Chapter Text
Lisa stirs awake around midday for the third time this morning. The sun has reached its peak, and the light it casts through the window over her bed has become too bright to ignore. Unable to make her sleep last any longer, she begrudgingly lifts herself out of the bed.
My apartment has darker blinds, she grumbles inwardly.
She has to raise her arm to shield her eyes from the intrusive light as she makes her way to the bathroom. When she steps inside, she’s greeted with the same pastel purple color she had painted the walls when she was only eleven. Gingerly, a finger runs down the length of the wall, almost reverent. A line of dust flitters from the wall and dances through the air.
Upon closer inspection, it seems hardly anything has changed since her childhood. The door from her room still creaks in the same manner it had when she was in her teens, making it infinitely more difficult to creep out in the dead of night.
As she presses the door shut and traipses down the stairs, she’s reminded of every time she tiptoed down the stairs at midnight to visit Jean’s house, every time she practically fell down them to meet her in their garage. She had always been rather lazy, but for their band practices, to say she was eager is to grossly understate it.
Oftentimes, she finds herself wondering what would have happened if she had stayed with Jean. As she walks through a house that stands as a remnant of time lost, she realizes now is no exception.
Does Jean think of her the way she does? Does Jean lay awake at night in her mansion in L.A., wondering what has become of her dear friend?
Lisa pushes the thought aside.
Decidedly drowning out her restless mind with the sound of the television, she turns it on, waiting patiently as it stutters to life and displays the news. Over her bowl of cereal, she lazily reads the headline: singer Jean Gunnhildr breaks record for most weeks at number 1 on Billboard’s top 100.
“Good for her,” she mumbles aloud, as if there is someone in her parent’s living room that she is trying to impress. Inside, her feelings are not so simple. Her chest is a tight ball of jealousy and longing, one that she lacks the energy to unpack and analyze. It’s not something she has to confront anytime soon, nor something she wants to admit in the first place.
You’ve moved on , she reminds herself.
Still, everything in this town gives rise to bittersweet memories of her youth, and she already loathes it.
Lisa’s parents are gone, likely out running errands to prepare for the holidays. It means she’s free to do whatever she wishes, though she realizes there is little to choose from when faced with her options.
She checks her phone. It’s thirty degrees outside, damn Pennsylvania and its bitter cold. Even with the thickest jacket she owns draped over her shoulders, her teeth still chatter when she opens the door and is hit by the force of the frigid air.
I miss Georgia. I don’t freeze my ass off in Georgia.
She had intended to go grocery shopping to prepare the ingredients for dinner, but her plans are quickly derailed once the need to purchase a heavier coat presents itself. She’ll be visiting this town for just over a week, and she’ll be damned if she lets herself freeze to death on top of everything else this place puts her through.
She pulls the jacket tighter, curling even more inward on herself, earning a strange stare from a man who passes her by. Damn Pennsylvania and all these uptight assholes. You think you’re so much better for being tolerant of the cold?
Beige and brown suburban houses pass her by, mixing with the beginnings of snowfall and painting a dull grey atmosphere. The only warmth comes from the soft yellow glow of streetlights. Even then, they’re distant, far above and out of reach.
So Lisa resigns herself to staring downward, hunching over to conserve body heat. With her eyes trained on the thin grooves of the sidewalk, it’s only a matter of time before she bumps into someone. Her head collides with someone’s chest, and she steps backward, eyes wide.
“Oh dear, I’m-”
Her words die in her throat.
Before her stands a woman, tall, easily 5’11. Her long blonde hair has been released from the confines of its signature ponytail, falling past her back in flowing waves. Her bangs have gotten somewhat wispy, unbecoming of someone so often under the public’s scrutiny. Perhaps that’s why she did it; she found her own small ways to spite those who doubted her, for she never had the guts to stand up to them explicitly. Quiet acts of defiance were all she could afford.
A woman should dress femininely, and so she wears a collared white shirt under a large sweater and baggy jeans. A woman should be pretty, so Jean lets her bangs conceal striking blue eyes renowned for sharp, icy color.
But no coldness can be found in their depths. Despite the chill, her expression is full of warmth, her lips curled into the same soft smile she would flash Lisa on the beaten-down couch in their garage.
Jean had always hidden her emotions behind a shield. Lisa had seen the steely look her eyes take around her mother, the forced, polite smiles she wears on TV.
But for Lisa, the walls crumble immediately. It had taken time to chip past them in their youth, but Jean had always been eager to please Lisa. So eager that even after years, the rubble pools around Lisa’s feet, discarded.
Lisa does not look down. She stands like she’s seen a ghost, and perhaps she has. “Jean?” she breathes.
“If it isn’t Lisa Minci," the woman responds.
“It’s been a while," is all Lisa can manage.
She wants to say more. Millions of contradictory desires run rampant through her heart; she wants to throw herself into Jean’s arms, and simultaneously, she wants to scream at her. She’s not sure which is worse.
“It really has.” Jean’s eyes mirror the struggle; unspoken words weigh heavy on her tongue, visible through the chips in her armor.
Lisa wonders if she’s still the only person who was allowed a glimpse beneath. She wants to know if Jean, hardened and pressed into a cool steel from constant, insistent pressure, has allowed her ice to melt for someone new. The question burns at her throat, but she bites it back, opting instead for a, “You look great.”
“And you haven’t changed since I last saw you," says Jean with a laugh.
It’s meant to be a lighthearted compliment, but Lisa hates that it’s the truth. Her teenage days are long behind her, and she has worked for so long to move past them and accept that there is no use grasping for something long gone.
And now the very thing long gone is standing in front of her, and all her years of learning to cope with its loss are wasted.
Seeing Jean feels like a slap to the face, yet she is still grinning uncontrollably. “I’d like to stay the same, but it seems you’ve only gotten taller.”
Jean chuckles. Lisa has heard the sound sparingly over the TV, but she is not prepared to hear the melodic tones of her laugh in person again. It’s all too much, and she feels as if she’s still reeling.
“That’s good. I always needed at least one thing to hold over you, or else I’d never be able to tease you back," Jean retorts simply.
A giggle escapes Lisa’s lips. It’s all too easy to fall back into her past, and suddenly the brutal cold of upper Pennsylvania feels tolerable again. It feels like home again.
How cliché.
“How rude of you, Jean,” she says with an overdramatized gasp, pressing a hand over her heart. “All this time apart, and the first thing on your mind when you see me again is teasing me?”
“I’ll have to think of a way to make it up to you, I suppose.”
Jean pauses. She must have noticed the way Lisa clings to her coat, her cheeks red and her hands just short of shaking. “Here,” she begins, already slipping her own heavy jacket from her shoulders before Lisa can protest. “Take mine, you’re freezing.”
“Oh no, I-” But Jean is already behind her, draping the coat over her. She’s rendered speechless when warm hands settle on her shoulders, her touch chasing away the ruthless chill.
Perhaps this is her way of reconciling. Jean had never been very elegant with expressing emotions, and when words failed, she took to acts of service to demonstrate admiration.
Or maybe it isn’t so deep; Jean has always been one for self-sacrifice, and no amount of fame could change that.
Lisa can’t help but find herself wondering: did Jean cling to memories of old like Lisa, or has she truly forgiven and moved on with her life?
She is struck with the realization that no matter how close they were as kids, they know next to nothing about each other’s lives now. All memories are old and dusted over, locked away in the attic of their minds.
And for some reason, Lisa cannot stand not knowing. It tears her apart, and so she says, “Thank you, dear. Maybe you can come by my parent’s house tonight to retrieve it? And possibly stay for dinner?”
Jean grins from ear to ear, and with the excitement that sparks beneath the grey of her eyes, Lisa is sure that Jean had missed her just as much.
How she missed that smile. Its radiance was dulled through the television, but now, in person, it emanates the same light she remembers.
“I would’ve come anyway, you didn’t need to steal my coat to convince me," Jean answers.
Lisa smirks like she’s holding some kind of secret. “I had to cover all my bases,” she explains, her tone nonchalant. “I’ll see you tonight, then? At six.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
When Lisa gives a nod and bids her old friend farewell, her lips are set on a pleasant smile. But when Jean turns, it breaks into a wide, childish grin.
--
A part of Lisa had feared that Jean would not be able to make it to dinner. There was always something pulling her away; managers, deals, fame. Even before, she had consistently slipped through Lisa’s fingers.
So when she arrives at her doorstep, teeth chattering from her lack of a jacket and clutching a tray of cookies tightly to her chest, the juvenile delight sparks inside her again.
“Is that Jean?!” Her parents seem just as delighted at the sight.
As dinner proceeds, the normalcy of it is almost strange. Years have passed. The woman sitting across from her is an adult, yet when she speaks, all Lisa can hear is a shadow of her teenage years. She fits in with her family like nothing has changed, like they’re back to seventeen and Jean is spending the night to escape Frederica’s wrath.
The memories are warm, so Lisa does not object.
When dinner concludes, she hovers at the doorstep while Jean exits. Her fingers grip the doorframe tightly, her nails digging past the worn frame.
Jean senses her hesitance, flashes one of those disarming smiles, and beckons her forward with a tilt of her head. “Come walk with me?”
Tightly bound frustration seeps through the cracks of her closed fist. Who is Lisa to deny her?
At some point in their stroll, Jean’s hand finds hers. Lisa takes it firmly, almost possessively, almost as if attempting to confirm that she’s real. Her Jean, who is always fading. Her Jean, who for years was nothing more than a distant memory and a yawning ache in her chest.
She is real, her hand solid and her fingers cold in Lisa’s grasp.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she recognizes the danger of diving back into a figment of her past. She knows of the reasons they are not together now, and she knows none of the contradictory desires that tore them apart have smoothed over.
Jean is a ghost, but she is real, and the temptation to cling to her is all too persistent. And Lisa was never one to deny indulgence. “I missed you,” she admits with a sigh.
Jean shifts closer. Her kindness has never wavered. “I missed you too.”
“Did you really,” Lisa teases good-naturedly, a thin smirk playing on her lips, “or have you found an L.A. friend to replace me with?”
“You’re irreplaceable, Lisa.” Though her tone is light, adoration seeps through her words, undeniably genuine.
The brutal cold of a winter night feels all the less stinging. Unintentionally, Lisa feels her cheek press against Jean’s arm, chasing the heat that emanates from her body. “You’re too kind.”
“I’m serious. You’re the most sincere person I’ve ever met. Everyone else... they only want to know me so they can go to their friends and say, ‘I know Jean Gunnhildr!”
Lisa makes a thoughtful humming noise before she retorts, “And if I told you that all this time, I was only your friend because I saw your potential for fame?”
In response, Jean chuckles, shaking her head. “Then I’d allow it, only because it’s you.”
“Are you saying you’d do anything for me?”
“Perhaps.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to tell me, Jean.”
“And why’s that?” asks the singer, her head cocked slightly to the side in a frustratingly adorable manner.
Lisa pauses in her tracks. Her hand dangles uselessly at her side, and she wishes that she could wrap it around Jean's shoulders. “I might have a favor to ask of you.”
“Ask away,” she responds instantly, because she never fails to give herself to Lisa.
I want to kiss you, she finds herself longing to yell. How exhausting it was to battle the urge to sink into Jean’s embrace, to shower the hard lines of her jaw in soft kisses.
(She craves so deeply, despite how she’s moved on. She’s moved on. )
But she knows better. She knows that nothing good can come of throwing herself into whatever they had again. She is no longer a stupid teenager, and she is no longer blind to the warning signs that surround a relationship with Jean.
So instead of begging for her hand, she says, “Spend Christmas with me.”
She watches Jean’s throat bob as she swallows. A hesitant, “I wouldn’t want to impose,” follows.
“You wouldn’t be. I promise whatever we cook will be better than Frederica’s awful turkey.” She allows a brief chuckle to escape her lips.
“She always was a horrible cook, wasn’t she?” Jean shakes her head, laughing reservedly.
“Oh, the worst. I can’t say much for my cooking, but the bar hasn’t been set very high.”
“Then I’ll be there.” Jean's answer is surprisingly easy. So easy, in fact, that Lisa’s eyes burn with a question. But Jean’s expression does not give any answers, so she does not ask.
She came here to spend the holidays with her own family, didn’t she? Even as they say their farewells and begin in their separate directions, the question remains.
The thought crosses her mind that Jean came because she is burning, the same way Lisa used to. She quickly shoos the idea away.
Lisa turns, watching Jean’s form fade into the darkness of the night. The cold envelops her once more; she shivers her way home, clutching her sides tightly.
(That night, in bed, Lisa remembers.
She sits in the basement of Jean’s house. Her mother isn’t home. Cans of beer lay scattered across the floor, a quiet rebellion. Loud rebellions are far too risky, and neither Lisa nor Jean desire Frederica’s bitter wrath.
It’s a cold night, but Jean’s arm is around her waist, and the temperature outside does not matter. The gentle heat that radiated from Jean’s could overpower any chill.
Lisa strums thoughtfully at a guitar while Jean watches her, eyes swimming with all the quiet adoration in the world. Back when the adoration was reserved only for her.
A message chimes on Lisa’s phone; her experimental tune is interrupted. She should be irritated, but when she lifts her phone and skims the contents of the email in question, she can’t find it in herself to care.
Jean, who knows her better than anyone, who notices even the subtlest shift of her demeanor, leans forward to examine the phone. “Is something wrong?”
“Well,” breathes Lisa.
"What is it?”
“We got our first gig.”
Jean’s eyes widen. They never displayed such excitement for schoolwork. She was a straight-A student, but her passions laid elsewhere, her eagerness reserved only for her pursuit of music. “Are you serious?”
“I’m serious!”
Lisa remembers Jean leaning forward and wrapping her in a tight embrace, the pure joy dripping from her touch unmatched by anything Lisa had ever experienced.
The memory is a bittersweet one.)
The piercing wintry air bites at Lisa’s rapidly reddening nose as she strolls down the street. The remains of a previous snowfall linger on the grass, reflecting the cold sunlight and bathing the area in a sheen of white.
After yesterday’s misfortune, she had taken it upon herself to purchase a new jacket. Its comfort is adequate, she supposes, but it pales in comparison to having Jean’s arm around her.
It’s infuriating how often she thinks about Jean. It feels like a cruel joke, to have all her careful work in moving past their friendship upended so abruptly.
As she passes a large, four-bedroom home with a pool in the backyard, she can’t help but envision her and Jean, lounging in a chair by the poolside, watching their daughter with straw-blonde hair and ocean-blue eyes wading in the water. She feels like a child again, longing after her lifelong friend who clearly has other plans.
The street hasn’t changed since she last visited. If she closes her eyes, she can still see Jean’s lanky preteen form dashing down the sidewalk. “Bet I can beat you to the park,” she’d say, and though her limbs were unfairly long, she would always allow Lisa the win.
A wistful smile sits on her lips as she rounds the street corner and faces the park they used to play at. A wide expanse of grass, once green but now a muted beige under the snow, sits before her. Trees line the edges and the paths within, just tall enough to be climbed. When she steps further, she can see the playground they’d meed at, on the late nights when Jean would call her seeking an escape.
Lisa would lay underneath the slide, sometimes drunk and sometimes high and sometimes both, content to sprawl beside Jean and do nothing more than talk. Younger, still, she would race Jean to the top of the slide, where they’d sit atop the hard plastic and exchange dreams for the future. All the while, parents would look on and laugh to themselves.
“Inseparable,” they’d call them.
Inseparable, but when she peers closer, she sees Jean sitting atop the playground, alone. It’s cold, far too cold for any children to be out. So she sits, humming to herself and jotting down any inspiration that may come her way.
Then Jean turns, her welcoming gaze pulling Lisa in once more. Inseparable, so when Jean tilts her head and smiles, she is unable to resist the pull.
The snow crunches underneath her feet as she approaches. Years of practice allow her to lift herself over the climbing wall in a graceful motion and join the woman at the head of the slide.
“We keep meeting,” Jean notes, the mirth in her tone evident.
“It seems so. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were obsessed with me,” she teases, giving Jean a light nudge with her shoulder.
Jean giggles. “You’ve found me out, it seems. And I was doing so good at hiding it, too.”
“Ah. That’s where you’re wrong, Jean.” She leans over, bringing a finger up to tap Jean’s nose playfully.
The dusting of pink that blooms across Jean’s cheeks could have been ignored, had it not contrasted so sharply with cold, pale skin. Letting herself ponder its implications is a slippery slope, and when Lisa’s eyes flicker down to soft lips, parted slightly to suck in a sharp breath, she realizes just how close she is to falling.
Their pull is magnetic, so much so that Lisa has to forcefully tear herself back. She’s unattainable, she has to remind herself. She is not yours. She wasn’t before, and nothing has changed.
The effects of their proximity are not lost on Jean. Her blush darkens, and oh, how Lisa wants to kiss those cheeks. It’s like she’s thrown headfirst into her old schoolgirl crush.
Desperate to grasp onto anything to change the subject (and quash her longing), she motions to the notepad in Jean’s hands and inquires, “Have you written any new songs?”
Jean answers with a shake of her head. “Nothing yet. I’ve just been writing down ideas.”
“That’s a shame,” declares Lisa with an overdramatized sigh. “I could have had the chance to tell my friends back home, ‘I have an inside scoop on Jean Gunnhildr’s next song.’ They’d go wild.”
The woman chuckles. “I can’t believe I forgot to ask. What do you do now?”
Lisa wonders if she knows, if she had spent hours online digging through old profiles and probable usernames to pinpoint her current lifestyle. She quickly denies the idea; only the desperate do things like that, and Jean is not desperate. She has a thriving career, a life, a pool of shiny L.A. friends at her disposal should she choose to want them
(Does Lisa truly come above them? Had Jean really come all this way just to see her, just to bet on an uncertainty? Is fame truly that lonely? Guilt rises in her chest at the thought, though she’s sure she’s done nothing wrong. The decisions she made were for her health, and Jean had made her own choices. There is no use dwelling on it now).
So Lisa pauses and raises one hand to her lips to cover an abashed giggle. “You’ll think I’m boring if I tell you.”
“I could never find you boring, Lisa. You’ve always been the fun one.”
“Alright, alright. I live in Georgia now. I’m a librarian," she answers.
Jean’s eyes widen, shining with pure delight. “Georgia! I was wondering why you sounded southern, but I didn’t want to ask.”
Lisa purses her lips and gives Jean’s shoulder a swat, to which the woman giggles.
And Lisa tries not to focus on the way her laughs sound like wind chimes, melodic and carefree in a way that she had only ever shown to her.
“It’s not that bad, is it?" asks Lisa, chuckling.
“No, no,” she corrects herself quickly, raising her hands in defense. The smile remains. “I think it suits you.”
Lisa smiles softly, and Jean continues, “any Georgians caught your eye?”
“No, not yet.” None could compare. The words remain unspoken, lingering in the air like a snowflake that has yet to reach the ground. But they are no fools, and they can both sense the fiery intent behind Lisa’s gaze.
Something like relief flashes beneath calm waters, before Jean’s trained expression returns. She smiles easily, but Lisa knows her too well, and she can see the corners of her lips strain. “That’s alright. I hope you find someone soon, then. You deserve the best.”
Longing intersects with the sincerity in her tone, and her words spill forth in a confusing jumble of regret and shame and yearning all at once.
“I truly am happy for you,” she continues. “You always said you wanted to be a librarian.”
Lisa swallows heavily, ignores the tension in the air, and nods. “That’s right. I suppose we both achieved our dreams, then?”
Jean’s eyes do not meet hers. They’ve shifted over the side of the playground, fixated on the swath of grass beneath them. Lisa is not sure what she sees. Perhaps she sees two children constructing snowmen who hold hands, perhaps she sees two confused teenagers smoking on a park bench, or perhaps she sees adults on the cusp of stardom, sharing a kiss that neither knew would be their last.
Either way, her expression is melancholy. The frown that mars her expression accentuates the dark circles under her eyes, unearthed from their confines of makeup. She swallows something back. An overdue apology that sits bitter on her tongue, or maybe a confession that spreads fire through her throat, burning at her lips.
But Jean had always hidden her emotions behind a shield. “I suppose we have,” is the response she selects, uttered so quietly and unsurely that Lisa’s heart aches.
(Lisa remembers the Fourth of July.
The two stood on the precipice of success, and when Lisa looks down, she can see the ugly face of greatness spread its maw. Jean is ready to jump, so starved of validation in her youth that she eagerly permits herself to be swallowed by the embrace of greatness. Where she dives, Lisa hesitates, allowing only her food to dangle over the edge.
She does not envy the famous, does not long for renown at the cost of her will like Jean does.
But she does not worry about it. At the age of seventeen, she allows herself to dabble in importance before she plans to withdraw, allows herself to be a kid for only a while longer. She’s just performed a local show with Jean like everything is okay, she sits on the park swings with her like everything is the same as it’s always been. If she shuts her eyes, she can ignore how rapidly her surroundings are changing, how quickly the woman she loves so deeply is fading from her grasp.
If she closes her eyes, she can feel the humid heat of a summer night on her face, hear the gentle murmurs of insects surrounding them, smell the residual smoke from the fireworks in the air. She can pretend that they’re only ten, watching the fireworks with their families and chasing fireflies in Lisa’s backyard.
“What are we gonna do if we don’t make it?” Lisa wonders aloud, the desperation in her question masked by the smoothness of her exterior.
“My mom wants me to be a lawyer,” answers Jean. When Lisa turns to her, Jean’s eyes do not meet her. The tender gaze so typically reserved for her is trained skyward, dazzling starlight dancing in her eyes. Lisa stares down at her shoes. " What about you?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a librarian.”
“That sounds fun,” Jean states, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m sure we’ll make it, though. We’re so close. Can’t you feel it?”
If Lisa closes her eyes, she can pretend it’s all alright. She can pretend that she doesn’t feel anything, pretend that Jean’s voice isn’t the most distant it’s ever sounded, pretend that she doesn’t long so achingly for Jean’s hands around hers.
But as hard as she wishes, when she closes her eyes, it’s all the same. “Yes. I’m happy for you,” she says, because she means it.
Jean’s head tilts to the side, her expression bemused. “Don’t you mean us?”
“Yes, sorry. I’m happy for us.”)
Christmas morning is a hectic affair. Every year, without fail, her family would spend the morning in a mad frenzy to prepare all necessary food and decorations to properly host the event. Sometimes cousins would visit, and sometimes, with Frederica’s permission, Jean would assist in cleaning the house.
It seems in her time away, nothing has changed. It’s easy to fall right back into the comfortable embrace of familiarity, despite the chaos that surrounds her. It’s been years since she last visited, but the kitchen remains her kitchen, and it’s a relief to feel something solid beneath her fingers. Everything changes, but this has not. She clutches the egg in her hand a little tighter, bordering on possessive.
The shell gives way. Yolk seeps through her hand as her fingers puncture the outer shell. Shit.
Clearing her mind of any distractions (though it’s difficult. Jean’s gentle expression was always hard to push away, even when it was for the best), she wipes the spill off of the countertop and continues in her cooking.
By the time all the food is prepared and all the decorations are set, some of her distant relatives have already begun to amble through the door. While her mother greets the guests, Lisa grabs a mug of hot chocolate and settles by the fire. She speaks with cousins she hasn’t seen in years, the same ones she would wreak havoc with as a teenager, and braces herself for the inevitable question of “you were friends with that famous girl, right? Why’d you ever split up, you could’ve been a star!”
It’s a mix of joy and frustration, of familiarity and memories that ache.
And then that striking head of blonde hair appears at her door, and the ache turns into a stabbing pain. A knife twists into her heart, and she looks up at Jean, grinning.
But Jean is unable to return her greeting. Before Lisa can rise to meet her at the door, she is swarmed by the youngest of her cousins, all marveling that a real-life celebrity has graced their family with her presence. Across the room, she sees someone procure a phone and snap a picture of the woman.
Her chest tightens as she pushes past her family, grabs Jean by the sleeve of her sweater and pulls her inside the house. “We were friends when we were kids,” she explains, while Jean shoots her a sympathetic glance. “She would always come to these.”
Eventually, the uproar that her arrival had caused settles into the usual buzz of idle chatter. Jean mingles with her family seamlessly, like she’s always belonged there. She trades anecdotes with Lisa’s uncles and exchanges awkward chatter with the kids who stare at her with wide eyes. She was never good with children, and it seems fame had not changed that either. Lisa has to cover her mouth with a hand to stifle her laughter at the sight, but it does not go unnoticed, and she’s met with a swat across her shoulder from Jean.
Dinner proceeds smoothly. Lisa seats herself beside Jean, watching quietly as she shares laughs with those around the table. She had almost forgotten how accustomed Jean became to people-pleasing, how skilled she is in analyzing exactly what someone desires to hear and repeating it.
Lisa is sick of TV smiles, so when Jean turns to her and flashes a genuine grin reserved only for her, she seizes hold of her hand. Her expression is fierce, so Jean does not pull hers back.
When the night quiets down, Jean seems to sense some form of distress radiating from Lisa, despite the calm face she puts on. Nobody knows her better than Jean, even now.
So Jean puts her hand around her waist and leads her outside, and Lisa, desperate to sink into Jean’s touch, follows.
They find themselves shuffling down the street, past those same brown houses, curled into each other to ward off the cold. Their walk leads them to the park, dimly illuminated by scattered streetlights and inviting them in.
Lisa’s feet drag her to the top of the playground, where she sits against the cold plastic. Jean sits beside her, the tips of their shoulders barely brushing.
The sky is cloudless, and the sparsity of lampposts allows for a full view of the stars. Thousands of stars glitter faintly in the expanse of sky, cold and distant in their light. Lisa presses closer to Jean.
“The stars are beautiful tonight,” Jean murmurs.
Lisa nods slowly. “This is nice.”
“What is?” Jean tilts her head to the side.
“Acting like we’re kids again,” she explains, letting loose a wistful sigh. “Pretending it’s all the same again.”
“I want it to be all the same,” Jean says quickly. She leans forward slightly, her gaze boring into the side of Lisa’s head. “I’m sorry.”
Lisa turns, leveling her stare, and there’s a hint of desperation in her eyes. It’s a dangerous mix, she thinks, longing and desperation. “Sorry for what?”
“For abandoning you.”
Of course Jean would feel responsible for pursuing her own dreams. She wonders if regret gnawed at Jean's mind each night, just as it had when anything uncontrollable happened to those around her.
Her eyes fall to the ground, unable to meet the shame in Jean’s. It sends guilt coursing through her again, but this time, it does not die at her lips. It spills forth into a, “I’m sorry that I made you feel like you abandoned me. You didn’t. I didn’t want that life, and you did, and that’s not your fault.”
“So there’s no hard feelings?” breathes Jean.
“Of course not. I told you I missed you, didn’t I?”
“You did. I’ve missed you a lot too, Lisa. More than you could imagine.” The ache in Jean’s voice stings.
“You’d be surprised, dear. I can imagine.” A wry laugh tears itself from Lisa’s mouth. “I used to wonder if you ever thought of me, you know.”
“Of course I do. All the time. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Jean's confession is raw, her voice stripped of its artificial politeness. Lisa can hear the weariness, the pining, the anguish. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jean’s hand inch toward hers but fall still just before their fingers brush.
She’s not yours. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed, but Jean is here, and Lisa is weak. Everything she’s wanted for ages presents itself, and she no longer has the will to resist its call.
So she doesn’t take her hand. She cups her face, the warmth from her cheeks seeping into her cold fingers.
“I came here for you,” Jean whispers. Her eyes are wide with shock, as if in disbelief of their sudden proximity.
“And I’m glad you did,” murmurs Lisa, because it’s the truth.
“Is this okay?” Jean asks, because she’s Jean, and she’s nothing if not conscious of others. When she speaks, a breath of air passes her lips and sweeps across Lisa’s cheek.
Lisa nods slowly, her eyes fluttering closed.
Jean kisses her gently, with all the tenderness in the world. It’s all too easy to lose herself in Jean’s touch, when the scent of her all-too-familiar dandelion perfume fills her nose and a patient hand entwines itself in the hair on her neck.
She knows this isn’t real. They are going to wake up and realize that everything good must end, that some things are ultimately unattainable, no matter how hard one reaches.
But it doesn’t matter right now, not when Jean’s hand caresses her face with profound reverence, when she’s kissing her like she’s practiced all her life. Their differences melt away in the boiling heat of the moment, and Lisa is content to pretend that they will never reforge when the cold returns.
“This is stupid,” Lisa notes breathlessly in a fleeting moment when they separate. The void between them threatens to reopen its maw, so Lisa holds her closer still.
“How long are you staying?” the woman blurts, to which Lisa raises an eyebrow.
“What?”
“I’m going home on New Year’s day, in the morning. You?”
Lisa blinks, clearly confused about the turn their conversation had taken. “I’m going home the day after.”
Jean’s hand finds Lisa’s, clinging tight. “Then until then, we can keep up whatever this is. I don’t think I’m ready to let go of you yet.”
The desire stirs again. It’s a horrible idea, this they both know.
But Lisa is young, and young people are supposed to do stupid things, aren’t they? She knows what she wants, and what she wants is right before her, begging for her to stay. How can she say no?
A sigh follows, and then, “that works for me.”
(That night, Lisa dreams.
She dreams of sitting on a park bench, kissing the girl she’s longed for her entire life. It feels like everything she’s ever dreamed of, like something that the two of them would write songs about.
She dreams of walking down the streets of their hometown, her hand in Jean’s. And then, a stranger walks past, one neither of them had ever seen or worried about in their lives.
But Jean drops Lisa’s hand hurriedly. It’s a casual movement, but the intent behind it does not go unnoticed.
Later, she stands on that same street corner, the pale light of the single lamppost illuminating Jean’s pale hair. She’s beautiful, even with reddened cheeks, stained with tears.
“Isn’t this everything we’ve ever wanted?”
“I can’t be part of that industry,” protests Lisa. She, too, is on the verge of sobbing. “I can’t duck behind a park bench every time someone walks past us.”
Jean winces, but Lisa continues, “I want you, Jean. I don’t want a lifetime of artificial smiles and blatant lies, all for a few stolen moments behind a camera.”
Jean’s head falls. She looks as if she’s holding back a protest, but she was always too kind. So she says, “okay.”
“I’m sorry, Jean,” Lisa whispers.
“It’s alright. We’ll still be friends, right?”
“Of course we will.”
Lisa remembers the day Jean decided to move to L.A. “Come with me,” she had said, but there were already cameras surrounding them, already videos and theories of the two’s relationships surfacing on social media.
Lisa remembers shaking her head, watching the dejection in Jean’s eyes, watching her withdraw her outstretched hand. “Alright," Jean had conceded quietly.
"I'm going to miss you, Lisa."
"We'll see each other from time to time, won't we?"
Jean takes in a deep breath, raising a shaking hand to wipe tears from her eyes. "Yes, we will."
And then Jean had turned around and finally faded from view, a ghost of something Lisa once had.)