THIS IS WHAT MAKES US GIRLS.

CHAPTER 2

I drift back to reality sometime the next morning and am immediately greeted by a raging headache. Fuck, I think. I rub my eyes and try to remember what happened last night. Automatically thinking about my ex-boyfriend and all the heart break he had caused me, I throw my pillow over my face and try my hardest to relieve my crowd of emotions into a gut-wrenching scream. But just before I was able to let go of that overwhelming angst like I’d hoped, I’m interrupted by a startling crash coming from my living room. Oh yeah. I forgot I had let a stranger in my house last night. Right.

I get out of bed too fast, wobbly and dazed so I press against my wooden bedpost to catch myself for a moment.  Once I’m sturdy enough to make out the shape of my freshly manicured nails, I quickly run out of my room down the hallway. I look around to see what had broken (praying it wasn’t my framed photo of Elvis from his final Memphis show) and see the girl huddling over a pile of shards of plate. I look at the empty coffee table and realize that the girl must have knocked over my favorite piece of china, it was my grandmother’s. Sparkling and white with the most delicate additions of silver bow designs around the edge, my precious darling was now divided into a million bits.  I try to remain calm like my grandmother would have told me to.  I always had admired my grandmother’s taste in everything. She was so elegant.

Now I look back at the girl and I could see her eyes swell up with tears. She opens her mouth as a tear slips down from her left eye. "Shit. Oh my god. I'm so fucking sorry. I-I-I went to go put the clothes you leant me on the table and I got up too fast and I bumped my elbow on the vase and I couldn't catch it in time. I.am.SO.sorry. I can replace it, I promise."

I shake my head in denial. It was indeed my favorite piece of china, and my grandmother had given it to me just before she died. Still, it was an accident.  She had accidentally broken it. It wasn’t her fault, but I knew that it was too far expensive for her to replace it. More tears are streaming down her face and I find my voice to whisper that it was alright.

"Hey, it's alright. I never really liked the damn thing anyways." I lied, adding a little laugh at the end to try and reassure her it was alright.

Clearly her body doesn't handle alcohol well… even though it’s been an entire night, she doesn't seem to have a strong grip on her emotions and she sits down on the couch and cries. I take a small sigh and turn around to get a broom and dustpan and kneel down on my knees to wipe the pieces away. I look up at her to see her looking down at me. Her tears keep rolling down, even though she tries to control them, and I gently place a hand on her knee and smile at her. I tell her it truly was okay.  She nods her head and wipes the tears away, smearing her mascara all across her face.

I let out a little chuckle and she looks confused, "Honey, we should clean you up. You look like a raccoon."

"You don't look so fantastic yourself" she says with a bit of sass.

I smile at her and yawn, then tell her that she should take a shower, "It's right down the hallway, you can borrow some of my clothes... I'll make you some breakfast for when you're done. Is scrambled eggs alright? It's really all I have."

She shakes her head yes and starts to slowly drag herself down the hallway. God she has so much alcohol in her system, she can't even walk a straight line. I walk into my little kitchen and start cracking two eggs for her. I don't know whether she wants salt or pepper on her eggs and I turn the stove off momentarily and walk down the hall to the bathroom.

I go to knock on the door but the door is already cracked open… strange.  I go to close it for her because she must not have realized, but suddenly I stop and look in. She's sitting on top of the sink when she slips out of Chuck’s tee.  Her thin fingers stretch back to unclip her bra. As the bra falls to the ground, I get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and I look down, confused and embarrassed by myself. I don't know what the feeling is, I mean I just saw her backside, not any revealing part of her, all us girls are the same, but I recognized something strange moving inside of me and frankly, it made me rather uncomfortable.

Before she catches me looking at her, I knock on the door and say "Hey, any salt or pepper?" which she replies with, “Yes a little bit of both”.

 I return to the kitchen and prepare her eggs until she comes back out in one of my white V-necks and a pair of my older, short cut off jean shorts. Her hair is wrapped in a towel and she sits down to eat her eggs quietly. I make myself a cup of coffee, black like he used to, and break the silence by asking how she's feeling.

I could see that her mind isn't quite there yet and her eyes are still a bit glazed over but certainly not as much as yesterday. She says she's fine but I could tell that she has a killer headache so I get up and go to the cupboard and get out some Tylenol for her. She pops 3 and thanks me. It's silent again and she's just about done with her eggs when she quietly says "Thank you... For letting me stay, for letting me wear your clothes, for letting me eat your food. I don't know why you're doing this all for me… I mean I'm a stranger for fucks sakes, but thank you." I tell her it's nothing. For the first time willingly, she meets my eyes. 

She smiles and introduces herself, "I'm Scarlett by the way." and I tell her that I am Lana. She offers her hand and I shake it, "It's very nice to meet you Lana." "You too Scarlett." and I smile. Wait.  Dammit. That feeling is back. What the hell am I feeling? I've never felt this way. It's like there's a flock of pigeons flying around my stomach, like the ones out on the windowsill right now. When I shook her hand, she felt electric. Like there was something about her touch that made me feel different than my average self.  I tried not to make it noticeable, but a cool shudder slid up and down my back. She made my body electric.