It's You. It's Always Been You.

Content

"Play something peppy." Constel said to her cellphone, staring at it, as if her Pandora app could hear her perfectly.

She sat on the couch, sprawled across it in a way that would very clearly say to anyone who witnessed such a sight that her day sucked-- but Constel considered herself an optimist-- and so there she was, practically face-planted on the the brown leather sofa, demanding a peppy song with an attitude in her voice that nothing but an incapable app could say no to.

Of course, Constel was also the kind of girl that would only use that tone of voice on something that was incapable of completing her request. Perhaps it was the fact that demanding it made her feel somewhat in control, but she never had to deal with the guilt of being too needy later-- after all, apps don't have feelings.

There was a can of generic brand whipped cream in the fridge that she had bought earlier in the day. It was something she didn't have money for, but she labeled it as a mental health need and splurged anyway. Now, though, she was glued to the couch with the strongest adhesive possible-- exhaustion.

Good heavens she needed a second job.

It was such a viscous cycle. Constel was stressed because she was supposed to be working. She was supposed to be getting more money. She was supposed to be... not this.

She'd been offered a job earlier, and she'd also been on the brink of getting another one, but she turned them both down. She thought she could be picky. Apparently not.

So, Constel got picky. She got picky and started incurring mental health expenditures as a result-- ones that came in pressurized metal cans with artificial additives in them. She'd be healthy when she had a real job, she told herself. No money for that now.

Pandora did not play a peppy song.

Pandora played a highly cliche, four chord pop song.

Constel thumbed it down. Then Pandora started playing a peppy song. "Walking on Sunshine". Constel thumbed that down, too. Too peppy.

Not wanting to face the fact that she didn't actually want to be peppy, Constel shut Pandora off entirely. Then she got up, popped open the can of not-dairy, and squirted a lot in her mouth. Squirt, swallow, repeat. She did this for awhile, then realized she'd likely have another mental health day in the future and she didn't have another $2.98 to spend on cures for that, and stuck the can back into the fridge.

Suddenly an image of her not next door neighbor Carter picking apart everything wrong with generic, preservative filled whipped cream in a can entered her mind, and she shut the fridge quickly. Then she made a face at it, somewhere in between disgust and done, topped with eye rolling.

Carter.

What a guy, she thought.

To be honest, he wasn't so bad. He was pretty nice, actually. But her ego was taking some serious hits with the not having another job thing, and not getting exactly what she thought she could get from Carter. Add sugar and exhaustion and suddenly, Carter sucked.

She knew Carter before this semester, before they were neighbors. They had a class together. He was nice. They talked some. She had a boyfriend, though, and despite her occasionally looking at him and thinking that he really was quite nice, she always quickly chastised herself, reminded herself she was very content with what her current relationship, weakly refuted it with how nice he was, and then effectively distracted herself.

She really, truly was genuinely was happy with her previous boyfriend. There's always room to be happier, but she was happy enough.

But her past boyfriend had just not worked, so they mutually broke it off. Then after they broke up he sucked, even without sugar and exhaustion. Even without exhaustion and with sugar. They broke up on good terms and vowed to stay friends. Yet somehow he never called when he said he would, or visited when he said he would, or sent the postcards he said he was sending, or... you get the idea. There was a reconciliation of sorts when they returned to school for the semester after a summer apart, but they weren't dating.