Chapter 3

LISA

Lights came up and everybody got up at the same time. We were home. Luckily we had a full sized bus for the trip tonight so it wasn’t too difficult for people to file out.

There’d been a couple of years when the tennis team was just small enough that they tried to fit us onto one of the short buses to save money. That meant we were forced to cram ourselves in together three to a seat sometimes.

I’d say it wasn’t fun, but cramming in next to Jennie was always kinda fun.

I turned and looked at Jennie. She stared out the window. She’d been sitting there in a daze since coach came over the loudspeaker.

I sighed. I’d hoped after that electric moment when we almost kissed that we might get back to business. That interruption nearly made me scream out in frustration. Instead she’d gone quiet. Like she was thinking about things.

I really hoped she didn’t regret what we’d almost done. How stupid was that? We didn’t even kiss and yet it seemed like she was having trouble processing the almost kiss. It wasn’t fair.

I looked down at her and cleared my throat. She didn’t look up.

“Are you coming Jennie?” I asked.

She finally looked up at me and blushed. She didn’t smile. Oh yeah, whatever she was thinking about it was nothing good. I could just imagine what was running through her head. I wondered if she regretted what almost happened.

One thing was for sure. I sure as hell didn’t regret it! Maybe I regretted how she was reacting.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about… Stuff.”

I bet she was. The same stuff that was running through my mind on repeat. The stuff I couldn’t get out of my head.

“So did you enjoy your dare?” Jisoo asked as she brushed past.

I turned and stuck my tongue out at her. She probably thought she was being funny when she made that dare. There was no way she could know how close the dare came to brushing up against something very difficult for me.

It was almost enough to make me glad her fun had been interrupted. Except, of course, that her fun getting interrupted meant that my fun had been interrupted too.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” I said.

Jisoo looked over at Jennie then back to me and raised an eyebrow. The question was obvious there. She was wondering what the hell I did to Jennie to put her in that catatonic state.

Well I wasn’t going to say anything. Especially when I still wasn’t sure exactly what the hell had happened to put her in that state either. Especially when I wasn’t sure why she had leaned in to try and kiss me.

Especially when I didn’t want Jisoo to know about any of that.

Could it really be that Jennie was interested in me? It seemed impossible, and yet there was the evidence of what had happened. What had almost happened, that is.

Or had I imagined it all? Was she just getting close to me in the darkness and I’d misinterpreted it? It was dark, after all. Maybe she didn’t realize what almost happened until the lights came on and she got one hell of a nasty shock.

I gave Jennie one last lingering glance. She wasn’t moving and I wasn’t going to bother her. I figured she’d get off in her own sweet time, and for the moment I felt a powerful urge to be away from her and the awkward that had settled between us.

I stepped off the bus and into the darkness. I looked around the parking lot around our school. It was still early enough in the school year that it wasn’t sweltering hot.

I paused for a moment to really take in the sights. I’d been doing that a lot more lately. It was really starting to hit home that I was in the last year of my high school career.

It wouldn’t be much longer before I was pulling in here for the last time. It felt like the end of an era.

I paused and turned to see if Jennie was stepping off the bus behind me, but there was no sign of her. Jisoo did step off the bus and she smirked at me.

“She’s still sitting there staring blankly out the window,” she said. “What did you do to her?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.

Mostly because I still didn’t know for sure what I did to her. I had my suspicions though.

Jisoo held up her hands in a defensive gesture. “Whatever you say. I was just curious!”

“I bet you were curious,” I said. “I bet you thought you were being funny making a dare like that, did