plans are once more derailed when Jisoo texts that she and Hyuna will be spending the night with Jennie who needs some time. Lisa’s stomach drops that she won’t be the one to offer comfort, as much as she appreciates that their friends are there for Jennie.

She falls asleep with a heavy heart.

The next morning, phone still clutched in hand, she wakes in alarm on her couch and immediately scans the device for a response to her messages from the night before.

But nothing.

Are you ok?

I stupidly panicked.

We should talk.

I can explain.

Please call me. 

For some reason, Lisa could only text in spurts of three words at a time. Poor substitutes for the ones she’s holding onto, that she should have immediately returned when Jennie said them, that she needed desperately to now say in person before 3,500 miles separate them again.

She deflates seeing the series of blue bubbles but no grey ones to follow in her iMessage window, never thinking that blue would ever be an unwanted colour. No response and no indication of read message either.

She scrolls up to their last interaction; Jennie’s ‘I miss you’ ten minutes after Lisa had left for work, followed by an image of a hand underneath Lisa’s wrinkled pillow and a closeup of a pout half covered by messy blonde hair, and then at lunch hour, two simple words of ‘Just you’ as answer to Lisa’s inquiry into plans for the evening.

The exchange had caused an insurgent of butterflies to lead a rebellion in her stomach during lunch while Lisa took savouring bites of her avocado sandwich that Jennie had packaged for her. They were reaching a ridiculous level of domesticity again, leaving Lisa’s whole being a useless pile of wanting, thrumming joy.

‘Can’t wait x’, the last text, now stares tauntingly back at her, as it would for the next several days without another word from Jennie.

Midweek, phone still glued to her but not any more responsive, Lisa ventures to Jennie’s apartment, hoping to work it out in person. She doesn’t sweat, not the way Jennie does, but standing in front of the downstairs buzzer has Lisa swiping unholy amounts of moisture against her jeans.

She’s about to buzz when the front door swings open and she finds Hyuna struggling with Tyro on her hips and a bag over her shoulder.

“Lisa, hi.”

“Wessa!”

Before Lisa has a chance to overcome her surprise, Tyro is making a grab motion with his hands and practically lunging himself into her arms, his mother straining not to topple over from the force. She’d made good on her promise to babysit, granting his parents much needed alone time, and the two of them had bonded over a shared love of 90s singers. Lisa’s infinite patience proved a good fit to counteract his hyperactivity. Their forever friendship cemented during a second sitting when they built a Lego tower his height. It’d been the most rewarding design so far in her budding career.

Beautiful brown eyes light up as Lisa easily absorbs his impact and lifts him high in the air.

“Hi, buddy,” she greets, blowing raspberries into his adorably protruding belly that gets exposed when his shirt rises. The giggles distract her enough to forget her mission for a moment as the best friends reacquaint.

“We’re just on our way out. Dropped in to check that the oven isn’t on. Jennie’s been fudging scatter-brained lately,” Hyuna discloses, careful to keep her cursing toddler-friendly. “Thankfully the oven was off but she did forget to lock her door. Getting robbed wouldn’t be a good look when she comes back.”

Lisa makes note of Jennie’s frazzled state for later. For now, she raises her brow for clarification, confused about the latter statement.

Hyuna returns her confused look, curious as to why any of this is news to Lisa. “Ducking hole between two cheeks, she didn’t tell you? I thought you guys would be talking by now.”

Lisa shakes her head, shifting to settle Tyro on her hips. A bubble of unease rises in her chest that Jennie’s shutting her out again.

“There was a last minute issue at the Toronto gallery. Jennie left in a rush this morning for her flight.”

It must be written all over Lisa’s face how crestfallen she feels, despite the plastered smile she’s maintaining for Tyro’s sake, because Hyuna places a comforting hand on her arm and reassures, “She’ll be back in a few days. I’m sure she would’ve told you if she wasn’t in such a hurry.”

Lisa offers a shaky smile, the knots tightening for the widening gap in communication, fearful of the silence from four years ago creeping back. She bounces the toddler who’s started restlessly entertaining himself with bunching her shirt, the motion more to soothe her than him.

“Are you really going back to London?” Hyuna asks, her gaze curious more than judgmental.

“Yes, but there’s more to it,” Lisa answers vaguely. “I want to tell you but Jennie deserves to hear it first, from me.”

Her friend nods in understanding. “She’s really hurt, as are you. You guys need to talk.”

“I’m trying but she’s not answering my texts, Hyun.”

Hyuna gives her a sympathetic smile and reaches out to alleviate Lisa of her son, who has fallen asleep after the momentary excitement passed but he only snuggles in closer into Lisa’s chest at the disturbance. “I’ll do what I can to get her to contact you, but you know, when stubborn Jennie sets her mind …”

“Thank you.” Lisa adjusts Tyro’s position so that his legs wrap fully around her. She cradles his head and strokes his back as Hyuna motions to leave. “Need a lift? I’ve got the company car today.”

“Nah, it’s alright. I doubt it comes with a child seat but thanks,” Hyuna says over her shoulder as she locks the door. “We’re only going three blocks anyways. Dawn’s meeting us at the kiddie pool. Wanna walk me?”

They spend the next fifteen minutes in a leisurely stroll, Hyuna giving a play by play of hers and Jisoo’s night and morning after with Jennie. Lisa listens intently, her heart twisting to hear of their failed attempts to lift Jennie from her despondency. She wishes she could run to her now and eliminate the new distance between them before it grows to untenable lengths.

Hyuna must be picking up on her anxiety and shifts the conversation. “Whatever happens, I’m here for you,” she tells Lisa, and then promises, “We’ll come visit this time, okay?”, a flash of guilt passing, but before either of them can address the past and future, they spot Dawn who waves the duo over.

Lisa melts seeing his blinding smile for his family. As Hyuna wipes drool from Tyro’s chin, she can’t help but imagine a different pair of blue eyes smiling fondly down at a child in her arms.

She sighs enviously watching the family of three head inside to the pool after exchanging goodbyes. They part on loose plans to see Lisa again before her flight.

—

The rest of the week passes in a blur. Between wrapping up at the office and finalising arrangements in London, the days furl forward.

Lisa is hoping tonight—a last minute get together to celebrate Dawn’s promotion—will be the night they can finally talk. She’s flying out the next day and only has a continuous string of unanswered texts to show for her efforts at clearing the air with Jennie. As a last resort, she’s finally clued her friends in on what’s happening and they were quick to move mountains with a thinly veiled excuse to get Jennie in the same room with Lisa. Or at least for this evening, the same open-air space on the High Line that’s been transformed into a dance floor.

While waiting at the bar with Dawn to place their group drinks order, the hair on Lisa’s arms stands up like a sixth sense letting her know that Jennie has arrived. When she turns her head in the direction of where she senses Jennie to be a few short metres away, Lisa’s heart stutters at the breathless sight.

Jennie’s wearing a mid length black dress that’s paired with the leather jacket she had sported at Well’s mini concert, casually finished off with white sneakers rather than heels, landing her decidedly on the effortless side of cool and edgy. Her hair is tied up in an attractive messy bun that frees her face for rosy soft skin and light smoky eyes to shine.

Jennie has always exuded a confident alluring beauty but tonight it seems to flow out of her in excess.

Or Lisa just aches for her to such a degree that Jennie could have walked in wearing pyjamas and she’d still find her the most striking sight this side of the Hudson.

Then Lisa’s heart falters for a different reason. A lump forms in her throat as she watches Jennie pause to scan the crowd for their group. The relief of finally seeing her is replaced with worry. To everyone else, Jennie looks like a hot girl here to have a good time with her friends. To Lisa, under the stain of lipstick and the cover of eyeshadow, she looks tired and sad and heartbroken. There’s a tautness to her movements and a guardedness in her gaze, like the pull and loyalty of friendship are the only things motivating her attendance tonight.

Lisa wants to go to her and sweep Jennie up in her arms.

Instead, Dawn gets the privilege, reaching her first. They embrace affectionately, a smile mirroring on Lisa’s face seeing the ones shared between the friends. Lisa has never been jealous of Dawn until this moment, the way Jennie’s arms wind round his neck, how small and safe she looks against his chest, raised high on her toes to close their height gap and tuck her head in.

It was only ten days ago that Lisa had been the recipient of that warmth, of having Jennie’s breath faintly on her skin that morning as she lightly dozed. Even in sleep, her hand had clung to Lisa’s shirt.

Lisa moves to stand awkwardly near them, unsure of what to do with her hands so she pockets her nerves and bounces on her feet, waiting for the opportune moment to announce her presence. She looks on adoringly as Jennie doesn’t seem to want to let go of her life-size teddy bear.

Their gazes finally meet when Jennie looks up over Dawn’s shoulder and catches Lisa staring. Lisa is about to open her mouth to say hello but the word stays stuck in her throat on noticing a sheen forming in Jennie’s eyes, and before she knows it, Jennie is excusing herself to find the washroom, leaving hurriedly on the faint pretence that she drank too much on the ride over.

Lisa’s posture deflates. But Dawn is quick to hold her up, an arm around her shoulder, and ushers her to the designated seating area where the others are already settled, taking in the sounds of the live band. Jisoo and Hyuna are up to their usual bickering while Rosé looks on bored.

When Jennie finds them again, there’s a slight smudge to her eye makeup though her too-wide smile overcompensates as she says hi to everyone. Lisa doesn’t know what hurts more, the curt nod thrown her way or the farthest seat possible Jennie takes.

Their friends trade the usual light ribbing and good-natured barbs while scrambling to disperse the thick air with chatter. But Lisa doesn’t catch any of it, attention attuned instead to Jennie’s shallow breathing and the way she’s playing with the label of her beer bottle, eyes downcast with a faraway look.

It takes all but ten minutes before the tension proves too much for the larger group who make lame excuses to be anywhere but between them. Jisoo drags Rosé to the dance floor. Hyuna and Dawn search for a quieter spot to check on the sitter. Their blustering exits leave Lisa alone with Jennie who stares very interestedly at the pooling moisture running down her beer, intent on not making eye contact.

It stings that the mere one and half metres that separate them feels like an impassable gulf.

“Jennie,” Lisa tries. The sound of her name startles Jennie. Her hand stills for a second but she doesn’t look up.

“Please look at me,” Lisa pleads. There must be a desperation to her tone because Jennie does lift her head and flashes her a quick look, but not quick enough to hide the hurt. It was only a fleeting glance but by god has Lisa missed those eyes. “I want to explain.”

Jennie doesn’t seem to hear or perhaps is wilfully ignoring what she heard, returning to her new hobby of paper-peeling. Several excruciating beats of silence pass before she asks, in a voice so quiet that Lisa only hears because of how closely she is paying attention, “What happened to your eye?”

Lisa’s forehead creases, confused by the non-sequitur, her hand going to her face and only remembering the injury when she feels the lingering tenderness. The swelling has subsided but the skin remains noticeably discoloured that in her hurry to come here Lisa hadn’t bothered covering up. She watches Jennie track the movement of her fingers delicately brushing over the bruise. Jennie’s eyes go fleetingly soft, then alarmed when Lisa hisses from accidentally pushing too hard.

“Rosé. Boxing,” Lisa answers with an insouciant shrug hoping to downplay the incident.

Jennie studies her for an unnerving stretch of time, silently reading the latent meaning, but finally accepts the shortened explanation with a conciliatory nod and a bite of her lip.

Things return to awkward for awhile after as Lisa tries to unscramble her words from the momentary interruption, cobbling together her thoughts. Jennie hastens the process.

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Jennie’s eyes widen at the scant timeframe, stealing a glance at her watch like she could map out twenty-four hours by the spin of the second hand. “You’re still going …” she lowly sighs under her breath that Lisa is likely not meant to catch. Jennie swallows heavily, straining to keep her composure.

“Yes,” Lisa confirms anyways because this is her opening. “But I’m coming ba—”

A bass drop hits just as Lisa speaks the latter part, like a stuttering heartbeat, Jennie misses what she says. Her follow-up question detracts Lisa from repeating herself and elaborating further.  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Because I didn’t need to.”

Lisa knows she’s phrased it wrong as soon as the words come out. She’s proven right by the way Jennie’s shoulders slump and how she folds inward, caving under the weight of keeping them squared until now. Her lefthand grip on the beer tightens and her lips thin to almost nonexistence. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second in a thin attempt to fight back tears.

On re-meeting Lisa’s gaze, Jennie nods as if coaching herself that Lisa has no obligation to her, that she has no right to answers, an accountability only afforded to two people part of a mutual relationship.

Sad blue eyes, several significant shades shy of their usual lustre, pin Lisa in place and empty the air from her lungs. Lisa hasn’t even left for London yet but looking at Jennie now, so small and vulnerable, she already feels homesick.

Jennie’s voice is thick with emotion when she braves to reply, “You’re right, you don’t owe me anything.” She turns her head to the side, breaking their eye contact, and stares distantly to some nondescript section of the dancefloor over Lisa’s shoulder.

Lisa wants to scream at the fraught situation, her complicity in landing them here in the first place and then making matters worse with her inability to say the right thing in Jennie’s presence. The goal tonight was to have Jennie back in her arms but by how things are developing it’d be a miracle if Jennie ever talks to her again.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lisa seeks to rectify her mistake and reaches out to stabilise the slight tremor of Jennie’s hand. “Love, I—”

Unfortunately, Jennie overreacts to the surprising touch as much as the slipped out pet name, spilling her beer as she reflexively jerks away. Both reach for the pile of napkins at the same time, hearts hammering at the same accelerated rate. They work in silent coordination cleaning the mess until Lisa’s wiping hand accidentally brushes against Jennie’s causing a second jolt. That seems to be the final straw. Jennie abandons the task without a word, rises abruptly and stalks away, looking more upset than ever and leaving Lisa to curse to an empty chair.

She doesn’t know when Rosé joins her but suddenly there’s a comforting hand on her shoulder. Lisa looks up from her daze hoping to find Jennie still sitting across from her.

“She’s with Chu at the bar,” Rosé fills in helpfully.

Lisa scans the bar until she sees a blonde and brunette huddled by the corner seats, Jisoo soothingly rubbing Jennie’s back up and down. Several telling shots sit between them on the counter.

Jennie takes up post there for most of the night, and from Lisa’s protective watch, seems to get increasingly more drunk. Their friends take turns to try and lull her back to Lisa but the cheap whiskey isn’t helping their plight. Lisa’s own attempt is thwarted by Hayley Kiyoko of all people, the remixed cover the only thing that effectively gets Jennie off her stoop just as Lisa approaches.

The rebuke stings but, as a diversion, Lisa takes up sentinel as a self-appointed bodyguard of the leather jacket that Jennie leaves unattended. It’s not a bad consolation if this is how the rest of her night is meant to unfold, on an elevated urban park of a former railway beneath a yawning sky, keeping watch over Jennie.

She spends the next hour at her new perch by the bar looking on forlornly as Jennie loses herself in the music. More than spilt alcohol is keeping her elbows glued to the sticky surface; steps away, bare shoulders and a deep neckline shimmering under the glow of hanging fairy lights motivates Lisa’s thirst for a different type of hydration.

Lisa watches with fondness (and a pooling in her stomach) as Jennie moves aimlessly on the dancefloor, out of time to the music and heedless of other bodies around her. She looks unbelievably sultry and addictive, oozing sex appeal that under different circumstances would have Lisa sliding in right behind her, hands on her hips as Jennie would start grinding. Lisa would bend down to kiss her while Jennie reaches back to sink her hand in Lisa’s hair; hands and hips and tongue moving together.

Lisa is snapped out of her daydream when a tall blonde approaches Jennie, a cliché of edgy haircut, skinny jeans and a band t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, all swagger and muscle holding up a built frame. If Lisa was in a generous mood, or not so incredibly gay, then she would ascribe him as aesthetically pleasing despite his wafting emission of hipster irony, the scent of white privilege a choking grasp even from this distance.

Jennie doesn’t seem to care or notice his presence, at least not with the same eagle eyes that has Lisa’s jaw tightening almost painfully. Jennie continues to sway and swing her body to her own song unaware of the massive attention her movements generate.

Blonde Bon Iver not so subtly shuffles nearer to her that Lisa expects won’t be taken kindly if it interferes with Jennie’s one-person dance show. She scoffs as he nervously runs a hand through his thick hair strategising how to make his introduction.

Granted she’s being unfair with her impetuous judgment, holding unreasonable contempt for a stranger’s existence, but there’s no way Jennie would be interested in someone who looks like they home-brew kombucha tea as a hobby. Lisa’s gutted however when Jennie doesn’t refuse his advance and even fakes a laugh at whatever inane pickup line Hipster Central had managed to extract from the thick hair gel.

Watching him stand exceedingly close to Jennie—when such closeness has eluded her for more than a week—makes Lisa’s insides feel like they’re being pulverised, unable to stop the heated sensation behind her eyes. Their proximity is still on the side of innocent, and though there is no actual bodily contact, Lisa can’t help but think this is all wrong, that she should be in Skinny Jean’s place instead, making Jennie laugh and blush, being within a breath’s reach of that beauty mark and chin dimple as they lean in closer to hear each other better.

She knows that under present conditions she has no right to be territorial but as soon as she sees Artisanal Bread breaching into Jennie’s personal space, Lisa is off her stool and heading towards the dance floor before he can convince Jennie to run away together on his tandem bicycle.

Maybe it’s the gin and tonic she’s been nursing propelling her forward but she’ll be damned if Jennie slips out of her grip without a fight. They’re broken enough and it’s indefensible for Lisa to let things remain unfixed.

“Jennie, what are you doing?” She asks once arriving within hearing distance, braving a light touch to her elbow.

Glassy eyes meet her imploring gaze. There’s a too-brief look of relief like Jennie just realised the voice belongs to her Lisa but then it’s instantly gone as Jennie recalls the events that have led them here. She sizes Lisa up for a painful moment of clarity, cycling through a conflict of deep hurt, resigned sorrow and simmering anger, indecisive on which emotion to settle.

“I’m trying to move on,” Jennie replies defeatedly in the end. Lisa’s throat tightens. The unguarded comment is said without bite, but the gut punch hits Lisa as squarely as the blonde’s intoxicated breath. Jennie’s drunker than Lisa thought her to be, not catching the hurt her answer provokes.

Lisa’s stunned enough by the callback to their conversation that Eau de Suave is able to seize the opportunity to make his move, misinterpreting Jennie’s lack of rejection as encouragement, oblivious to the lovers spat happening right in front of him.

Seeing his hand on Jennie’s waist stabs at Lisa’s heart. She’s conflicted between wanting to punch him and simply walking away, tired and done, but Jennie’s next whispered words ground her, “It’s not working. I don’t want anyone else.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Clueless doesn’t get the memo over the loud music and draws Jennie in by the waist. Before Lisa’s protective instincts can kick in, Jennie snaps out of her tipsy nescient state, sends a death glare at the intrepid hand and immediately pushes him off of her. The force of her reaction has her stumbling back hard into Lisa’s chest and inadvertently elbowing her in the ribs. Lisa is winded but bites the pain to wrap her arms around the drunk girl and steady her, grateful that Jennie doesn’t recoil from the touch.

Jennie turns her head to investigate her landing pad, startled to find the catching arms belonging to Lisa.

“Baby?” She asks with a clouded gaze like she’d already forgotten the altercation. Lisa aches at both the term and seeing the renewed welling of tears.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she coos in the shell of her ear.

Lisa wishes she could tell her the truth right now to put them both out of their shared miseries. But Jennie’s inebriation makes for terrible timing. Instead, Lisa scowls at Whole Foods Poster Boy, sending a threatening glare that can’t be interpreted as anything other than, not this girl.

Credit to him, he catches on and puts his hands up in a gesture of surrender before moving on to another spot on the dancefloor, leaving with an apologetic mumble of, “Sorry, didn’t know she had a girlfriend.”

She does, Lisa thinks and possessively tightens her hold of Jennie, hoping the strength of her grip communicates familiarity and safety and love. Jennie melts into her.

Unable to control her impulse, Lisa steals a kiss to the top of Jennie’s head and feels the absorbing touch to the chill of her bones, nestling into the softness of blonde hair.

Jennie turns in her arms and pleads with hazy eyes made more beautiful by summer’s twilight, a quiet request on her tongue, “Dance with me,” she beseeches, “please, one last time.”

Though she hopes it won’t be the last, Lisa is eager to oblige, letting Jennie loop her arms around her neck as Lisa encircles her waist, hands resting delicately on the small of her back. Careless of the music’s upbeat tempo, they sway in slow motion, barely moving.

The hold is far too intimate for the thumping bass and the rise and fall of bouncing bodies in youthful bliss around them. Jennie presses herself into Lisa, erases what little gap exists, and asks with beggared breaths against her skin for a stillness to their rupture.

Lisa sings into her ear, a murmuring of the song that Jennie had sung to her in the church and that has been swelling inside of Lisa since, hoping the returned plea to anchor up to her will be enough to calm stuttering hearts.

Over Jennie’s shoulder, Lisa catches the curious, worried looks of their friends, the other two couples helicoptering within supporting distance. She sends them each a reassuring nod to relay things are okay, for the moment anyways. Lisa closes her eyes and breathes in the fragile happiness.

Dancers of love intertwine

such graceful girls

lit by the moon

on these clear nights

With the stars and moon in lucent conspiracy above them, she’s reminded of the quote in the book that presently sits on her nightstand, the Order of Time that she had been introduced to through NPR’s Cosmos & Culture blog and had been geeking over with Josh. She thinks back to Cassie’s words from the used bookshop, of how time is elastic and mutable, a posit that’s confirmed in the book’s opening chapter.

According to the Italian physicist-poet Carlo Rovelli, time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level. A dweller by the sea lives less, ages less, has less time than her mountain friend; there are fewer turns of the clock down below. London is closer to the sea. New York is twice its altitude. Fitting then, surrounded by their skyscrapers, that New Yorkers would experience the opposite. Thus when Lisa was in the UK, she felt out of sync with the rhythms of her adopted city, time passing more slowly, she running at a different speed.

Now, dancing on the High Line with Jennie in her arms, an otherwise lyrical and enchanting night but for their injurious souls, she wishes time wouldn’t move so rapidly. That it would stop altogether. In oblique address of Jennie’s question months ago about how to face the vastness of love and the shortness of life, Lisa knows the answer lies here, where she had long ago found her place and purpose.

Time has a different rhythm in every different place and passes here differently from there. The things of this world interweave dances made to different rhythms. 

Lisa thinks she has always been made to interweave with Jennie’s rhythm.

She wishes to stay in this time forever.

Their dance eventually ends. There’s a war raging at the tips of Lisa’s fingers to not let Jennie pull away, a grumbling battle in the tingle of lips not to kiss her. Both their gazes flicker to the area of contention.

Jennie makes the decision for Lisa, crossing the front lines by lifting on her toes for their mouths to be within heart-skipping nearness. She leaves a micro permission-seeking gap  that Lisa is quick to close. The kiss is at once desperate and delicate as lips move with soft but urgent pressure, evoking a tacit understanding in the feel and form of paramour touches that evades them in speech.

Lisa can taste the melted plastic remnants of bottom shelf alcohol but it’s the sweetness of Jennie’s tongue searching achingly for hers that fuels the aural dissonance between the rush of blood in her ears and the frenetic buzz of the crowd. She’ll gladly surrender to poison by second-hand moonshine if the honeyed aftertaste is her reward.

Just before they part, Jennie keeps Lisa’s bottom lip tucked in between hers, a long suckle with a slight sting of teeth as much for archival as for marking purposes, like this might be their last kiss and she wants to leave visible traces of herself. Lisa opens for another shorter kiss that promises the taste of Jennie is not something she’ll forget anytime soon.

Lisa spends the rest of the evening wrapping Jennie against her chest back in the lounge area, the modicum of comfort she’s able to offer as Jennie can’t be dissuaded from numbing her feelings in more cheap whiskey.

With Jisoo and Hyuna’s help later, they manage to get Jennie into a cab while Lisa pays the night’s tab and apologises profusely to Dawn for ruining his celebration. Dawn waves her off with a hug. Lisa says goodbye to her friends and sister before she’s bundling Jennie in her arms in the cab’s backseat on their way home to Brooklyn.

—

Succeeding to coax keys from Jennie then pry the door open despite the weighty hindrance by her side, Lisa finds the apartment tellingly more tidy than she’d last left it. She tucks the thought of Jennie stress-cleaning away for later, already having her hands full undertaking to move the immovable lug in her arms.

After plying water into Jennie’s system, Lisa ushers her into the bathroom to remove her makeup. She lifts Jennie onto the counter and then steps in between her legs. Lisa tries to slow down her racing heart at being so kissably close to Jennie again. Thankfully a drunk Jennie is more amenable than a sick Jennie who doesn’t put up a fight as she dabs the cotton swab to wipe off the mascara and then lipstick.

Lisa strains to keep focus on each task at hand but it’s especially difficult under the clouded intensity of Jennie’s staring. “Better?” She whispers when done and receives an adorable head butt to her chin instead as if Jennie wants to share the burden of keeping her head up. Or she was aiming for a kiss but missing wildly. Lisa lowers her ahead and gives an appeasing peck to the tip of her red nose which has always been a beacon of her emotional distress.

Their bedroom is next, where Lisa does find the bed unmade, a mess of crumpled sheets and stray popcorn. She spots her Columbia t-shirt on the pillow next to Jennie’s side, on her side, and a pair of knitting needles and what looks to be the start of a scarf, but they’re not what catches Lisa’s breath. It hitches when her gaze lands on two pieces of paper waywardly cast atop the sheets. Two lists, with scratches and revisions, and very pregnant titles.

Lisa takes a shaky breath and fights the urge to read the items under each heading. She steps away from a sleepy Jennie to clear the clutter one-handed while the other arm stays outstretched, hand still on Jennie’s hip to keep her steady.

Lisa then removes Jennie’s clothes and reaches for the shirt to pull over her head but decides against it given the summer’s heat. Feeling personally attacked by a vision of pale skin that’s only interrupted by panties and camisole, Lisa has to suck in a breath and avert her gaze lest she runs her fingers across the exposed softness.

She refocuses to help Jennie into bed, before settling seated behind her, a mirror of when Jennie was sick. It’s a seamless domestic act, soft and intimate, practised countless times higher than the thread count that she has sorely missed this past week.

She should head to her own apartment for much needed rest. There’s still packing to be done and a long travel day ahead. But right now, with Jennie leaned back against her, and the whole of the universe atomised to where their hands touch, clasped over Jennie’s stomach, Lisa is unable to move a muscle. She possesses zero immunity to a pretty, crying girl, least of all when it’s mixed with the heady scent of whiskey-drenched heartbreak. As Lisa gently strokes Jennie’s hair and steals kisses into the unravelled mane, she stows the feeling for when her hands will be empty this time tomorrow.

From the extended silence, she assumes Jennie has fallen asleep and is relieved for the repose. Lisa battles the heaviness of her own eyelids to spend the quiet strategising how to wade their way out of the morass of cut-off explanations, incomplete declarations, and truncated texts.

Just as Lisa feels herself drifting off, Jennie suddenly jerks in her arms.

Lisa presses her impossibly closer and soothes, “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Jennie turns to nose into the underside of her jaw, grazing against her neck in gentle passes, a subconscious habit usually done to reaffirm Lisa’s presence during difficult nights. (Lisa shirks from thinking of the last time the self-comfort mechanism was a nightly occurrence.)

Lisa feels a light wetness and before she can investigate further, Jennie asks, “Is this how it felt?”

She doesn’t know how to answer, not quite grasping Jennie’s meaning yet.

“I’m so sorry.” Jennie starts to sob and it breaks Lisa’s heart anew to hear the break in her voice.

“Hey … it’s okay,” Lisa reiterates.

“It’s not. I didn’t—” Jennie pauses to let a hiccup pass and Lisa takes the opportunity to wipe her tears, “I didn’t know it could hurt like this. What it must have been like for you. I’m, I’m sorry.”

“I know, love.” Lisa is having a hard time not choking up while straining to calm an inconsolable Jennie. “I promise, it’s okay.”

But her words aren’t penetrating the fog.

The thickness of the alcohol that Lisa can still smell on Jennie’s breath seems to be fuelling her emotional plummet to depths that Lisa isn’t prepared for at this late hour and level of exhaustion.

“I get it, why you’d want to go back to England.” Jennie’s frame is lightly shaking by now and Lisa struggles to keep her together as much as to follow her train of thought. “You’re better off without.”

She re-situates Jennie so that the blonde is cradled sideways between her legs instead, curled into Lisa’s chest, knees bent and head against her shoulder. The new fetal position gives her better opportunity to comfort, especially when the word ‘me’ falls from Jennie’s lips and lands like a sinking ship in Lisa’s stomach.

Lisa cups her face and says with firm conviction that she hopes would break through Jennie’s stupor, “I’m not. And I don’t want to be.”

But Jennie shrugs off the reassurance, vehemently shaking her head and not accepting what Lisa’s telling her.

“I broke you, this,” Jennie whimpers and presses her hand into Lisa’s chest in drunken despair, lamenting, “and I don’t have enough superglue to put it back together,” then cutely re-buries her head into Lisa’s neck in dramatic fashion that would be laughable if not for the underlying sentiment of her accompanying words. “I bought too much yellow paint and not enough glue. I didn’t do— it’s not enough.”

The colour, the blurred sentences and jumbled thoughts, take Lisa right back to that first voicemail. Hearing Jennie’s heartbreaking but wrong conclusion about inadequacy, she makes her decision. She can’t hold off until Jennie is sufficiently sober to hear what she has to say.

Lisa reaches for her mobile on the side table. Maybe the best way to reach Jennie is to adopt the language she understands best, exposition via modern technology.

“You know, Jennie, for someone non-athletic, you’re really good at jumping to conclusions,” she mutters while tapping away a text message that’ll hopefully make sense to her in the morning.

Within seconds, a reciprocal ding sounds in the distance. Huh, her phone does work, Lisa notes but gives it no further thought. She then calls again, and is unsurprised when it goes to voicemail after several rings.

Lisa takes a deep breath.

“Hi Jennie,” she starts after the beep, brushing Jennie’s hair behind her ear and placing a kiss on her head.

“It’s past midnight. I fly out tomorrow, or rather today. My relationship to time has been tenuous lately. I’m sitting with you in my arms, on our bed, in our apartment. It’s not a sentence I would’ve expected to say six months ago.”

She wants to chuckle hearing Jennie hum in agreement as if she’s listening though her eyes have since closed and light snores fill the room.

“Six months ago I returned to New York, not for the job, but for you. The job was an excuse, you were the reason. You have always been my reason for everything I do.

“I never told you about London because it’s a non-issue. Jennie, I essentially rearranged my plans the moment we started hanging out again. From the first time I saw you at the gallery, and as soon as I realised you still wanted me in your life, I was never going to go back to London. Not permanently.”

Lisa pauses and looks down at the small lion under her chin. The only permanence she’s invested in is this quiet roaring. The day Jennie had left a flu-motivated voicemail and asked her on a date, Lisa and her colleagues were celebrating their project achieving building permit status. Where she should have been ecstatic about the implications for her career, all Lisa was preoccupied with was Jennie’s health and whether she had supplied her with enough fluids, cold presses, and popcorn.

Lisa knew then that she had reached a point of no return. Although she felt profound vulnerability and helplessness following the breakdown of their relationship, the betrayal and breach of trust leading to a deep grief and loss, Jennie’s confession and contrition that snowstorm weekend had done much to help progress her mourning process. To move on and construct a new future. She spent the following days in Chicago in solitude and quiet contemplation over the choice that had been in the making since their hug on the pier. She would stay in New York and say goodbye to London.

Jennie shifts in her hold and Lisa squeezes tighter, chasing the echo of how incredible it had felt to embrace Jennie again for the first time.

“I didn’t accept the promotion,” she continues, “I actually quit my job. I’ve been coordinating the end of my contract remotely. Then three weeks ago, Minnie proposed to her girlfriend and asked me to be there for her engagement party. It’s why I’m flying to London, for that and to tie up loose ends with my office and flat in person. I’m only going for three weeks.

“This was what I wanted to tell you before gay panic set in and I let our conversation deteriorate the way it did. I’m sorry for how I’ve hurt you,” Lisa repents. “I know I’ve gone about it all wrong. But before I reacted like a complete idiot, I had planned on asking you two things.”

Jennie purrs into Lisa’s neck, warm breath and lips skimming against her throat keep Lisa grounded though it does little to tamper the butterflies when Jennie’s hand starts to gently roam under her shirt.

“The first was if you’d like to be my date to Minnie’s party. The second—”

Just as Lisa works up the courage to finally voice the big ask she’s been carrying around for weeks Jennie’s voicemail cuts out, causing her to fumble the phone and drop it. Jennie stirs momentarily but otherwise remains oblivious to her flailing. Lisa takes a breath and redials, immediately picking up where she left off.

“And the second question I was going to ask is if I could come home, permanently.”

Lisa lets out a shuddered breath.

“I’m hoping third time’s the charm, that you’ll say yes,” she laughs nervously, “because I’m sorta deeply in love with you too. I’ll basically be jobless and homeless when I return to New York so I really am keen on it not being another no. Don’t make me live with Jisoo and Rosé.”

By the way Jennie is clinging to her like a koala, she doesn’t think it will come to that, but Lisa has been wrong before.

“Mmhmm hmmm,” Jennie unexpectedly replies. Lisa freezes thinking she’s awake but she only snuggles in closer and firms her grip on Lisa’s shirt.

Lisa cups her sleepy face and gently places a sweet kiss on her lips. Jennie snores against her mouth.

“I am leaving for London but I’m coming back. Jennie, you have always been my plan. And if I am still a part of yours, which god I hope is the case, please call me when you get this.”

—

There isn’t much to pack but Lisa drags out putting each item into her luggage, buying time for Jennie’s call back.

Her three-quarter full suitcase has been sitting ready in her empty apartment, the last quarter waiting to be filled on this late afternoon of departure.

It’s an eerie echo of four years ago. Leaving but not wanting to go, waiting for an answer that’s not forthcoming.

Lisa hasn’t heard from Jennie since she tucked her into bed, kissed her on the forehead, and left their apartment and her heart behind.

She casts an eye about. The rental is a comfortable enough place but lacks any warmth, not for want of furniture or material goods. She never bothered to nest because it was only ever meant to be temporary. Only ever a meanwhile solution until the permanent one could be reached.

She has no attachment to anything in this loft, other than her books, her mother’s chair, and the knitted sweater Jennie gave her. The books and chair she’ll stow with her dad, who’s been conscripted to help clear out the space while she’s away. The item of most value will go with her.

For June, Arran wool should be too hot to wear. Lisa doesn’t care. She feels cold and dons the sweater anyways. At least she’ll have something of Jennie on the flight.

Lisa closes the suitcase, an apt, soundless act in keeping with the silence she’s lived with for years. She misses Jennie’s noisiness, the utter chaos she wracks, the loudness with which she loves Lisa.

The ride to the airport is as lonely as the sound of her front door clicking shut. Rosé doesn’t do sentimentality so Lisa shuttles herself to JFK. (Her sister’s parting text simply reads, “Aberlour.”)

Lisa knows she’s coming back, to what, remains uncertain, yet the ache of leaving things unresolved with Jennie makes it feel like another painful goodbye to the city.

She watches the moving images of glass and concrete flash by. Nothing is quite like New York at dusk, the sun graciously bowing out to the bright lights of LED dreams. In the slippage from real to artifice, there’s one moment of simultaneity where the desires of the city’s collective unconscious suspend in stillness—held in place by hope and possibility—before dispersing across the ether. Somewhere in that ephemeral light is a version of her and Jennie’s future.

—

Lisa should hate airports. Ever since becoming a frequent solo flyer, it would be reasonable for her to detest spending any amount of time there, especially when she’s come to associate them with separation and longing.

She took a short course once on airport design when she hadn’t yet decided to specialise in housing. In design circles, architecturally speaking, it’s considered a non-place. Neither here nor there. A transient in-between state of being with no real spatial qualities. Like shopping malls, gas stations, and supermarkets, they are generic and prosaic. Get in, get out.

Non-places represent marked distinctions between transit and dwelling (staying and going), identity and anonymity (intimacy and strangeness). Airports, in particular, are characterised by their alienating conditions; the deliberately designed lack of comfort and warmth that keeps people moving, the formalities and impersonal regard that keeps processes efficient. They are a provisional container where millions of nameless personal histories overlap but rarely interact. Arrive. Depart.

Yet, for all the seeming detachment and indifference, she finds airports to be places of hope. Lisa has come to embrace airports for the untold stories writ large in the intersection of moving bodies, their ephemerality and the temporary distance from the reality that normally awaits her outside—London, a city without Jennie; New York, a city with the ghost of them.

In the one to two hours each time she spends inside waiting on the rigid seats, she could surrender herself to imagining different possibilities, alternative scenarios of their life together. Maybe Jennie is dropping her off for her business trip or picking her up afterwards, or they’re idling time together until boarding for their holiday destination. Three-letter acronyms would flicker above their heads, contracted signifiers of exotic locales to be added to an ever-expanding bucket list.

But today, she does hate airports because for the first time since flying to Iceland, she’s leaving a reality that she does not want to let go of. She moves perfunctorily through check-in and bag drop-off then security and customs before holing up in the departure lounge, knees curled to her chest.

Every couple of sighs, she casts a hopeful look at her phone. She must do it frequently enough to annoy a nearby passenger to move to another section of the gate.

“Please call, love.”

But sheer will power does not make it ring.

The universe, as it turns out, has other plans.

“Lisa!”

Lisa’s heart is in her throat. She recognises the timbre and texture of that voice even through the muffle of her earphones.

When she whips around the most beautiful and bizarre vision greets her. A frantic mess of blonde is running—running—towards her. A wild Jennie appears.

Lisa rises from her seat and turns towards the commotion.

“Jennie?”

Jennie arrives breathless in front of her, no preamble, as she says, “I made two lists. You like lists.”

It’s only then that Lisa notices the backpack slung on her shoulder as Jennie shifts the bag to retrieve with shaky hands two pieces of paper that she outstretches for Lisa to take.

Lisa scans them and immediately recognises the import of the bullet points. Two columns. Three capital letters headlining each.

NYC and LDN.

Under them, curated virtues of each city stack messily one atop the other, from “Real bagels” and “Frank & Larry’s” in favour of the former to “Free art galleries” and “Non-microwaved tea” as argument for the latter. However, it’s the last identical item at the end of both lists that puzzles Lisa.

Jennie.

“I know it’s kinda late since you’re already at the airport. The lists were supposed to help you decide. I’m sorry for what I said last week. What I should have said when you told me about London was, um, please don’t go,” Jennie begs, an unrestrained measure of hope expelling forth between each sentence that she pants, still catching her breath.

Lisa stares blankly, nerves fraying and all thought processes several beats behind. Jennie misreads Lisa’s shocked silence as an answer, her expression falls before her brows crease in determination.

“But if you must,” she tearfully negotiates, “let me follow.”

At Lisa’s prolonged silence, Jennie pushes on.

“As an artist, my schedule and place of work is flexible. I’m the boss of me so I could go anywhere, really,” she starts to ramble, “wherever you are,” is tacked on quietly. Jennie then picks up steam to make her case, “My brushes are portable. I’ve got them here in my bag.” She turns to helpfully point to her bag. “Not all of them because that’s a lot. Just a few of the good ones. And I know I wasn’t in London long but I think they sell paint there too. I mean, they must, how else would they fill all those museums and galleries?”

Lisa is perplexed as to why Jennie needs to convince her of which city she belongs. Until realisation dawns.

“And like, ever since Bear Mountain, I’ve been a huge fan of rain. I didn’t bring an umbrella but maybe I can borrow yours until I get my own. Rosé wouldn’t lend me hers. She said she’s done more than enough with intimidating the airline into getting me a last-minute seat on your flight. But I don’t understand why she would book a return ticket. I think she doesn’t have faith in me to not screw up again or maybe she just wants me to pay for forcing her to be my travel agent …”

Jennie trails off when Lisa pockets the lists and wordlessly steps in closer. She gently wipes the tears that have spilled over, then reaches for the phone in her hand. There’s a small electric shock when their fingers graze—enough of a jolt to quiet the noise around them. Jennie looks at her scared and expectant. Lisa smiles softly, brushing her thumb over the back of Jennie’s hand to soothe, before refocusing on her task.

She’s startled to find a large crack across the glass. Nonetheless, she persists to tap in the passcode (rightly guessing it hasn’t changed from her birth date), swipes away the flight tracker app to locate the one she needs, punches in the same code again, and then presses the phone to Jennie’s ear.

At the confused look, Lisa places her free hand on Jennie’s hip to steady them both and whispers, “You have voicemail.”

Lisa watches as confusion turns into slow understanding—there’s a pause and a tut while Jennie navigates to the second, more important voicemail message—into disbelieving, unfettered elation. Her heart stammers, observing the swell of emotions playing across Jennie’s face, as the tears come faster than she can stop. Then, Jennie is kissing her, a heart-mending, sweeping kiss that Lisa feels to the bend of her knees.

Everything falls away as they fall into each other.

The earth may quake and the ground split asunder, but in the tremor of Jennie’s lips, Lisa’s universe is remade.

When they pull back, in the clarity of a renewed golden light and brilliant blue, she finally, finally, gets the answer she’s been waiting four long years to hear.

“Yes.”