If this is a rom-com, kill the director | Jenlisa

Fury

It's Christmas, and the hotel is empty. Everyone in the cast and crew have dispersed, returning home to their families.

Rosie told Lisa firmly that she would not be going back to her father's home as planned, but instead stay in the hotel for another two weeks. Jay's not speaking to Rosie. As far as he's concerned, she should not have got caught with another woman, and it's for her to deal with the repercussions.

Lisa doesn't want her to be alone, but Rosie doesn't want to talk either, so she finds herself at a loss for things to do. She doesn't want to be too far away from her cousin in case she needs her, so she doesn't leave the hotel, but there's nothing much to do here either.

She sits in her room, her arms around her legs, thinking about how alone she feels and then feeling guilty for feeling bad when Rosie's over in her room probably feeling worse.
She resigns herself to the fact that she's going to be alone for most of the day, there's a knock at her door.

Jennie's there behind the door, scratching the back of her head, her gaze on the floor.

"Hey," she says, standing aside so she can come inside the room. "What are you still doing here?"

She still doesn't know how she feels about Jennie. All that anger and resentment she has about her still flickers around her brain, but it feels so misplaced now. Like, it wasn't really her she was angry at all this time. Seeing her dart straight in to help Rosie, no question about it, makes her feel a little like she may have misjudged her. But only a little.

Jennie settles hersef cross-legged on her bed. "Well, my apartment's kind of empty and lonely. And my father and I... we aren't really in good terms, so I didn't want to go back there," she says, pausing for a moment after that admission. "And I heard that you were still here, so..."

Her voice trails away, as if the end of the sentence had just run away from her.

"Yeah," Lisa says, sitting down beside her. "Rosie and I were supposed to go back to Jay's for Christmas, but that's not happening now."

"How is she?"

Lisa shakes her head. "I don't know. She won't talk to me. I think she doesn't want to act afraid in front of me. She'd rather that I wasn't there to see her upset."

The room falls quiet, as Lisa chews on her lip and stares down at her hands in her lap.

"That's why I came," Jennie says. "So that you weren't as sad or alone."

"I don't think you can make me feel any less sad," Lisa says quietly, looking away from her.

There's a pause.

"I don't want you to feel sad," Jennie says.

Lisa smiles and shakes her head, arranging her pillows and leaning on the headboard behind her. "It's not your fault that I feel like crap. I just wish – I wish I could have got there before he said it. Stopped all those cameras and journalists from hearing it."

"Me too," Jennie says, looking down at her hands and fiddling with her fingers. She looks like she wants to say something more, but she doesn't.

There's another silence.

"I just feel so guilty," Lisa says, her voice small and far away. "I'm sitting here feeling so sorry for myself when she's the one who's actually going through all the shit."

"Lisa, she's family. You're allowed to feel bad that she's feeling bad."

She sighs, pulling a pillow to her chest and resting her chin atop it.

Jennie watches and reaches out to her, but seems to think better of it halfway through, leaving her hand hovering in the air for the moment before letting rest on the bed.

"We'll figure something out," she says. "We'll find a way to make things better for her."

"I don't see how, Jennie. I'm furious at Kai," she says, her fingers clenching around the pillow. "I can't believe he outed her in front of everybody. It was the one thing she was so careful about and Kai broke all of that in a matter of seconds."

Jennie frowns. "Believe me, Lis, I'm not at all impressed with him either."

Silence falls again, and the two of them look down away from each other, down at their hands.

"Lisa, there's something I need to-" Jennie says, at the same time that Lisa mutters "He needs to pay."

"What?" Jennie says, her eyes flickering up to look at her, forgetting about everything she was just about to say.

"Jennie, Rosie's in her room, dealing with the fact that every popular news site is talking about her sexuality, she's afraid of what people will say to her, and most of all, she doesn't want anyone to see under that exterior of hers. She's not leaving her room, I don't know if she's eating, I don't know if she's looking after herself," she says, her voice rising. "I'm just so angry that he's done this to her. I want him to feel what she feels right now."

Lisa groans, pressing her face into the pillow. "I want him to hurt. I want to..." she exhales, the sound slightly muffled by the pillow in her face. "Rip out his heart and eat it. I don't know."

She knows she's being over dramatic, but that's how she wants to be. She wants to come up with all kind of delightful revenge plots, the kind that he'll never recover from. He hurt Rosie, and no one hurts Rosie, not on Lisa's watch.

"You know that's not the answer," Jennie says, her voice soft.

Lisa doesn't say anything, her head still rested in the pillow. She knows Jennie's right, but it wasn't the answer she wanted.

"Some Christmas this turned out to be," Lisa mutters.

Jennie smiles without mirth, opens her mouth to say something and then closes it again.

———-

The holidays end, and people begin to leak back into the hotel. Lisa pointedly avoids all contact with Kai and only speaks to Jay when she has to – communicating with curt nods and monosyllabic words.

Filming resumes, and, for the first time since production began, the only person Lisa can bear to speak any civil words to is Jennie.

Rosie still won't come out of her room.

an: i just saw the news that lisa has covid :((
i hope she gets well fast and that the rest are all tested negative