Everything I Need

Part 4

 “Whatever I drunkenly did last night,” Shela grumbles. “I can only apologize. I’m a d**k when I’m drunk.”

Charlotte laughs at that and kicks off her boots before setting them at the end of her bed. “They don’t call you Party Girl Sunny for nothing.”

“Ugh,” Shela grunts and rolls over to give Charlotte an unimpressed glance. “That’s a f*****g stupid nickname. Especially when I’m the one who’s usually cutting everyone else off. Harper says I’m the ‘mom-friend’.”

Charlotte smiles. “That’s cute.”

“It’s what happens when your mom is a doctor,” Shela grumbles and rolls back into the pillows. “Also, if you were the person who left the water and painkillers for me… thank you but they’re not working.”

Charlotte stands up and heads over to the fridge. “You need caffeine and grease.”

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Shela gives her a smirk like she’s caught her and Charlotte immediately rolls her eyes before throwing her a diet coke.

“You’re not the only mom-friend here, Sunny,” she teases. “But regardless of that fact, just because I don’t drink now doesn’t mean I haven’t had my fair share of hangovers in the past.”

Shela looks at her dubiously. “Really?”

Charlotte laughs. “No, not really. I’ve had like one and that was enough for me. Shall we order pizza?”

Shela looks at her with such appreciation that it makes Charlotte giggle nervously. She shrugs and Shela forces herself onto her side to stare at her.

“If you carry on like this,” she tells her. “You might just end up the best roommate I’ve ever had.”

Charlotte rolls her eyes and reaches for her laptop. She searches through pizza menus as Shela yells out odd requests from across the room. She convinces her to take advantage of the buy four get one free offer and has never rolled her eyes so much as Shela flails around searching for her phone to invite Sana and Harper over.

They arrive after the pizza does and Harper looks at Charlotte in confusion.

“I didn’t think you’d eat pizza,” she comments. “I had you down as more of a salad and soups kinda gal.”

Charlotte fixes her with the same stern stare she reserves for everyone else. She’s about to speak when Shela snorts and throws a pillow at the pair of them.

“Charlotte is a junk food junkie,” she tells them happily. “Don’t be fooled.”

Harper looks impressed and Sana looks confused. Charlotte eats more than her fair share of pizza and is pretty much a spare part to the conversation going on around her. She catches Shela’s gaze when Harper mentions how someone called Chan mentioned that Oliver was sleeping with someone, that they both dodged a bullet by turning him down, but doesn’t say anything off of Shela’s panicked look.

She grabs a book instead and observes the scene from afar. There are still two and a half pizzas stacked atop each other on their window ledge and Charlotte isn’t surprised when Sana asks Shela if she wants to go to a party. Shela nods and goes to the bathroom to change out of her pajamas while Sana and Harper head out to go find another of their friends.

“I’ll be quiet,” Shela says when she comes out of the bathroom. “When I come back.”

Charlotte smiles at her. “It’s fine. It’s Friday night. I get it.”

Shela pauses and smiles gratefully. She looks like she wants to say something but shakes her head instead and reaches for the leather jacket that hangs on her desk chair.

“Have a good night,” Shela says as she reaches for the door handle.

Charlotte nods and doesn’t plan to say anything but she still calls out Shela’s name to stop her from leaving. Shela looks back at her in quiet confusion.

Charlotte shrugs. “Be safe.”

Shela’s face softens as she nods but Charlotte still ends up holding back her hair six hours later when she comes back alone and without her jacket. She stinks of rum and s*x and Charlotte tries not to think about that as Shela rolls around on the bathroom floor trying to pull off her shoes.

“I’m such a mess,” she whispers when Charlotte’s encouraging her to change out of her puke-stained blouse. She’s already shimmied out of her jeans and Charlotte urges her hands to the buttons of her blouse when Shela just lies there uselessly. “I’m such a f*****g mess.”

Charlotte 's brain runs through a thousand different scenarios and thoughts before she grits her jaw and shakes her head. Shela looks up at her sleepily and Charlotte gives a look before reaching for her buttons.

“You’re gonna make your sheets gross,” she says in explanation. “You only changed them today.”

Shela nods and Charlotte sighs in relief when she moves her hands aside to let Charlotte remove the shirt from her body. There are bruises all over her skin and Charlotte tries to ignore them and the perfect curves of her body as she finds her a long t-shirt and some warm socks.

She’s about to head back to bed when Shela reaches for her hand and stops her.

“You’re so nice to me when you don’t have to be,” Shela mumbles and her thumb strokes over Charlotte’s pulse like she’s checking it before her eyes flutter closed.

Charlotte pushes her wavy blonde hair from her face and sighs.

//

Her mother calls her one night in mid-October and Shela breathes out unsteadily because it’s almost one in the morning.

But then, that’s her mother really… never taking anything other than her own thoughts and feelings into consideration when making a decision. It never used to be this way and Shela hates how everything’s turned out. She hates that she never came home one day in June and her mother is only just calling her now in October.

“Mom. Time difference,” is the first thing she says when she answers the phone, turning to her side and talking quietly so she doesn’t wake Charlotte.

Her mom chuckles softly and it drives Shela crazy. “ER night shift,” she says like that’s perfect explanation. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Shela,” her mother warns.

Shela scoffs. “I was asleep, Mom. What do you expect? I have class in the morning.”

The line muffles and Shela guesses her mom is going somewhere more private where she can better effectively tear her down. It’s an old routine, one that’s been going on for years now.

“Shela, I expect you to talk to me when I call you,” her mother says and it’s like she’s in her own little world, her own little bubble, where nothing other than her life and the hospital exists. “I’m your mom. I pay for your education. I expect to know how you’re doing. Even if I don’t understand why you want to do a Dance degree, I expect to know how you are.”

“But you can’t do that in the middle of the day?”

“Shela.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Shela breathes out. “What do you wanna know?”

Her mother hums in annoyance. “How are your classes?”

Shela shakes her head. “They’re fine. Amazing. Professors are great. I’m getting good grades. Next?”

“Do you have a roommate this year or did they give you a single?”

Shela shakes her head and rolls her eyes. It’s times like this when she wishes her mom was still a normal mother but she isn’t. If her mom were a normal mother, she’d be able to tell her that her roommate is great. She’s wonderful, but she’s not what Shela expected. Her roommate blows hot and cold. She’s stern but she’s also soft. Her roommate can’t stand to be near her so much that she spends ninety percent of her time in the library. Her roommate looks at her sometimes and Shela is never sure if they’re going to kill or kiss each other. Her roommate is the most confusing person she’s ever met but all Shela wants to do is figure her out.

If her mom were still a normal, caring mom, she’d be able to talk to her about all these things she doesn’t understand. Her mom would be able to help her.

Except her mom can’t even help herself.

“There’s no singles available until we’re juniors,” she says instead. “I’m in a double. I have a roommate and her name is Charlotte. She’s… she’s really nice. Smart.”

Her mother doesn’t say anything in response to that and Shela breathes unsteadily down the phone, trying not to get angry or upset.

“Do you have enough money?” her mom asks after a while and Shela shakes her head to force away the feelings she can’t ever seem to stop.

This is why they haven’t spoke since June.

“Yeah, mom,” she grits out. “I’ve got more than enough money.”

Her mother doesn’t notice the hurt or the anger in her voice, doesn’t notice the thick ache of tears that soak her words. Instead she makes a disinterested noise and leaves the line silent with all the things they never say anymore. The line is quiet for a long time until Shela hears the sounds of the hospital intercom.

“Gotta go,” her mom says. “Bye, hon.”

The line clicks off before Shela can respond. It forces the tears up her throat and she buries her head in her pillow to stave them off. Shela wants to do something drastic like throw her phone across the room or punch a wall. She bites the fabric of her pillow before screaming loudly into it instead. It’s wet with tears when she pulls back, aching and gasping and she punches the spot before turning over to return her phone to her nightstand.

Brown eyes stare quietly over at her from across the room, polite and understanding. Charlotte's fist is propped under her chin and she watches Shela carefully before speaking.

“Are you okay?”

Shela nods and angrily wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“I’m fine,” she whispers and turns away from her quickly.

She doesn’t need her pity.

//

Shela seems unsettled and Charlotte hates that it bothers her so much.

She’s not been the same since Charlotte woke up to her talking to her mom on the phone at one in the morning. She leaves the room when Charlotte arrives from class or she shoves earphones in and disappears into a world of her own. Her face is always downturned unless she’s with her friends and Charlotte wonders if she intruded too much by asking her if she was okay. She wonders if she overstepped assuming that something might be wrong.

It really doesn’t help that Shela has come back to their room late and drunk almost every night for the past week and a half. Sometimes she lets Charlotte help her but other times she just shrugs her off and changes out of her jeans to fall into bed. The times when she does let her help are the times when she’s too far gone to care.

It happens more frequently than not. Charlotte hates that Sana and Harper just dump her in her room and hope for the best. She hates that Shela only comes back on her own when she’s had enough to drink that it’s dangerous.

There’s only one night that really scares her.

It’s about two and a half weeks after the phone call and Charlotte watches her quietly as she takes herself to the bathroom. She hears the toilet flush and the faucet start to run. She waits for Shela to reemerge for a while but she doesn’t. She expects for the shower to turn on, because Shela’s done that before, but it doesn’t. It isn’t until she hears a crash and a thud that she panics. She rushes for the bathroom door and calls Shela’s name over and over again. She decides she doesn’t care what happens when Shela doesn’t respond. She opens the door and finds Shela sprawled out on the bathroom floor.

“Shela,” Charlotte says, approaching her carefully. There’s a dumb smile on her face and Charlotte kneels down beside her before checking her over. “I heard a crash.”

Shela chuckles. “I slipped.”