didn't know you were cold ('til you felt my fire) // JENLISA AU

Chapter 17

sorry for being mia 🙏🏻 i'll try to update more before the weekend ends

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Swinging her legs over the side of her bunk bed Sunday morning, Lisa did her routine quick check of the space beneath her before shoving herself down onto the floor, landing with a slight thump. As she stretched her arms over her head, she glanced into Ella's bunk to see it already empty. With a curious brow raised, she let her arms fall to her side with a slap, before shrugging, grabbing her gloves to put on and heading out the room.

Ella was awake in the kitchen, sitting cross-legged at her chair at the table and eating out of a bowl, squinting at the back of the bright and colourful box of cereal in front of her. She looked up as Lisa walked in, cheeks full like a chipmunk.

"Morning Ell." Lisa grumbled, as she made her way to the fridge and pulled out the milk. She placed it beside the coffee maker, before doing a bleary double-take at the empty and cold pot. "Aw, what?"

"Dad's still asleep." Ella informed her. "Not dead, I checked." She added as she ate another spoonful of colourful cereal.

"Great." Lisa muttered, reaching up to grab the coffee tin and filters. She muttered unintelligible noises to herself as she prepared the machine, pausing as she tried to remember how many scoops.

"That stunts your growth, you know." Ella said after Lisa had finally gotten the machine working again. Lisa snorted as she pushed the tin back on the fridge top.

"Good, I'm already too tall." She opened the freezer to pull out a couple of frozen waffles, shoving them into the toaster before yawning and leaning against the counter, waiting for her breakfast. "You sleep okay? You're not up this early usually."

Ella shrugged. "Slept okay. Had a homework problem that's been bugging me, thought maybe getting up earlier would help. Like, sleeping on it, getting up to look at it in a new light, y'know."

"Hmm," Lisa tapped the toaster to get it to release her waffles, tossing them onto a plate, and poured herself a cup of black coffee, bringing the meal over to sit beside Ella at the table. Taking a plain, warm waffle in her hand she proceeded to take a bite. "Was it that homework we were doing yesterday? I know I don't get it but I can try and help you with that again."

"You have your own homework to do." Ella reminded her. Lisa shrugged.

"Yeah but, you're the one who's going to need it. I just need to pass, you getting good grades is what matters."

Ella's expression stayed mostly neutral, but the faintest sad frown hovered on her mouth. Lisa ducked her head, trying to catch her sister's eye. "You okay?"

"You know when we had that fight and I told you that you aren't my mom?" Ella spoke, voice small. "I mean that, you know. You don't always have to be my mom."

Lisa stopped chewing, looking over at Ella with a bit of confusion. "What does that mean?"

"When you do... this" Ella said, waving her spoon. Her voice had the tight whine it took sometimes when she was holding back a stronger emotion, nose wrinkled at the effort. "Just ignoring what you need because you're trying to get me ahead. It's not your job, Lisa. You're supposed to be doing your best too."

Lisa swallowed the bite of waffle, looking down at the table. "I'm not- that- I'm trying too Ell, I-"

"I'm not saying you don't try, but," Ella sniffed, looking frustrated. "It's always after. It's always 'do this for Ella ' 'save that for Ella', I mean you didn't even buy new clothes for like two years until Kim had to basically drop them in your hands." She frowned into a pout, shaking her head.