III. Wrung Out
“Are you home?” Jennie’s careful not to let the phone slip, keeping it in place while she works her way against the crowd.
“Yea, I just got here a lil bit ago.”
It doesn’t take long for Lisa’s clipped answer, it’s enough to make her stop and stare ahead. Not really seeing anything, just dead set on trying to understand and sort of unhear the flat tone in Lisa’s voice. She’s worried it’s becoming quite a habit now. All the unhearing and unseeing.
“What’re you up to?” Jennie tries again, smiling into the phone and hoping it leaks into her voice.
“Nothing.”
Silence.
Jennie would be lying if she said she didn’t expect that, drawn out between them even through the phone. It’s pronounced and it takes Jennie off rhythm for a second. Almost walking into a dog and its owner who didn’t look the least bit pleased at her mouthed ‘sorry.’
“When are you getting here?”
It’s subtle, a slight uptick in her voice that draws Jennie back to where she is. Somehow it makes Jennie wonder if she ever cared to know or if it was more of a formality at this point.
“I’ll be there in like 7.”
“Okay.” Lisa says a little too breathy that it crackles.
It comes to her out of the blue, the want to ask if everything’s okay. With her, with them or just the thought of knowing. It’s simple really, that’s what they say and for a long time that’s what she believed in too... only it isn’t.
“Okay.”
The sigh was soft, almost unnoticeable. Almost.
“I’m home!” Jennie’s announcement echoes out, while she’s dropping her keys into the glass cup they keep by the door.
“Hi.”
The answer comes immediately and Jennie wonders why Lisa’s voice feels out of place, like a tightly wrung out piece of cloth that’s waiting to snap.
“Hey, whatchu doin?” she’s a bit breathless and sweaty, the entire house feels cooler and it’s a brief welcome relief that Jennie is thankful for.
“Sittin.” Lisa’s by the sofa, and it's something Jennie hasn’t seen in quite some time that it alone keeps her in place, tracing her features, almost like she’s taking in everything she sees in one breath. As if it’ll keep Lisa there. “Got time for a talk?” Even before, it was always something she loved doing —looking and it’s why she doesn’t miss on how Lisa breathes out deeply all the while looking at her.
“Huh.” It takes some time for the question to register. Jennie is startled by it and wonders how long ago it was that they’ve had something similar happen. Just talking. “Sure. What's up?”
“I wanna talk.” Lisa says it with conviction that moves Jennie in autopilot, her sitting on the edge of the sofa, and keeping a modest distance between them two.
“Okay... Yeah of course. What's wrong?”
“I— uhm…”
Lisa breathes out the same time she averts her gaze over to the coffee table. There’s something hesitant in the way it comes out, shaky and for the first time in weeks her brow is furrowed. Jennie thinks it would’ve looked adorable if it wasn’t so tense. She opens her mouth in an attempt to speak and gives up with a sigh looking at Jennie for help. Not knowing where to start. Jennie holds Lisa’s gaze and nods. An open invitation to try and somehow Lisa manages to blurt out, “I don't know, I just feel like, you know. Uhm, things have been tense and stuff. Uhm, so just wanted to get it out, you know.”
“Yeah. Yea, talk to me.” Jennie knows it wasn’t a question but she nods along to guide her anyways.
“I've just been thinking…, and I feel like we've been trying real hard to like, make it work.” Lisa says things slowly, like it’s rehearsed and yet she’s stumbling over words, “And it's just, like, you know, not working, and… I feel like at this point there's just like, uhm, not much we can do about it.”
It’s hard for her to follow along, conflicted and confused are more accurate words to live by right now if she’s given the chance to explain. She knows what Lisa’s talking about, she’s not that utterly clueless ...but she’s not going to nod along to feed her with the notion that she agrees with the not much we can do about it part and she sure as hell disagrees with the we’ve been trying real hard part of it all, because she feels like it’s only her that’s been trying so far. It’s unfair. The whole notion of it, but she sits through and stares at her while she continues, making sure Lisa knows she’s listening.
“Gee, I just— because I just don't feel like— gahh!” Jennie flinches at the sudden outburst and Lisa’s habit of flailing her arms out in the air to showcase her point, “like I’m stressed out, okay? I just don't feel like it's working and I don't wanna like wast— look…” her voice dropping an octave that it almost feels rather intimate in tone. Jennie’s still holding her gaze. “I'm still young— we both are still so young, and I don't wanna like waste all this time, you know, like trying to make things work and I just think that—”
Jennie shakes her head, a little too forcefully. No, she doesn’t agree with any of this at all. She doesn’t want to look into Lisa’s eyes, doesn’t want to see whatever emotion is lurking beneath the honey brown that used to be so warm and giving so she shifts to the brown of the oakwood floors and tries to draw out any sense of warmth from the house. She's mildly aware of the stupid way she’s balling her hands and the awful way her knuckles are turning white from the force. It’s enough to get her to look back up and meet Lisa’s eyes.
“—You’re stressing me out.” Lisa doesn’t take the effort to hide the indifference in her voice.
“I’m sorry, I don’t wanna stress you out.” Jennie reaches out, a tentative touch on her knee that’s meant to soothe.
“I’m—” there’s something in the way this all is going that makes her falter, her hand staying gently over Lisa’s thigh for a beat, “glad that you’re talking to me. About this. I appreciate you talking to me. I just feel like you’re maybe being a bit hasty about thinking there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Lisa looks at her, briefly… before she looks away again, her gaze shifting from one point of the living room to the other. Never really staying on one spot for longer than two beats. It’s what gives her away.
“In fact, I think we haven’t even tried our best— you know, together, to make it work—” Jennie says softly, like it’s made of glass – maybe it is.
“See that’s the thing, I don’t wanna try out anything anymore. Like I’m—” Lisa’s hand reaches out, but she stops herself midway, there’s a slight shiver that makes her frown. Somehow, she’s finding it hard to piece together what she wants to say, except she thought she’d known what she had to say just before Jennie came in. “I’m just not happy anymore, okay?” and it’s painful really, how she’s being gentle with her tone, almost as if she’d given up on talking entirely and decided to whisper. “I just feel like maybeifwecouldsplitand…” Jennie hates how her mind’s focusing on everything and nothing at the same time.
“For real?”
“Yeah! Yea, I just don’t wanna keep working anymore, and I just feel like if we’d split then I’d be like, able, to like, feel ha— not to feel like this cause at this point I feel like we’re doing it down the road...” there’s a brief pause, before she whispers, “Eventually.” She adds in hastily like it’s some kind of an afterthought, only Jennie knows it isn’t.
“Do you really think it’s nothing that we can work on? Nothing you want to build on?” Jennie’s not sure she’s hearing her own voice anymore.
“I feel like we should split. Then maybe it’d be better like that.”
“You really… really want that?” it’s comical how her voice is beginning to break and Lisa’s own is becoming firmer.
“Yea, I— I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and I just feel like it’s the best option right now.”
“Okay... uhh, you mean like for some time? I could move out and give you some space—” She takes her hand away, suddenly feeling like it’s doing nothing at all to help except to make things heavier. Jennie looks at her expectantly, and it’s the way she answers immediately that makes everything worse.
“No, I don’t know. I’m like talking about— I think we should just get a divorce.”
Jennie’s hit by a truck at this point… all her fears are incarnated and animated into words that imply actions now that will change the whole course of her life, she feels like she’s been run over by a bulldozer trashing its surroundings with ultra hot shock waves that prickle her skin right now. She sinks into the arm of the sofa and for a minute loses her voice.
“You wanna get a—” She’s hopelessly confused, “you wanna do that?” She hates it when her voice hitches into a whine, but can’t stop it from leaking.
“Yeah.” Lisa mumbles under her breath. “I just don’t feel happy anymore. ...I think it’s best for now. Don’t you feel the same?” There’s a hitch to her voice and Lisa’s trying not to lose her composure and cry.
“No!” She blurts out a little too immediately, maybe with a bit of force too, because when you’re desperate there’s no other way but to be forceful to get your point across.
It’s the way Lisa says it, like there’s nothing else but it. Everything’s just beginning to catch up to her; words she’s hearing over and over again… i'm not happy, it’s for the best, there’s no other option. It’s words like these that make everything feel more and more real like they’re there. At the end, when they shouldn’t be, right? It doesn’t make sense inside Jennie’s head.
“I’m sorry… I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, I just think it’d be best.”
Jennie’s crying and sniffing silently by now… Lisa’s sitting there, not really meeting her gaze and Jennie’s holding on to that, to that thought that maybe, maybe she’s hesitant. Yet she hates how calm Lisa’s being right now, even if she doesn’t look like it.
“I want you to be happy?~” She wants to reach out again, bridge that stupid distance between them. “You don’t think there’s a scenario in which you’re... happy with me?”
“At this point I just feel like I’d be better off if I was like, alone.” There’s a gentleness in which she speaks, and Jennie doesn’t know if that means good or bad or worse.
“You don’t wanna—” her breath’s hitching and it’s almost physically painful for her to get the words out “Think about this? Because it’s quite—”
Nothing’s making sense.
“I have thought about it. I have thought about it all year now.” Jennie’s knocked down with the timeline once again like she’s overrun by everything ugly.
“I’ve been thinking about it longer—” Lisa continues and Jennie honestly doesn’t have the resolve to even listen through to what she has to say by now. “And why are you pretending that you’re okay with this? Like I see that you’re not happy either? I don’t wanna make you—”
Jennie figures it’s hearing it from her that undones her, the truth.
“My heart is beating so fast.”
“Jennie please. Dang it! Fuck!”
“No, can we like, talk about this later? Like I need to be alone now.”
She doesn’t wait for Lisa, for what she has to say, or to see if she’ll call out to her to stay.