The Kiss

Chapter 14

I know I've been gone for a while, but here y'all go🤍

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Lisa completed her bedtime routine in a numb haze. It wasn't until she laid her head down on her pillow that she started crying.

It was over now. He'd asked her to be good to his family, and she'd made his mom cry. You couldn't undo something like that.

Her gut demanded she tell Taehyung the truth. Though he wasn't aware of the true extent of them, he already knew about her issues: sensitivities to smell, sound, and touch; her obsession with her work; her need for routine; and her awkwardness with people. What he didn't know was there were labels for that, a diagnosis.

But was pity any better than hatred? Right now, he thought she was insensitive and rude, but he still viewed her as a regular person who happened to have some eccentricities. With the labels, he might be more understanding, but he'd quit viewing her as Lalisa Manobal, the awkward econometrician who loved his kisses. In his eyes, she'd become the girl with autism. She'd be . . . less.

With other people, she didn't care what they thought.

With Taehyung, she desperately needed to be accepted. She had a disorder, but it didn't define her. She was Lalisa. She was a unique person.

There was no way to salvage this situation. No way to keep him.

She still had to apologize to his mom. She'd never made someone cry before, and it filled her with self-loathing. His mom's evasiveness made sense now that she knew about his dad. Lisa wished she could have understood earlier, before she hurt the woman and ruined everything, but all she could control were her future actions, not the past.

As the night dragged on, she constructed and reconstructed her apology, recited it over and over in her head. When the sun rose, she dragged herself out of bed and got ready to tackle the day.

She drove to the same strip mall she'd gone to yesterday and parked in front of Korean Dry Cleaning and Tailors. As soon as they flipped the sign, she'd apologize and leave.

A night of sleeplessness had left her head clouded, and her heart ached from the relentless pressure of her anxiety. Her fingers had been clenched around the wheel so long the joints were locked. She was drained and wanted to get this over with so she could go to the office and lose herself in work.

Five minutes before nine, the sign flipped from Closed to Open. Taking a deep breath, Lisa picked up a second box of chocolates and a bouquet of peach roses and exited her car. Inside, Minji sat behind the front counter.

She lifted her attention from the textbook on her lap and blinked in surprise at Lisa. From the tense set of her mouth, it was not a good kind of surprise. "Hi, Lalisa . . . Taehyung doesn't work on Saturdays."

"I wasn't looking for him." What was the point? They were done. She held up the roses and chocolates. "I brought these for your mom. Is she here?"

Minji's expression softened. "Yeah, she's here."

"May I speak to her, please?"

"She's working in back. I'll take you there."

She followed Minji into the backroom and stopped in front of a green commercial sewing machine, where Taehyung's mom was busy feeding fabric beneath the sewing foot with quick efficiency, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

Lisa's muscles tensed, and her heart thundered. It was time to do this. She hoped she didn't screw it up. She hoped she said the right thing.

Minji murmured something in Vietnamese, and Taehyung's mom looked up. Her gaze jumped from Minji to Lisa.