Five Steps | Chaelisa

Chapter 32

Roseanne's POV

When I wake up the next morning with puffy eyes, there's a small part of me that actually believes I'm going to pick up my phone to find an apology text waiting to be opened.

Pretty stupid of me.

I drop my phone back onto my bed, and for the first time in a long time, I fully take in the horror that used to be my room. My clothes are everywhere, shirts thrown onto the floor, pants strewn over every bedpost. My books and binders are lying across the floor, mixed together with dirty socks. I've been so caught up with Lisa and Suzy and the plan that I haven't really noticed how bad it's gotten.

High school Roseanne would've had a stroke if she'd seen this.

I spend the next couple of hours putting everything back in its place, the way it used to be. The way it should be. An extra pang of sadness hits me as I refold the pile of sweatpants that Lisa destroyed before we went to the mall.

This usually helps. Cleaning tends to have a healing effect on me, but by the time I finish, I actually feel worse, because I spend the whole time thinking about how things ended with me and Lisa last night.

I pull out my phone, my thumb hovering over my mom's contact, but I stop myself. I've basically been ghosting her for two weeks. What kind of message does it send if I give in and call her now, when everything has gone to shit? She's just going to think I need her in the way that I used to need her, and that's not what I want, but I need to get out of my head. I need to get out of this dorm.

So I decide to take a ride over to Alice's house.

When I arrive, she puts a pause on whatever Netflix documentary she's watching, and I plop down next to her on the couch. "What's up?" she asks.

"Not much. Needed to get out of my dorm. Just got done cleaning, because it kinda... exploded. There was crap everywhere," I reply.

"Really? You're always so... neat," she says. I think of my makeup, which was scattered all over my desk from the two hours it took me to apply it before roller- skating and then again before the concert.

"Yeah, well... for once I actually had something to do besides clean." I laugh pathetically at myself.

"How was that concert?" she asks.

"Fine."

"How's Suzy?"

"Fine."

"And Lisa?"

"Fine," I say again.

"So everything's fine, huh?" she asks, clearly picking up on my tone.

"Not really," I reply, letting the sadness seep into my voice as I slouch against the couch.

"What happened? What's wrong?" she asks.

"Lisa turned out to be kind of a jerk after all." I tell him what happened last night, what she said to me at the end of the concert.

"Well, maybe you should talk to her about it. It sounds like things were pretty tense with her girlfriend. Maybe she didn't mean—"

"I'm not going to talk to her, Alice. I was just some stupid project for her. We aren't friends. We aren't anything. I'm done," I reply, tears pressing against my eyes as I try to swallow my frustration. "I never should've taken your advice. I never should've gone to that stupid party."

"Roseanne, come on. You don't mean that. Don't be so dramatic," she says with a familiar tough-love honesty that reminds me of someone else. It's something I don't think she would've said to me a month ago. "I can see how much happier you've been since then. I mean, you're like... with Suzy. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"