Everything I Need

Part 5

Charlotte pushes her hair from her eyes because it’s habit at this point. It’s the only thing she feels comfortable enough to do. “You should be more careful.”

Shela gives her a look. “We can’t all be as sensible and put together as you.”

Charlotte ignores the comment and reminds herself that drunk people say things they don’t mean. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Shela starts chuckling and throws her arms out dramatically. Charlotte catches them as Shela almost hits her with a stray palm. “I drink to numb the pain!” she hollers and only laughs harder when Charlotte presses a hand to her mouth. “You’re so serious!”

“You need to go to bed,” Charlotte tells her, panicked and quiet. She’s scared because tonight isn’t like other nights where Shela grumps around until she falls asleep. Charlotte knows there’s something wrong. “You need to sleep it off.”

Shela’s head rolls as she turns to her with a sudden look of anguish. “But I’ll dream about him.”

Charlotte frowns in confusion and starts to tidy all the things Shela’s knocked over to avoid the discomfort she feels. “Who? Your boyfriend?”

Shela shakes her head and swallows dryly. Her jaw quivers when Charlotte watches her. “My dad,” she whispers. “He died four years ago today.”

Charlotte stops fussing and can’t think of anything else to do than reach up and push the hair from Shela’s eyes again. She hates how f*****g deep they are when she’s like this.

“I miss him, Charlotte,” she whispers softly. She nods her head and her eyes are glassier from more than alcohol. “I miss my mom, too. She—she disappeared. Changed. Broke. I don’t know. I don’t know. She drinks a lot, too.”

“Shela…” Charlotte whispers and she wants to say something. She wants to tell Shela that she understands what it’s like to miss something, to miss someone who isn’t here anymore. She wants to explain so many things but she knows that Shela probably doesn’t want to listen.

Shela closes her eyes and when she looks up, Charlotte's sure she’s never looked at her with such clear and soft eyes. Her jaw quivers and she manages to prop herself up a little so that Charlotte can help her to sit up and lean against the bathroom cabinets.

“I’m tired of acting brave,” she whispers now that she’s closer. “Everyone thinks that my life is perfect and it’s not. It’s not. I’m tired, Charlotte.”

Charlotte’s thumb wipes away the first tear that escapes down the apple of her cheek and nods in understanding. “Me too.”

Arms find their way around her shoulders without another word. Charlotte sighs at the weight and feel of them as Shela sinks into her arms. She falls into the embrace without thinking and grits her jaw against the onslaught of things she doesn’t want to feel. Shela snuggles softly into her neck and Charlotte’s hand finds the back of her head without even really thinking about it. She lets Shela find the comfort that she needs until she pulls back and wipes her face.

Charlotte decides to act like the last five minutes never happened. “Ready for bed?”

Shela shakes her head and smiles. “I think I need to puke first.”

Charlotte reaches out to push her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll wait with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Shela mumbles and the expression that crosses her face tells Charlotte she won’t be waiting long.

She shakes her head. “I’ll wait anyway.”

Shela’s expression softens and Charlotte busies herself finding a hair tie and a bottle of water. When Shela finally vomits, Charlotte rubs calming circles into her back and tries not to think about the fact that Shela comfortingly holds onto her bare ankle as she leans over her. She helps Shela wipe her face, puts toothpaste on her toothbrush, and hands her a cold bottle of water. Shela strips down to her underwear right in front of her and it’s weird that it’s not weird. She takes the shirt from Charlotte’s hands and lets Charlotte pull the covers over her.

She thinks that Shela’s asleep, her hands reaching for the now-cold covers of her own bed, when Shela speaks again.

“Charlotte?” she whispers.

Charlotte stops and waits for her. She catches sight of her, laid facing the wall, curled into a ball.

“Thank you,” Shela breathes and Charlotte thinks that she might be crying again.

“You’re welcome,” she whispers back. And then— “I’m right here.”

Shela nods and snuggles down under the covers.

“I know,” she breathes.

She sounds peaceful.

//

She rolls off of Oliver and instantly reaches for her b*a. She feels his smug smile pressed against the back of her shoulder and gets up to shrug him off.

“That was the last time,” she tells him. It’s not the first time she’s told him this and he looks at her with smug disbelief. It drives her crazy—makes her mad—and she shakes her head and lets the color rise in her cheeks instead releasing the anger. “I mean it,” she says warningly as she pulls her jeans on over the underwear that she’s pretty sure is inside out. “Last time.”

Oliver shakes his head and smirks. “You want me.”

Shela rolls her eyes and steps up closer to the bed as she reaches for her shirt. “I want to be fucked.”

“Yeah, but you always come back to me,” he reminds her, his smirk growing. His face softens and he looks at her in a way that she’s sure is supposed to be romantic. “You want me, Shela.”

She pushes him back when he tries to reach for her again, palm flat and firm against his chest as she shakes her head. “I come back to you because I’m hard to please and too lazy to teach someone else how to make me come.” He narrows his eyes at her and she smiles kindly. “I’m here today because I told my mother that I’d go home for Thanksgiving and I don’t think I’ll be able to cope without relieving some stress first.”

“You can make all the excuses you want,” he quips and she reaches for her coat in favor of responding to him.

She’s wrapping her scarf around her neck when she reluctantly looks at him.

“Last time,” she tells him. “I can’t keep doing this.”

Oliver gives her a smile and pulls her down by her scarf to kiss her quickly. She turns her head so that he only gets her cheek. “I’ll see you next week.”

She doesn’t respond but there’s a part of her that thinks maybe.

It depends how messed up her trip home is. She told Oliver that she agreed to go home, but that’s not the truth. She’d been arranging to go home with Sana and her brother for the holidays, but her mother had emailed her early last week with little more than a flight reservation. Shela had called her cursing and her mother had pretty much threatened to cut her off if she didn’t come home. She was already dreading it.

She takes a slow drive back to campus via the grocery store and picks up a ton of crappy food before heading to the Chinese take-out place. She orders her normal order and then orders what she knows Charlotte likes too. She doesn’t realize she’s done it until they hand her the huge bag of food. It catches her completely off-guard and she’s in a daze the entire way back to her room. She’s glad that Charlotte’s there, laying upside down on her bed, watching a movie on her laptop with her earphones in. She’s wearing her glasses and Shela alerts Charlotte to her presence by pushing them further up her nose.

Her eyes go cross-eyed cutely and she reaches to take her earphones out. She glances up at Shela and there’s a smile that half tugs at her lips before it disappears.

“What’s up?”

Shela shakes the bag of take-out at her. “Dinner.”

“Chinese?” Charlotte asks. “I thought Friday nights were party nights. I was about to go down to the dining hall.”

Shela ignores her and takes the containers out of the bag. She sets them on Charlotte’s desk instead of her own because it was too cluttered and messy with crap before she left. Except, when she glances at it now, it’s not. Everything’s tidy and placed into piles. Her books are organized into the order that she’ll need them. Her laptop sits in the middle on charge instead of shoved on the floor under her bed. Her school backpack hangs off the back of her desk chair. It’s then that Shela also notices that her bed has been made and her trashcan has been emptied. Her side of the room is tidier than she could ever make it herself.

Charlotte looks away sheepishly when Shela glances over at her.

She chooses not to mention it and answers Charlotte’s question instead.

“Um, the guys whose frat house we go to have some dinner thing with their professors tonight so there’s no party,” Shela tells her. “Plus, Harper is sick with a cold and Sana has a project due, so… They bailed.”

Charlotte’s face changes and she sits up stiffly, looking away from Shela.

“Sorry you got left with my company, then,” she whispers.

Shela feels her stomach drop before she shakes her head. “I’d already told them I was staying in tonight.” Charlotte glances up at her timidly but Shela just busies herself with the food. “I got you that chicken thing you like.”

Charlotte takes the container quietly and holds it in her hands until Shela falls to sit on her bed beside her.

“What were you watching?”

Charlotte swallows. “A documentary for class.”

Shela unsnaps her chopsticks and hands Charlotte a pair of her own. “Can I watch with you?” she asks as she gets comfy anyway. Charlotte nods and sets her laptop on the desk where they both can see. She restarts the whole entire thing from the beginning and then sits uncomfortably back on her bed beside Shela. When Shela sees the name of the documentary, she chuckles. “Is this documentary about s*x?”

When she turns to her side, she finds Charlotte rolling her eyes. “Are you going to be a grown up, Sunny?” she asks. “Or shall I find some cartoons for you to watch?”

Shela smirks and lets the sudden joy of sitting beside her roommate overwhelm her. She hasn’t felt this at ease all day, regardless of what she spent most of it doing.

“I’ll be good,” she giggles as she shoves her mouth full of lo mien.

Charlotte looks at her dubiously until Shela nudges their shoulders together and urges her to look at the screen. She has that half-amused smile on her face and Shela wishes she could see it more often. She likes it when Charlotte’s playful. She thinks that Charlotte’s more fun than she’ll ever know, than anyone will ever know. She’s glad she gets to enjoy these moments when no one else is looking. She likes that no one else knows Charlotte can be like this.

It overwhelms her in a way that makes it difficult to breathe.

“Watch your dirty documentary, Woods,” she whispers, glad that Charlotte turns away with a roll of her eyes.

Charlotte bites her bottom lip and quietly eats beside her. The documentary is actually weirdly riveting and informative and Charlotte tells her to wait for the really shocking parts and holds her food when she goes to get a drink for them both. It’s calming and she can tell when they get to the part Charlotte got to because she goes quiet and sets her food aside to pay full attention. Shela finds herself glancing at Charlotte more than she does the screen, and it’s endearing how Charlotte’s brow furrows, her jaw sets and her glasses slip down her nose.

Shela can’t stop herself from pushing them back up her nose when the documentary finishes and Charlotte looks at her carefully before reaching for her food again. She gets up to find a fork and Shela watches her move around the room with ease before breaking the silence.

//