Beauty Comes in More Sizes than Zero

Chapter 10

"What's wrong?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, nothing's wrong."

"Kelly, I can tell when something's wrong - your forehead gets all weird."

"Cassie, nothing's wrong." I groaned, leaning back into my seat. "I'm just bummed about Alex leaving."

Cassie shot me a disbelieving look from across the room, clearly not believing a word I was saying. Alex, as much as I loved her, was never one you threw a goodbye party for. The girl jumped in and out of our lives so much that everyone had just kind of gotten used to her overnight vanishing act. It was just another part of life - nothing to get overly emotional over.

But thankfully, despite knowing that I was full of nothing other than BS, my friend decided not to push the subject.

"Whatever," she said, waving her concern away with a flick of her wrist. "I have something I need to talk to you about anyways."

I looked up at my gorgeous best friend, her eyebrows scrunched together and her fingers tapping away nervously on the table top.

"Yeah, okay," I mumbled. "What's up?"

Cassie bit her lower lip, and looked up at me nervously. "Brian asked me to move in with him today."

"What?" I exclaimed, a laugh escaping my throat as I threw my arms around her. "That's amazing!"

"Yo – you're not mad?" she asked hesitantly, lifting her hands to hug me back and placing them lightly on my upper back. "I just don't want you to think that I'm abandoning you or anything – "

"Mad?" I laughed, cutting her off as I pushed back and placed my hands on her shoulders. "Why would I be mad? I'm happy for you! You said yes right?"

"Well I wanted to talk to you first." She replied, a smile now growing on her face. "I know that we're both on the lease and you can't afford this place alone so I didn't want to just make decisions without talking to you first."

I felt my heart swell at how much she cared and I quickly pulled my friend back in for another hug. "Cassie, "I'll be fine," I said happily. "I'll find a new roommate or talk to the landlord about letting us out of our lease early or something. Just don't worry about me - not even for a second!"

"Well you could always ask Josh for a raise." Cassie joked whilst leaning away from me and into her chair, her body visibly relaxing. "I'm pretty sure all those late night sob sessions weren't included in your pay and you deserve some compensation for cleaning up the whole Caroline fiasco."

I chuckled, the smile not quiet reaching my eyes, Cassie still didn't know just how exactly I had helped Josh get over his cheating ex and keeping the sex secret from her was really weighing down on my conscience.

"Okay, well if were all done here I think I'm going to call Brian, and you should call Josh. I'm serious about that raise"

I chuckled halfheartedly, knowing full well that after today's verbal smack down, the last person I needed to call was the bully himself. "I'll get right on that, now go, your prince is waiting!"

Cassie squealed before running off to her room excitedly, anticipating telling her boyfriend (and future roommate) the good news.

After hearing her door click shut I groaned into my hands and shuffled my way over to the couch with a bag of chips in tow; sinking down into it as I grabbed for the remote. I tried to focus on the program that had switched on but I just couldn't, my mind was racing with a million thoughts and I couldn't help but replay this afternoons occurrences over and over in my brain.