LISA

“Come on. You saw the way Jisoo was staring at him. There’s no way she didn’t want that even if she did get all weird about it,” Jennie said.

I forced myself to smile and I even managed to let out a giggle. I’m not sure how convincing it was.

I felt like an impostor. I felt like any moment Jennie was going to realize my skin was covered in goose bumps. That I was lying next to her on my bed trying to suppress the tremors that were threatening to take over.

And she was getting awfully close to what happened on that bus. Awfully close to something I didn’t want to talk about with her. Something I wanted to get out because we’d been so close.

So very close.

Now she was acting like nothing happened. We were lying together on my bed and it was just like every other time we’d been together. I was stuck in the torture chamber that was being so close to my friend and not being able to do anything about it.

I was too much of a coward to do something about it. I’d stopped being a coward for five minutes on that bus and now look where it got me.

Damn it Lisa. Get it together.

“Are you okay Lisa?” Jennie asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking about how crazy everything got there on the bus.”

“I mean it got crazy for the people behind us,” Jennie said, her voice suddenly quiet. “That’s all.”

“Yeah, that’s all,” I said.

My grandpa who I loved dearly had once told me that life was full of opportunities and you should take them whenever you could. I felt like this was one of those moments when there was an opportunity knocking at my door and all I had to do was reach out and take it.

I’d been so afraid all night long. Afraid Jennie would react the wrong way if we kissed. Afraid it would ruin our friendship. Afraid of… I’m not sure. Maybe at the end of the day the thing I was really afraid of was internalizing all the negative things I’d ever heard about “people like me” growing up in a small town where that sort of thing wasn’t exactly smiled upon.

There should be more to life than that, though. I should be able to kiss Jennie if I wanted to, and if she didn’t like it then wasn’t that an answer? Wasn’t that telling me that I’d been wasting my time all these years with a friendship that I wanted to be more?

What sort of friendship was that if the whole thing was based on me wanting inside Jennie’s pants and being terrified of going for it?

Because right now, in this moment, it seemed like there was something I could reach out and take. She was leaning close to me again just like on the bus. Her lips parted and her eyes were darting back and forth looking into my own.

It was exactly the same, only this time we weren’t on a bus surrounded by people who might see us and judge. It was just the two of us alone in my room.

I felt myself inching forward. I felt the same panic I’d felt on the bus taking over. I felt the same joy, the same insane crazy giddy ecstatic excitement, threatening to take over. My whole body felt like it was on fire and shaking and it was all I could do to keep myself under control.

Only I didn’t want to keep myself under control.

“I don’t think Jisoo and her ex were the only ones getting close to doing something crazy on that bus,” Jennie said.

Damn. If that wasn’t a signal then I didn’t know what was. That was practically an invitation. The lights were on and I was being guided in for a landing right on those beautiful lips I’d fantasized about so many times

It seemed impossible that this could really be happening, that she could really be into me as much as I was into her, but here was the evidence right in front of me.

“No, they weren’t,” I replied, still afraid to make that final move.

We were only inches apart. I could feel the heat from her breath caressing my lips. I imagined the heat of her lips caressing my lips. It was something I imagined a lot. What was holding me back? Why wasn’t I going for it?

Maybe because I had no experience with this sort of thing. Maybe because I was still afraid this was a dream and actually kissing her would break the spell. It would all be over right along with our friendship.

it. It wasn’t much of a friendship if it was based on a lie, was it?

I leaned forward. Everything was perfect. This was really about to happen. I was giddy with barely contained excitement. I wanted to giggle. I wanted to shout for joy.

I fell off the bed instead.

Damn it.

It was only a twin size bed. It’s not like it was really designed to comfortably hold two people in the first place, which is one of the reasons I loved it when Jennie stayed ov