The Girl Next Door - Jenlisa

Chapter 22

"Why do you have an extra toothbrush in your bathroom?"

It was at this exact moment that for the first time Lisa essentially felt her whole life flash before her eyes.

She looked up horrified, a split-second face change that would have slipped anyone before she shifted into nonchalance. Except Rosé was her best friend, and she's essentially trained in her art of bullshit.

"Wait—" Rosé nearly shouts from her bedroom door. "Wait. I asked you earlier if your mum was here. I know you don't have anyone else visiting lately—"

"Except me," Piped up Soo Young.

"—except Joy, and I know you never leave a toothbrush in any of Lisa's apartments—"

"Not that I don't have a good dental habit, mind you--"

"—so it can't possibly be anyone else I know—"

"I just didn't know you have extra shit here," Soo Young continued, further distracting the blonde from coming up with excuses. "I thought you honestly had all your stuff in a camping bag or something."

"Fuck off, woman," Lisa muttered. She can see Rosé pacing the carpet in her peripheral.

"Remember when you used to sleep in a sleeping bag in your other apartment because we ruined your bed by jumping on it drunk and your dad was so angry he refused to buy you a new one?" Soo Young cackled. "You were almost like, homeless couture."

Though throttling down her panic, Lisa couldn't help but chuckle with Soo Young. "Shhh."

"—so who have you been bringing home, bitch?" Rosé ended her narrative with a slam of her hand on the kitchen marble slab, demanding attention. "And not telling me?"

"Yeah, who have you been bringing home, bitch," Soo Young echoed, mimicking Rosé's fake outburst.

The two were in Lisa's space trying to get her to go out on a Saturday night. You have moped around too much this week, Rosé chastised, and then brought Soo Young with her knowing that the latter has the capacity to uproot Lisa from this funk. If not for the woman's capacity to deliver convincing reasons, but also because when she sets her mind into something, Soo Young's essentially like a dog with a bone.

Except she couldn't tell the girls that her funk has now shifted from feeling depressed about her parents to getting hung up on Jennie's thoughts.

Who am I.

Who the fuck am I.

Who the fuck am I without all these.

This was all her fault. Lisa had rules to begin with to stop herself from falling into a sticky pit of turmoil like this. This is what you get for hanging on to sentimental shit, Lisa scolded herself. Like a goddamn toothbrush. A toothbrush! Who hangs on to a used–