Jack & Lucy

Lucy

My eyes beg me to not open them the next morning. I regret not taking my make-up off when I got home last night because now my eyelashes are sticky and stuck together. I hear my alarm wailing in the distance and I use my hand to fondle my nightstand while searching for my phone.

It's 10 a.m. I have to log on to class in two hours and I am supposed to meet Stella for Barre and boba in a half hour. When she hit me up yesterday to join her for class, I thought I could use it as motivation to get me out of bed. Being back here is supposed to be my fresh start. Focus on my health, my mind and my goals. But right now my bed, a book and some coffee sound more appealing. I feel my phone buzz in my hand and pry my eyes open to read the text.

Stella: I'll be there in fifteen. Don't forget socks.

I moan loudly and dramatically as I drop my phone next to me and wonder if I can use school or my depression as an excuse to get out of the early Barre class. I feel my phone buzz again and snatch it up.

Stella: You're not bailing. See you in fourteen mins.

Damn. She knows me so well. I find the strength to flip my legs over and haul myself off the futon. When Steve said he had a room that he Airbnb's, I figured it would come with at least a full-sized bed. The studio is smaller than it looked in the pictures and I hadn't realized the red IKEA futon shoved next to the kitchenette was the bed. It only takes me three steps to get from my "bed" to the bathroom and it surprisingly only takes me eight minutes to get presentable. I tie a cotton long sleeve around my waist covered in under armor leggings and I have a sliver of midriff showing under my sports bra. My brain whispers "Fappy" to my bare skin and I shake the thought away quickly. Blake had made me feel self-conscious for the last few months of our relationship, so it's the first time I have wandered out of the house even slightly exposed.

I hear Stella's honk right at ten-fifteen and swipe my water bottle off my nightstand. It takes me a few seconds to get the door locked and I try to remember to tell Steve that the lock sticks. I know I'm in a studio behind the main house, but I still don't trust leaving anything unlocked. I am a New Yorker at heart, but I am also okay to be out of the frosty spring weather. 

I see Stella's massive black sunglasses taking up half of her pretty face through the windshield and she spits her gum onto the street as I pull my door open.

"Hey ho," she tells me as I drop into the passenger seat of her BMW and I yank my seatbelt across me. "Were you totally gonna bail on me?" Once I am buckled in I look to her and answer, "Yeah. I was. Last night was exhausting. I didn't get home until two." She pulls out of the driveway as she says, "God, we need to find you a new place. This area is sketch." She grimaces as she looks at the houses around her and adds, "I didn't realize it was this bad."

I drop my water bottle to my feet as I reply, "Yeah well, beggers can't be choosers. And Steve is letting me stay there for cheap."

"People pay to stay in that box?" She asks in shock and I forgot how out of touch Stella can be. She's originally from Scottsdale, but I met her in my Principles of Finance class my first year at ASU. She does freelance marketing in Phoenix now, lives in a fancy townhouse near Roosevelt Row, and sets her own hours. Steve's neighborhood probably does look like the sticks compared to where she hangs around.

"Hopefully I am only there a couple of weeks. My savings were drained while I was off living a dream life and now coming up with first and last for an apartment has been a bitch."

"If Kinsey wasn't in town I would have totally let you stay in my guest room," she tells me sincerely and she was the first person I had asked to crash with when I found out I was returning back home. She told me her sister was visiting for spring break which forced me to reach out to Maggie which led me to her friend Steve. Moving back home with my parents in Tucson would have been worse than working with Jack again, so I never even entertained the idea.