Hearts Don't Break Around Here

Chapter 1 - Snickers

Present Day

Nobody believes Jennie when she tells them that Roseanne's hair used to be wild when she was younger. Like, crazy wild. The curls were untamable. They fell into her face and bounced and tangled and grew at an alarmingly fast pace. They were more white than golden, more frizzy than tight, and got caught in her eyelashes. Jennie's hair was always short and choppy, so she was fascinated by the creature that seemed to be sitting atop Roseanne's tiny head. Roseanne was always self-conscious about her hair. One time, when she was six, she gave her older sister twelve cents to straighten the curls down and was thoroughly disappointed when it didn't turn out how she wanted it to. It stuck out in every direction and completely covered her eyes like a shaggy carpet.

Jennie remembers it like it was yesterday. The constant struggle with that wild, bushy mane of hair. Of course, as Roseanne grew older, the hair eventually straightened out and became a more regular blonde. She got it cut differently throughout the years, naturally. And now, Jennie is scrolling through her phone and sitting on her bed while Roseanne runs a comb through her long, wispy blonde hair for the thirtieth time, nervously biting her lip and trying to get it into place.

"Rosie," Jennie says, throwing her phone to the side and watching Roseanne's worried face in the mirror. "Rosie, your hair looks fine."

"No! It doesn't!" Roseanne pouts. "It always looks the worst when I have somewhere important to go! God, I hate it."

"I'm telling you it looks fine."

"Well, I don't believe you." Roseanne snaps back. "And besides, even if it did look good, which it doesn't, I still wouldn't be worthy of this guy." She groans frustratedly and chucks her comb. It clatters as it hits the mirror and falls to the counter.

"He's not that hot," Jennie says. "You guys are like both eights." A pause. "Eight point fives."

"Eight point--did you see him?" Roseanne whirls around, flabbergasted. "I accept that I'm an eight but him? I don't even know why he agreed to go out with me! I can't screw it up."

"You won't. You literally never do. There has been a guy here, like, every weekend for the past year." Jennie says, rolling her eyes.

Yes, she lives with Roseanne. She wishes she could say that it was a complete coincidence, ending up in the same city after college. But it wasn't completely a coincidence, because Jennie deliberately applied to jobs where Roseanne would likely be. Roseanne doesn't know this, of course, because even after all these years of being best friends, Jennie will never admit to her that she is one of the most important people in Jennie's life. It's just that Roseanne has so many...friends. So many important people. But Jennie really only has Roseanne. So, it's not something that she likes to advertise, her complete dependence on this stupid, annoyingly charming girl. But yes, they share an apartment, and yes, they have never gone more than three months without being in the same place. But that's just how it is between them, how it always has been. And there's never been a problem with it before.

Their apartment isn't anything to write home about. They did just graduate from college after all, and both of them have entry-level jobs with little pay, so it's not like they were expecting royal treatment. Jennie loved it just as it was when they moved in two years ago; white walls and beige carpet and dim lights with very little room for anything else. Roseanne, however, was horrified by it and spent the first six months of their time re-painting the entire living room and buying cheap prints from Target to hang on the walls. She once visited a thrift store and came back with a rug to "dress up the space" that ended up being infested with bed bugs. They had to live at Roseanne's parents' place while their entire apartment was quarantined and cleaned out.