Twenty-Five

Paislee

The next couple of days I spent stowed away in my bedroom. So much had happened in such a short amount of time, that all I wanted to do was sleep it off. And, I guess a part of me wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen. I let Josh take care of me like I was a sick kid, because I didn’t want to get up off my bed. He never told me that I was taking it too far, so I milked it for all it was worth. 

College was stressful enough without having guy troubles. So many people had told me that these years would be the best, but I was beginning to wonder what planet they’d come from. So far I’d suffered severe embarrassment, followed by a couple of pokes to the ticker, and I’d successfully hit a guy in his face on the day that his house burned down and his dog died. 

It was official. For summer break, I was going to the beach, one that was in another time zone. 

My cell phone rang from my nightstand, but I ignored it as usual. The most important people I knew were close enough for me to touch, at least I thought so. The bed felt awfully cold behind me. I tried to kick Josh who was supposed to be lying in the bed behind me, but there was nothing. When I turned over, I realized he wasn’t there. The bathroom light was off, and my room was dark and quiet. I didn’t even know what time of day it was.

Thank you room darkening curtains.

Despite the nagging voice in my head telling me not to, I picked up my phone anyway. I’d been oblivious to it for the past couple of days. Just pretending that it was broke so that I wouldn’t look at it. I never knew how unbelievable it would feel to lay that thing down. 

The bright screen came to life and I had to squint just to be able to see it. 

Whoa. I had fourteen missed calls, eleven new text messages, and a full voicemail box. I didn’t even know that many people. Like literally, I only had ten people saved in my phone. Popularity wasn’t my thing. 

I sat up in my bed, resting my back against the wooden headboard. Scrolling through the missed calls, there were a few numbers I didn’t recognize, but I had a couple from Garrett, and Josh had called me once, which was weird. I hadn’t left his side that I could remember. Except for today. I had no idea where he’d run off to. The one thing that stood out to me the most was a missed call from Jude. It was only one call, but it was the most significant of them all.

Just seeing his name on my screen was hard to swallow. What could he possibly have to say to me? I mean, I slapped him as hard as I could in the face without even thinking.

I cannot believe I did that.

I’d never before been angry enough to hit someone like that. Sure I’d slapped Josh on the arm or the ass or something. I never did it to hurt him. He was always just a big pain in my ass. 

The way I smacked Jude was different. I had all these emotions toying with me inside. Each and every one of them was screaming at me for different reasons. I was furious with him for scaring me, and bitterly unhappy that he’d hurt me, and most of all I was sick at the thought of something happening to him or his family. It felt like I’d stepped into a hornet’s nest and was attacked. The only reaction I had was pain, and I wanted him to feel it just like I had. 

That’s pretty messed up.

The guy had just found out that his house was gone, and everything inside it. Could I be any more childish and shallow? Jesus! 

The thought of it made me want to crawl back under the sheets again and hide away from the ugly world outside. 

I was about to. I was really about to forget that I had text messages to read, and voicemails to listen to, and go back to bed. 

But Josh had to bring his big fat head into the room, and ruin it. 

He switched on the light, making me cringe at the sight of it. 

“Get your ass up out of that bed. We’ve got things to do today.”

My face remained stoic. He was frighteningly cheerful so I knew it had to be morning. I was wishing I had one of those coffee mugs with the middle fingers on the bottom that was filled with steaming hot coffee. That way when I sipped my deliciousness I’d be flipping him off at the same time. The inventor of that mug was my spirit animal. 

He walked into my bathroom, flipped on the light, and then started the shower. I think he was trying to nicely tell me that I was stinky. A girl can take a hint. 

“Fine. I’m up.” I threw back the covers. “But I expect coffee when I get out of that shower or I’m going back to bed.”

“You’re so dramatic. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to know about it, until I’ve had my coffee.”

He growled, and out the door he went. 

I loved him. I needed to plan something really nice for him soon for putting up with my two-day bed binge. That was what I was calling it. 

Slipping off my clothes, I stepped into the shower and washed off the binge stink. My only motivation was the thought of coffee.

***

It was amazing what a little makeup could do. 

Josh was waiting on my bed for me when I came out of the bathroom. He was holding a very large cup of coffee, and I swear I wanted to kiss him. Just on the cheek, though. No more of that lip-to-lip contact between the two of us. 

“You sure look sexy with that coffee in your hands.” I admired the steam rolling off the cup.

“Keep your grubby paws off, Lady.” 

“Hey!” I pouted. “My paws are squeaky clean.” I reached out my hand for the cup, and moaned as the first taste hit my tongue. Josh was probably wishing he’d given me a moment alone with my cup. It was probably like watching bad porn. 

He rolled his eyes, and stood up from the bed. 

“What are we doing today anyway? You got me up and showered.”

“I invited everybody down to the lake tonight. We’re going to camp out,” he said, like it was no big deal.

“Our lake?” I asked. I knew when he said he invited everybody that he was talking about people from UTN. 

He smirked. “Yes, our lake.” His hands raked through his hair and pushed it back away from his face. “We’re going to charge a camping fee, and try to raise some money for Tex.”

He looked like he was waiting for me to say something snarky, or maybe he was waiting for my refusal to go, but I didn’t have one. It was a really nice thing to do.

“I know how you feel about him right now, and I know he’s the reason you’ve been moping around…”

I stopped him. “It’s fine. I think it’s nice that you guys want to do something to help. Especially you, considering that the two of you haven’t really hit if off.”

“Garrett’s my friend, and Tex is his cousin. It’s all one big cluster-fuck, but you know I don’t hold grudges.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just found out about how bad his parents were. I had no idea what he was going through. Garrett said that his parents were going to take Tex’s parents back home with them for a while until things got better. They had home insurance that will most likely take care of the rebuild, but Tex has a lot of expenses right now. Not to mention the nursing care that he’s been paying for.”

I allowed myself a minute to take it all in before responding. I felt like the biggest ass for not being more of a friend to Jude. I needed to tuck my prideful tail between my legs. So what he didn’t want to be with me, it wasn’t the end of the world. There were bigger things happening than my self-righteous pity party.

“So what do we need to do?” I asked.