Just One Night: Part 2 by Elle Casey Page A

comes over to my chair, hauling me up by the armpits. “ Eeerrrgh … Man, you’re heavy.” She pauses once I’m on my feet to exaggerate her breathlessness, because apparently I don’t feel crappy enough as it is. I can now become even more bummed worrying about how much weight I’ve managed to gain in six days.
    “You can’t kill yourself with orange juice, freak,” she says. “Go get in the shower. You smell of funk.”
    I slap at her hand weakly. “Lemme go.” I stand up straighter, tricking her into thinking I’m going to do as she says. I’m just looking for my window of escape.
    “I’ll be right here waiting. Twenty minutes and we’re outties."
    I snort. Yeah right. As if. I go down the short hall and take a sharp right into my bedroom and my bed, burrowing under my covers and pulling them up over my head. Maybe if I lie really still, Mia won’t see me and she’ll go away. I sink into the blissful darkness, the silence, the abyss that is my love life.
    Ugh . Mia’s right. I do smell of funk.
    The bed moves a minute later as she sits on the edge of it. “I wondered why I wasn’t hearing the water running.” She yanks the covers back and gets under them with me, closing them back up once she’s settled. I can feel and smell her breath on my face.
    “ Ew. Too close, Mia.”
    She ignores me. “Tell me what happened. Was it Hank?”
    “No, it wasn’t Hank.” My throat closes up. I did actually consider calling him last night, which makes me physically ill. How low do I have to sink before I’m in that place? Very low. That’s me. The lo-ho. “It’s me, okay?” I say, trying to get her to leave it alone. “It’s not anyone but me.”
    “What does that even mean?”
    “It means I’m an idiot and I hate myself.”
    “That’s a lie. It’s two lies, actually.”
    Time for my confession. I really don’t like admitting this. “I didn’t listen to you.”
    “Okay, maybe it’s just one lie. I’ll give you the idiot thing. What did you do?”
    “I don’t want to tell you.”
    She sighs, blowing the stink of Cheetoes all over my face. I hold my breath to keep from hurling.
    “You did that ad thingy, didn’t you?” she asks.
    I will not cry … I will not cry… “Maybe,” I say like a total wiener.
    “Goddammit, Jennifer. What were you thinking?”
    Anger rises up and makes me throw the covers back … anger and her breath. “I was thinking that I just wanted to have some fun!”
    “You and Cyndi Lauper?”
    I start girl-slapping at her face, but she’s too quick for me. She’s got her slap-o-matic going and I quickly lose ground. Grabbing the covers and suffocating us both is my only hope for survival. It’s once again dark and Cheetoey.
    We both settle in and catch our breath.
    “So what happened with the ad? Did you get butt raped by a tattooed biker from South Dakota named Brutus?”
    I laugh, a bitter kind of thing. “No. Not at all.”
    “Oh.” She pauses to consider my answer. “Did you get stood up? Because you shouldn’t let that get you down. You can intimidate guys sometimes, you know that. It’s all that hooterage, I think. Maybe he saw you and your busty self and took off, scared out of his wits.”
    “No, I didn’t get stood up, okay? And could you not talk about my hooters right now?” It makes me think about how much William seemed to like them, and the sadness runs deeper. How could I have been so stupid? It was supposed to be for only one night. I knew that going in. Why am I still thinking about him? I’m afraid I’m one of those losers with zero confidence. I think I need therapy.
    She reaches up and pats my face, possibly trying to soothe me. “Tell me what happened, sweetie pie. I can make you feel better, I promise.”
    “Mia, when you say that and we’re in bed together, it’s a little creepy.” I can’t help but laugh just a tiny bit.
    She sticks her finger up my nose, I think accidentally. “Shut up, you know I’m no muff