Head Over Boots For You // Jenlisa

17: You and Your Promises

A/N: make sure you didn't miss the previous chapter since this is a double update <3

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Jennie

The holidays came and went, with Jennie needing to keep experiments running over the break for her research job. Lisa spent it with Irene's and Wendy's families, as always. It was lonely for Jennie, and Lisa of course told her she wished that Jennie could be there with her, but they managed as best they could.

And then one day, out of the blue, Lisa said she might be able to come visit.

In true Lisa fashion, she had broken the news casually, in a text, as if Jennie's heart hadn't immediately stopped beating at the mere idea of it. She had been in class and could only send back about a dozen exclamation marks in a row, followed by another long series of question marks and heart eye emojis until Lisa finally took the hint and explained what she meant.

She was buying cattle from a ranch in eastern Wyoming (she didn't say exactly where) and thought that she could stay a night with Jennie before making the purchase. Jennie enthusiastically agreed.

She would finally get to see her girlfriend again. Her girlfriend, who was living 800 miles away. Her super hot girlfriend, who could make Jennie's knees weak with just a glance. Her sappy, sometimes obnoxiously smug girlfriend. Jennie was ready.

Of course, Jennie's academic schedule did not at all agree with Lisa's visit. She had a paper due the next day, and an exam at the end of the week. She worked her ass off and finished the paper beforehand and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have one day less to study for the exam. But she had already hit the material hard, and honestly another day probably wouldn't have done her much good anyway. These courses were like a firehose, and she, like the rest of her classmates, were just struggling to keep up.

But Jennie got to forget about all of that for one day. Just one. It wouldn't be enough, but it was something.

Jennie had her textbook open in front of her and was trying her best to use these last few minutes to study, even if nothing was going into her head, when her phone vibrated on the table. She picked it up excitedly.

I'm here.

Jennie burst out of her seat, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair and the keys from the counter and let the apartment's door slam behind her as she awkwardly tried to put her jacket on while running down the hallway.

The air outside was cold on her cheeks—it was January, after all—but she was walking fast enough that she couldn't feel it. She told herself she should probably be more careful on the slick sidewalk, snow piled up on either side of it, but that was all a secondary concern. She had told Lisa to park a couple of blocks away, because there was no way that a truck with a cattle trailer could find room anywhere near her apartment building.

She turned the corner down the street... and there she was, looking the other direction, standing with her hands in the pockets of her Carhartt jacket, a flannel shirt poking out just a little from the bottom. Her hair spilled from the bottom of a black beanie on her head, as she stretched her legs out after a long day of driving.

Jennie sped up her pace. Lisa turned, probably having heard the ice crunching under Jennie's boots. The uncertain look on Lisa's face instantly transformed. Her plump lips pulled upwards at the corners, her eyes lit up, the tension in her shoulders dropped.

And Jennie was trying to close the distance between them as fast as she could, which is probably why she didn't see that patch of ice on the sidewalk and her foot slipped out from under her.