My Little Bird

Part One

"Get your lazy ass off of the bed before I kick you."

A muffled groan into the clean white sheets was my response, eyelids tightly blocking away any trace of intrusive morning light. The bed was just too tenderly faultless for me to even twitch a muscle. In response to a string of insults from the girl perched beside me, I threw my left arm over my face, successfully blocking any defiant strands of light from burning the outsides of my eyes.

The room fell silent for a few gloriously relaxing moments, and I cherished them by teetering on the borderline of sleep, letting my arm slowly drop from my face. However, this paradise was broken when a horrible, freezing sensation enveloped my entire face and automatically caused my eyes to shoot open.

“You bitch!” I snapped at Josie, who was howling with laughter, clutching desperately at her stomach as the droplets of freezing water slid down my face. “I hate you so much.”

“No, you don’t,” Josie countered, her laughs subsiding into soft chuckles as she lowered the bottle of water to the ground. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and stifling a yawn, ignoring the liquid seeping down either of my head.

“Why’d you wake me up, anyway? It’s Saturday, no lessons today. And this is my room, not yours.”

“We’re going to the gym, asshole.” She stood, arching her back in a stretch, before navigating around my enormous double bed. I heard her draw back the curtains even further, and fell back into bed with a sigh.

Josie had been my best friend for six years and counting. I still struggled to get my head around it; putting up with someone like her for so long was surely going to be the death of me. In fact, three years living with her in university was going to be the death of me. Because we were so closely knot, and because we were shy in the face of interaction, we had requested to live together before our first year started – and because everybody at university seemed to be so lovely, our request had been gladly accepted. The two of us had rooms opposite each other in a shared flat of the hall; six other rooms were spread along the corridor, holding the girls that shared our flat. Thankfully, we each had our own en-suite bathroom facilities. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine what it would be like having to wait to use the bathroom, especially living with seven other girls. What a nightmare.

“I don’t wanna go to the gym,” I whined, scrambling to pull the soft white sheet over my head. “I’m unfit and I hope it stays that way. Me and my bed have a stable relationship–”

“Oh, shut up,” Josie cut me off, yanking the covers away and allowing a rush of fresh air to brush my skin. I shuddered, attempting to reach for the sheet, but Josie had pulled it all the way to the bottom of the bed, well out of my reach. “You’re coming with me and we’re getting into better shape, whether you like it or not.”

I groaned and groaned but Josie was impossibly more stubborn than myself. She shoved me out of the bed, even opened my wardrobe and began sifting through the clothes to find my gym gear. We had made a promise to each other, a month before starting university, that we would attend the gym every weekend in order to get into shape. I was regretting that promise as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and forced myself, with a great deal of effort, onto my feet.

Josie handed me a vest top and some grey trackies that an old friend had lent me before I’d left. “Here,” she said breezily, tugging the sleeves of her purple hoodie down and flashing me an obnoxious grin. “Get showered, dressed, and let’s go. I’ll be in our common room.”

With that, she was gone, and I groaned some more before sulkily following her requests.

*

Our hall was very close to the on-campus gym, thankfully. As I speed-walked the running machine with headphones blasting motivational music into my ears, I could see Josie mouthing off about something in the corner of my eye. It would have been hilarious to go on running without being able to hear over my music, but Josie was pretty scary when she got mad, so I reluctantly pulled out the headphone on her side.