LISA

“Go! Fight! Win!”

I was transfixed by the sight of Jennie down there in her skirt doing her moves. She did a little tumbling move that caused her skirt to fly up and my breath caught.

Paradise. Pure paradise. It was a paradise I’d enjoyed, if only for a moment, and now I wasn’t sure if it was something I was ever going to enjoy again.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d completely screwed up everything with that night. With that kiss. All because I couldn’t control myself. Idiot.

“What’s the big deal?” Jimin asked.

I turned to my best friend in the world who wasn’t Jennie and grinned. At least I hoped it was a grin. I wasn’t sure how convincing it was.

I felt sick to my stomach every time I looked at her, and I wasn’t even feeling the energy now that we were out here in the bleachers with our instruments poised to play the moment Mr. Reynolds raised his hands.

One week.

It had been one week since that fateful night. One week since we had that conversation in the park that was really more of an argument.

It had been forever since we’d argued like that. The last time we’d gotten in a fight that bad we’d been little girls and the fight had been over who owned a Barbie doll she wanted to take back to her house.

Turns out my younger brother took Jennie’s because even back then he had a weird crush on her and didn’t know how to articulate it. Not that things had gotten much better in the years since.

“Come on Lisa,” Jimin said. “Something’s going on here. You’re staring down at the cheerleaders even harder than usual.” My eyes darted around in a panic. Then they darted back to Jimin and I hit him with a glare that would’ve killed him if looks really could kill.

“Would you shut up?” I asked. “Remember, you out me and I out you.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “Come on Lisa. We’re seniors. Don’t you think it’s time… Oh, hold on a minute.” Luckily it didn’t seem like anyone was paying attention to us. All their attention was on the field down below. On the players who were getting ready to go out for the first quarter.

That’s where Jimin’s attention was now. I was sure his eyes were zeroed in on number eighteen. He was always going on about how great Donghyuk looked in his football getup.

Donghyuk. Such a ridiculous name. Also? About as heteroual as they came. Your typical captain of the football team all Korean boy next door.

As in not the kind of guy that someone like Jimin would ever have a chance with.

“I don’t see what you see in those football outfits anyways,” I said. “You can’t see anything.”

“Oh you can see enough,” Jimin said, his voice breathy.

I rolled my eyes. There was no getting through to him when he got like this. He only had eyes for Donghyuk and that was that. Never mind that Donghyuk had probably the single most stupid name in the history of names.

At least it was distracting Jimin from my problem. He might be focused on the football team, but I was focused on the cheerleaders. On one cheerleader in particular who pointedly refused to look up at the band.

I sighed. I shouldn’t have sighed. That brought Jimin’s attention back to me.

“Come on,” he said. “Something’s bugging you and you keep staring down at Jennie but she’s not looking up here and smiling every other pom pom shake like she usually does. So what’s up?”

“I don’t know what’s up,” I said.

That sounded nice and vague. Sure he knew about me and Jennie. Or at least he knew I had a huge girl crush on my best friend that we were pretty sure wasn’t reciprocated.

I hadn’t breathed a word to him about what happened last weekend though. No, the emotions were still too raw. I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone about that.

Even if I was bursting to talk to someone. I needed to talk it out, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk it out.

Talk about ed up, right?

“Lisa. I am not going to talk to you for the rest of the night if you don’t tell me exactly what’s going on here,” Jimin said. I rolled my eyes again. He started sounding a little too sassy when he got snippy. If he talked like that too often then everyone was going to figure out his little secret. The same secret I was keeping. That’s part of what had brought us together so many years ago.

“Let’s just say I had a bad romantic experience last weekend and leave it at that,” I said.

“Really?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline which was already starting to recede a little even though he was only eighteen.

“Yeah,” I said.

I wanted to leave it at that. I was hoping he’d let me leave it at that. Of course he didn’t let me leave it at that.

“You can’t say something like that then leave me hanging,” he said. “Details.”

I looked out at the football field. They were throwing the ball then a bunch of guys slammed into each other and the crowd cheered. On our side, so I guess that meant our team just did something good.

I wasn’t all that into sports. That our team did something good was confirmed a moment later when Mr. Reynolds hopped up and told us to launch into the school song.

That meant there was a blessed minute where I had my clarinet against my lips and I didn’t have to think about Jimin and his annoying questions.