UNTIL LOVE SETS US APART ( JENLISA)

chapter 8

Jennie POV

I lay there in bed, listening to the slow breathing of the person next to me as she slept. No wonder she was tired. It had been a harrowing day. And I had been the one to bring it all on her.

It was all going so well until I saw Kai in that place. Sure, I had been sad at the thought of leaving Lisa and going to the shelter, but she seemed less cold than the day before, as though she was more open to the idea of reconnecting after I came back. And I saw it as a chance to make myself better for her - well, for myself too, but the incentive of being able to maintain a true, real relationship with Lisa was a better one. I felt hopeful, for the first time since I had heard the news that I would be going to the shelter the day before, and the day we had spent shopping together had been enough for me to convince myself that we were just an inch away from being a real couple.

I could still remember the exact moment I laid my eyes on Kai in that place. I would have known that face anywhere; I could have spent years trying to scrub it from my mind, and my gut would still have known that it was him. His face seemed to flicker in front of me, as though in the midst of a heat haze, like my brain was trying to convince me that he couldn't really be there. How foolish had I been to think I could leave it all behind, when I was still in the same city it all had happened?

I couldn't remember much after that Lisa asking me what happened, her carrying me out of the car, Lisa calling Rosé to let her know that there was no way I could come to the shelter that night. All their voices sounded distant and removed, as though they were coming from another dimension. The panic was pulsing in my head, no matter how many times I told myself that I was safe, that Kai couldn't get to me here.

The first time I remember feeling like I truly inhabited my own body again was when I took that bath, and Lisa had read to me. I was sure I had wanted to be in her arms, but I knew that any touch right then would have sent me spiralling into the memories of all those touches I hadn't wanted before. Her distance made me ache, but it was the right choice.

I slid into that robe, letting the soft, silky fabric wrap around me, and climbed into bed; she slid in next to me, and I moved against her, needing to feel her arms around me. I didn't want sex, and she seemed to understand that. I just needed her there, the promise of her safety, the knowledge that I no longer had to deal with Kai the way I used to.

She had fallen asleep quickly, but I had stayed awake for what felt like hours, staring into the muted darkness and wondering what the hell I was meant to do now. I could still feel Kai in my head, curling like smoke around my brain, blotting out all those things I knew for a fact: that Lisa took care of me, that she wanted me to stay. I wasn't worthy of a person like her. I wasn't sure if I ever had been.

Rosé had been right. She had already done so much for me. Sure, she had agreed to let me stay a little longer, but how long before she would find herself exhausted by all the help I needed, by all the kindness I required from her just to function? She was rich, handsome, kind, intelligent - she was the kind of women who would have had man and women  lining up to be with her if she put herself out on the market. And here I was, sapping that energy, draining her of everything she had. When I looked at Lisa, I saw something so pure, so untouched by my past life, but it wasn't going to stay that way, not if I stuck around much longer.

She looked so much younger than she normally did. Her face was peaceful and not weighed down by the stresses of the day. I wanted to keep her this way. I didn't want to sully her with my pain, with the weight of it. I reached over to stroke her hair gently, and she nestled further in against me, as though she could somehow sense what I was thinking and didn't want me to go. But she had no idea how bad it would get. We had barely scratched the surface of it today, and it had clearly exhausted her. I had been able to kid myself for a while that I would be able to bury down the nightmare I had been through, the trauma hidden from the world - but the incident today had undercut all of that. I couldn't hide. But I didn't have to drag her through it with me.