“Eh? What is wrong with you?” Josie shouted, getting up from her chair and storming over, ripping the blanket from my body.
“Hey!”
“You are not doing this! Look at you! Is that chocolate on your pants?”
My eyes drifted to the brown spot, and for just a moment, I feared something much worse than spilled food happened to me. I bent over, struggling to shove my nose to the spot with how fullmy stomach was. Thankfully, I got a good whiff, and it was one hundred percent chocolate.
“Yep.”
“No. We’re not doing this,” she said, linking her arm through mine and tugging me unwillingly to my feet. “God, you smell so horrible! You’re so lucky it was me that came to get you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I snapped, shoving away from her.
“You are, and you’re going to shower, shave, and brush your teeth! It’s like fuzz is growing in your mouth!”
She grabbed me again, but I shoved her away. Except, my balance was off and I ended up pushing myself backward somehow. Tripping over the edge of the chair, I lost my balance and tumbled over the side of the chair, rolled to the floor and smacked my face on the side of the table.
“Ow!” I held my eye as tears leaked down my face. I was a freaking mess, and I had no one to blame but myself.
And Josie.
“Look what you did!”
“What I did? You did that to yourself!” she argued.
“You pulled me off the couch! You took my blanket!”
“Because you look like a freaking disaster!”
I sat up suddenly, smacking my head on the table. Crying, I clutched my forehead, screaming in frustration and anger. This day had started with so much promise, and now it was all downhill.
“I freaking hate you!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like you too much right now either, Stinky!”
“You suck!” Tears clogged my throat, and snot dripped from my nose as my meltdown turned into a full-blown breakdown. Everything I had been crying about for days slipped back to the surface, only this time, there were no movies to blame my depression on.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and cried into them, soaking my fleece pajama pants. I didn’t want to be this sad sack person who laid around in her pajamas all day, eating everything but the furniture in her house, but I couldn’t seem to move past what had happened.
Not that I was trying. I was really just doing everything to avoid thinking about the store or any of the responsibilities that faced me. Like calling the insurance company. Or cleaning up the mess.
Finding a new life.
Pretending this one wasn’t mine.
“God, I suck!” I screamed.
Josie sat down beside me, gently wrapping me in her arms, letting me cry on her shoulder. She was such a good friend, and I was being a shit. But I cried for another ten minutes until my tears had finally dried up and I was no longer on the verge of throwing up from stomach cramps.
“Better?” Josie asked, handing me a corner of my blanket.
I swiped it across my face. I could wash it later. “Maybe.”
“You can’t sit around here crying anymore. You need to get dressed and pull up your big girl panties.”
“I left them at the store,” I said, chuckling slightly.
“Then we’ll go get them. But first, you need a shower. And now I do, too, because your stink has rubbed off on me.”
