Page 51 of In For a Penny
I storm into the apartmentin a huff and slam the door shut. I toe my shoes off by the kitchen table and throw my jacket and bag on the couch, not caring about Allie’s—to be fair—very reasonable request to keep common living areas tidy. I’m too mad to give a shit right now, though.
Allie walks out of her bedroom with a confused look on her face. She raises an eyebrow questioningly, and I grunt in response, shaking my head. She looks concerned until her eyes flicker to my things thrown around the apartment. Grimacing, she tries to control her urge to tidy up without upsetting me.
I’ve moved in with a neat freak and am the messiest person alive. This is going to be fun.
“So...I assume something’s up?” she asks, picking my coat up carefully and walking it to our coat rack by the front door as casually as possible—though we both know what’s really going on in her mind right now. She wants to yell at me for not following her request to always hang my coat on that same hook on the rack whenever I get home.
I throw myself a bit dramatically onto the couch, stare up at the ceiling, and take a deep breath. I don’t even know where to start.
“Do you think it was dumb of me to sleep with Oliver?” I ask with no preamble.
She walks over to the kitchen table to pick up my shoes and arranges them neatly together by the door before settling by my feet at the end of the couch. A slight irritation begins to build in my chest at this. Making that mess and throwing my stuff around was supposed to have been an outlet for my frustration.
Neat freak.
“I don’t know Oliver, so I can’t answer that question.” She sighs. “But, I mean, you had fun, right? You were safe. He wasn’t a dick after. And you said the sex was, and I quote, ‘mind-blowing,’ right?”
The first thing I did when I got home from my day of sex was tell Allie all about it. Honestly, it had been so fun that I couldn’t even go one day without breaking our agreed-upon policy to keep this under wraps. Allie isn’t in our program, so I figured it didn’t count as breaking the rules. She had been proud of me but wanted to be spared the details, obviously.
“God, yes, mind-blowing. It’s like he—”
She holds up a hand. “I don’t need specifics, girl. I believe you.”
We both laugh.
I sit up with a groan. “I got in a fight with Josh.”
“The granola bar guy?” Allie says in concern, furrowing her brow. When I had told her the story of the first time he gave me a bar, sheobsessedover it and how cute it was for days. “That shit’s true love right there.I wouldn’t share my breakfast with anyone,” she had said.It was torture.
“He sounds so cute! He takes care of you…always feeding you, and hydrating you, and taking care of you when you’re a hungover crazy person, you little hot mess,” she says, ruffling my hair lightly. I swat her hand away.
I’ve told Allie several times about Josh’s hero tendencies. She thinks I’m a horrible person for sometimes feeling overwhelmed by his kindness. And to be honest, I hate myself a little, too. If I had a friend who told me all about how nice a guy was to them, making sure she was okay, I would feel happy for her to have someone like that in her life. I wouldn’t be reacting the way I am currently responding right now. I am fully aware of how much I suck, but I can’t help feeling a bit suffocated. I get so anxious. Lately, it’s like every part of my body braces itself for a crash whenever I talk to him.
I roll my eyes at her. “I mean, I guesssometimesI have been known to be somewhat of a hot mess, but come on! He doesn’t ‘take care of me’. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
She laughs. “Ofcourseyou don’t, sweetie,” she says sarcastically.
Oh my God, does everyone just assume that I am this disaster incapable of surviving without having someone take care of her? Do people just think that I am a lost cause and am in constant need of supervision or something? What kind of impression do I usually make?
“So, what did you do, anyway? To make him mad, I mean.”
“Me?Why do you just automatically assume thatIwas the one to mess up our friendship? Seriously.”
She raises an eyebrow at me.
I sigh again. “Fine. Josh got mad because I slept with Oliver.”
“Aww!” She clasps her hands to her chest with a hopeful expression on her face. If she were a cartoon, she would have hearts in her eyes. “See? Itoldyou he’s into you!”
Jesus, what a nightmare.
Men and womencanbe friends andnothave feelings for each other. It’s even possible for them to havesexwith each other and not have feelings. We’ve already established this.
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I peek at the screen to check it. I already have a couple of missed calls and text messages from Josh apologizing and asking to call him back, but the last two I just received are from Oliver.
Oliver: If I send you a dick pic, will you send me a tit pic? ;)
Oliver: Oh, by the way, do you happen to have the notes for the Organizational Management lecture from today? I had to duck out early and didn’t catch the last part of class.
