Page 19 of Mostly My Boss
I tried to emphasize his shoulders, which were pretty wide, and hide his lower torso, which was really narrow.
The Adderall. I’d looked it up online after he’d told me he’d been on it for years. One of the side effects was weight loss. Lack of appetite. Sometimes nausea. I’d asked him if he’d had any of those symptoms and he’d waved me off like he couldn’t be bothered.
Almost like he was pretending they didn’t matter when, I was guessing, the reality was those symptoms had shaped his life in high school. Which was why he was trying to ditch the pills for a new start in college.
The other thing I’d researched: Adderall withdrawal. I hadn’t seen any obvious signs of depression, but his inability to focus happened frequently. And he mentioned being an insomniac like it was just another condition he had, but that was another potential symptom of withdrawal.
Which, I suppose, wasn’t my problem. Or shouldn’t have been. I’d just gotten to the point of acknowledging that, so far, he was my best friend in college.
So far.
While Nicki and I were trying to do more things together, it wasn’t as easy as it was with Ethan. Mostly because I had this sense of superiority when it came to our relationship.
He needed me. Not just with class but with people, how he interacted with them. When we were in a group, he would look to me for cues. A small shake of my head or a raised eyebrow was all it took for him to understand what I was telling him.
That helped to define exactly what we were to each other.
He came up with the crazy ideas, like finding our looks in Nordstrom. And I reeled him in when those ideas were a little too farfetched.
Like finding somewhere we could go skydiving, which was supposed to help us conquer our inner fears.
Ways I was not going to die: willingly jumping out of a plane.
I had six different shirts and two different styles of jeans. He’d given me his waist and length measurements but, looking at him, I felt his length was off. Like he’d gotten taller but hadn’t realized that about himself yet, so all his pants were too short.
Making my way to where he was still searching through the racks, I noticed he’d found nothing yet.
“I’m that hard to dress?”
He grunted even as he kept flipping through tops.
“Well, let’s do you, then.”
His head popped up and I held up what was in my hands.
“You found all that?”
I shrugged. Dark reddish-brown hair, green-hazel eyes. Wide shoulders, longer-than-he-thought legs. It hadn’t been that hard.
On a hunch I closed my eyes. “What color are my eyes?” I asked him.
“What?”
“Color? You can obviously see my hair is a dark blond, but what’s my eye color?”
“Is this a test?”
“If you’re going to pick out clothes for me, I would think it’s something you would need to know.”
“Guys don’t care about that shit. We care about what’s hot.”
“Yes, but in order for a girl to be hot, she has to wear clothes that showcase her best features. Makeup that highlights her coloring. It’s a freaking science. So if you’re going to attempt to help me find my new look, you should at least know the basics. We’ve been hanging out together almost every day for, like, three weeks. So…what color are my eyes?”
I couldn’t see his expression obviously, but I imagined he was annoyed.
And his nonanswer pretty much told me what I’d already guessed. I wasn’t angry or annoyed that he didn’t know.
I was hurt.
