Page 2 of Not So Goode

“Please Jesus tell me one of those is for me?” she whimpered.

I handed over her coffee, and frowned at her. “You look like shit.”

She really did. Her hair was a mess, tangled and snarled, obviously unwashed. She sometimes styled it messy, but this was just…a mess. She was wearing what had to be a triple-XL U-Conn sweatshirt that even Dad would have swum in at his heaviest.

Sorry, Dad. RIP. But you were not in great shape, there, at the end.

Probably she wasn’t wearing a damn thing under that sweatshirt, either. She had the sleeves rolled a half-dozen times, and they still hung past her fingertips, and the bottom came to her knees, the neck hanging off her shoulders. If she’d been clean, it would have been a cutely endearing look. In her current disheveled and smelly state, calling it hobo-chic would be generous.

“My life is over,” she muttered. “Personal hygiene can go fuck itself.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere with you until you shower.”

She gave me the finger. Two of them. “Food.”

“I have donuts in the car. But you don’t get them until you stop smelling like a herd of goats took a poop on you.”

She growled. Actually growled. “You’re supposed to be supporting me in my time of need.”

I shrugged. “I can’t support you if I can’t stomach being within ten feet of you.” I wrinkled my nose. “Seriously. How long have you been holed up in here?”

“I lost track after the first week. My roommate has started sliding Lean Cuisines to me through the door. She’s currently hiding out with her boyfriend off-campus because I’m, like, not safe to be around, according to her.”

I shuddered. “Alexandra. Lean Cuisines? Really?”

She shrugged. “And whole pizzas.”

I sighed. “Is that why your chin acne has its own area code?”

She blinked at me. “Wow, okay, Charlie. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

I saw, then, that she was blinking back tears, and I leaned into her. “Sorry. But it’s hard for me to help or support you when I have no idea what’s going on. And when I can’t breathe through my nose while hugging you. I love you, girl. I woke up at three thirty in the morning, listened to you cry on the phone, and then drove three hours to get here. So I’m here. I’m supporting you. But for the love of god, please, take a damn shower.”

She pulled the crewneck of the sweatshirt away from herself, stuck her nose into the opening, and sniffed. And promptly yanked her head away, gagging. “Okay, yeah. Yep. You’re right.”

“You lost track after the first week?” I said, as she headed for the bathroom. “For real, how long has this—whatever it is—been going on?”

Ignoring me, she peeled off the sweatshirt and tossed it aside, rummaging in her dresser—and yeah, she was naked under it. Good thing none of us girls are squeamish about being nude around each other.

She’d obviously fallen victim to the freshman fifteen and never lost it, and maybe a little extra over the years since her freshman year. This I decided to keep to myself, though. She wore it well, at least, most of the extra weight being in her butt and thighs, which worked for her. Weight went to my butt and thighs, too, but I was already genetically predisposed to being curvy, so that extra looked like a LOT extra on me, whereas on Lexie the same amount of extra weight just looked like she had a bangin’ booty. On me, I just looked like I couldn’t muster the gumption to run off the junk in my trunk.

Not fair.

Sigh.

I was being judgmental, and I told myself to stop.

I turned my attention to the dorm room. One bed was neatly made, with a few floating shelves on the walls decorated with pictures of her roommate with various family members, a few Beanie Babies, dancing and volleyball trophies. The half of the room around this bed was spotlessly neat. The half around Lexie’s bed?

It looked like a bomb had gone off.

I saw the evidence of her recent dietary malfeasance piled everywhere—pizza boxes and Lean Cuisine trays stacked one atop the other in a toppling tower. Soda bottles in the twenty-ounce and two-liter variety. More than one empty wine bottle—contraband on campus, I was sure. Empty boxes of Cheez-Its.

Ugh. Lex. Baby. You need help.

Lexie emerged from her rampage through dresser drawers and bins under her bed, a stack of clothing in hand, which she tossed on her bed. Wrapping a towel around herself and grabbing a toiletry kit, she scowled at me.

“Donuts,” she snapped. “Need donuts.”