Infinity: A Jenlisa AU

Chapter 9

As Lisa sits beside the most important woman in her life, buzzed off her lukewarm coffee, it occurs to her that the feel of that afternoon is somehow different. Unsure if it' Jennie or her. Jennie looks as happy as Lisa's seen her in years. Weightless is the word that comes to mind.

Jennie's smile seems wider, brighter, more freely given.

And she can't keep her hands off Lisa.

Then again, maybe the difference is Lisa.

Maybe it's this coffee and the crystalline quality of the autumn light and the communal energy of the their house.

When Jennie kisses her, Lisa can feel Jennie's heart through her sweatshirt, jack-hammering in her chest.

___________________________________

They have dinner in the city at a nicer restaurant than they can afford and spend the entire time talking like they haven't talked in years.

Not about people or remember-whens, but ideas.

They kill a bottle of "Icewine 2010" from Grand Coteau.

Order another.

Thinking maybe they'll spend the night in the city.

It's been a long time since Lisa has seen her wife this passionate, this sure of herself. She's a woman on fire, in love with her life again.

Halfway through their second bottle of wine, Jennie catches her looking out the window, asks, "What are you thinking about?"

"That's a dangerous question."

"I'm aware."

"I'm thinking about you." Lisa stated.

"What about me?"

"It feels like you're trying to sleep with me." Lisa laughs. "What I mean is, it feels like you're trying when you don't have to be trying. We're an old married couple, and I feel like you're, um..."

"Romancing you?"

"Exactly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. At all. It's amazing. I guess I just don't see where it's all coming from. Are you okay? Is something wrong, and you're not telling me?"

Jennie couldn't help but smile at how sharp her wife is. That sounded so good in her head: her wife. "I'm fine."

"So this is all because you almost got hit by a cab two nights ago?"

Jennie answers, "I don't know if it was my life flashing before my eyes or what, but when I came home, everything felt different. More real. You especially. Even right now, it's like I'm seeing you for the first time, and I have this nervous ache in my stomach. I think about you every second. I think about all the choices we've made that created this moment. Us sitting here together at this beautiful table. Then I think of all the possible events that could have stopped this moment from ever happening, and it all feels, I don't know..."

"What?"

"So fragile." Now Jennie becomes thoughtful for a moment.

She says finally, "It's terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches into a new world. After watching some drama in our TV today, we went to Han River and then came here for dinner, right? But that's only one version of what happened. In a different reality, instead of the river, we went to the symphony. In one, we stayed home. In another still, we got into a fatal wreck on Gyeongbu Expressway and never made it anywhere."