Slice of Adulthood

That One Friend Who Saves Your Butt

"You look pale," Shay said when Jillian let her into the apartment.

Jillian was still in her pajamas, and her long dark hair stuck out at awkward 80's hairband angles.

"Says the woman with the complexion of an egg white omelette," Jillian replied, slow on the insults while her brain was still waking up.

"I am descended from Dutch Milkmaids and Celtic Queens," Shay said, shaking her Goldilocks curls proudly. She was wearing a teal sundress that scooped low at the top, and ended abruptly at the top of her thighs. "What is your excuse?"

"I work all night and I sleep all day?" Jillian offered. "Also: good to see you, too."

"Of course it is good to see you," Shay wrapped Jillian in a tight hug that smelled like coconut scented sunscreen. "You feel skinny. Are you eating enough?"

"Yes," Jillian groaned from inside the hug, "I missed you. You took to long to visit."

"You didn't even come to graduation," Shay complained. "I was so weird when they didn't call your name right after mine. I made me feel like I had an imaginary friend for the last 13 years."

"Yeah, well, your parents are still sending me the paychecks, so I guess I've still got to act like your friend."

"Shut up and get dressed," Shay twisted Jillian around and began to frog march her toward the open bedroom door. "And listen to me complain about my dorm-mate. I won't meet her for another week, but her emails are already making me hate her. I mean, who sends emails anymore? What is this, 2005?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone still uses email," Jillian said, tossing a pile of orange APT shirts on the bed to get to her civilian clothes underneath. "What would you have preferred, a pigeon?"

"You are not an authority on normal humans, you sleep all day!" Shay insisted as she sat down on Jillian's bed and started folding the work shirts neatly. "Anyway, you're my best friend, so you have to agree with everything I say. Then you can call Nina and bitch about me after I'm gone."

"Fuck, how is Nina?" Jillian held a plain black t-shirt across her chest, and looked to Shay for approval.

"No black, it's summer!" Shay said, catching the black shirt for folding as Jillian dug deeper in her drawer. "Not good. You heard about Ian?"

"What a bag of dicks," Jillian said as she searched for something that wasn't black, grey, or brown. "She sent me screenshots of the breakup text. He thought their relationship would hold him back from the full college experience?"

"He was lucky to have Nina!" Shay said, getting up from the bed and opening the closet. When she saw it was nearly empty, she turned to look at Jillian with devastation in her eyes. "Where have all your slut clothes gone?"

"Storage," Jillian answered. "I hope he doesn't have sex once for the next four years."

"Or if he does, I hope he gets gonorrhea."

"Nina is the sweetest person I know. He can't get off that easy," Jillian opened another drawer. "Herpes. That shit is for life."

"Okay, where is storage?" Shay asked after peering into the next drawer and only finding pajamas. "I need you to keep up with my dress code here."

"It's on the way into town," Jillian said, knowing it was futile to resist Shannon Naas on a fashion mission.

"I'll drive," Shay directed. "You brush your hair on the way over."

Jillian had completely forgotten how warm August could be when the sun was out, and she wasn't in the semi-air-conditioned bubble of Always Pizza Time. Shay's late-90s Honda had aircon in theory, and both girls were relieved to find the storage unit was lucky enough to be situated in a patch of shade.

Jillian angled her body away from her friend so that Shay couldn't see her hands shaking as she handled the padlock. The unit had been collecting boxed filled with Jillian's past for nearly six months, and she had been too much of a coward to open it once in that time.

Jillian overestimated the amount of force she needed to pull up the metal shutter and sent it clanging loudly upward.

"All my clothes are in the plastic tubs," Jillian said. "The cardboard boxes are all the things the estate managers packed up."

Jillian had packed all her own things first, so the girls journeyed to the back of the unit. Shay moved more quickly than her distracted friend.

Jillian ran her hand over each crisp cardboard box she passed. They all had neatly printed labels on them: Dishes, Tax Records '02-'07, Family Photographs.

"Oh I hope we find--"

"I am not wearing the sequin dress," Jillian insisted.

"Then maybe I will," Shay huffed.

"Blondes are best in blue," Jillian told her. "Besides, your boobs wouldn't squeeze into it."

"Yours barely did," Shay muttered. Then, she dangled a strappy red tank top in front of Jillian's eyes. "Find some Daisy Dukes, and don't even thing about wearing a bra under that."