Infinity: A Jenlisa AU

Chapter 30

They were sitting in our shot-up Suburban in the deserted parking lot.

Jennie drove all night.

Lisa studies Jennie's face in the mirror.  Her left eye is purple, badly swollen, and the skin over Jennie's left cheekbone has turned black from the blood pooling underneath.

It's all agonizing to the touch. Jennie just looks at wife.

Reaching across the center console, Lisa runs her fingernails down the back of Jennie's neck. She says, "What other choice do we have?"

"This is your decision too."

"I don't want to leave." Lisa whispers.

"I know."

"But I guess we have to."

The strangest thought passes through Jennie's consciousness like a fleeting summer cloud.

They are so clearly at the end. Everything they have built—their house, their jobs, their friends, their collective life—it's all gone. They have nothing left but one another, and yet, in this moment, Jennie's happier than she have ever been.

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Morning sun streams through fissures in the roof, lighting patches along the dark, desolate hallway.

"This place is cool," Lisa mutters as they roam. "You know where you're going?" she asks Jennie.

"Unfortunately, I could take us where we need to go blindfolded."

As Jennie guides them through the abandoned passages,  she is beyond tired. Running on caffeine and fear. The gun she took from the cabin is jammed down into the back of her waistband, and Jennie2's leather bag is tucked under her arm. It occurs to her that as they drove down to the South Side at dawn, she never even glanced at the skyline as they passed just west of downtown.

One last glimpse would've been nice.

Jennie registers a twinge of regret, but immediately push it back.

She thinks of all the nights she lay in bed, wondering what it might be like if things were different, if she hadn't taken the branch in the road that made her a wife and mediocre physics professor instead of a luminary in her field. She suppose it all comes down to wanting what she didn't have. What she perceived might have been hers through a different set of choices.

But the truth is, she did make those different choices.

Because she is not just her.

Her understanding of identity has been shattered—She is one facet of an infinitely faceted being called Jennie Kim who has made every possible choice and lived every life imaginable. 

She can't help thinking that people were more than the sum total of their choices, that all the paths people might have taken factor somehow into the math of their identity.

But none of the other Jennies matter.

I don't want their lives.

I want mine.

Because as fucked as everything is, there is no place I'd rather be than with this Lisa. If one tiny thing were different, she wouldn't be the person I love.

Jennie thought to herself.

They move slowly down the stairs toward the generator room, their footfalls echoing through the vast, open space.

One flight up from the bottom, Lisa says, "There's someone down there."

They stopped.

Jennie's mouth runs dry as she gazes into the gloom below.