Mess To Be Made

4

My mom called me at nine in the morning, telling me that my car was finally finished getting serviced and that I could pick it up today.

Thank God.

Not having the freedom to go anywhere you want whenever you want is actually brutal. So even though my head felt out of sorts and my stomach was doing uneasy flips, I jumped out of Lindsay's bed and told her to get ready.

"For what?" she groaned, shoving her face into her pillow.

"You need to take me home. My car's ready."

"Can't you wait," she muffled.

"Get up," I said, ignoring her question.

I walked out of her room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. I poured two glasses of ice-cold water—one I chugged down and then refilled. I got the Advil bottle out of their medicine cabinet and poured six pills into my hand. I popped three into my mouth and chased them down with my second glass of water.

Then I headed back to Lindsay's room. She hadn't moved, so I walked up to her and pushed her hard. "I got you Advil and water. Now come on."

"Allie," she whined.

"It's like a six-minute drive to my house."

Finally she lifted her head up and glared at me as she took the glass of water and Advil from my hands. She glared at me the whole time as she drank and swallowed.

"I hate you," she said when she had finished.

"I know," I replied and walked to the other side of her room to get my purse and shoes. I heard her get up off her bed and rustle with her dresser drawers.

When I turned back around she was putting on a sweatshirt. She had changed into a tank top and yoga pants. Lazily slipping her converse onto her feet, she trudged towards me and grumbled, "Let's go."

It only took a few minutes of her driving before the regular Lindsay I knew was back. Even though she was still clearly tired and hungover, you could hear the pep seeping back into her voice as she continued to talk about how shitty last night was.

"Fuck Austin," I said to her after she had been going in circles again about how him and Rory were flirting all night. "He's really not that great, Linds, you know you could do better."

"Better," Lindsay scoffed under her breath.

"What was that?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You said 'better' like you didn't believe it."

Nothing made me more upset than Lindsay expressing her lack of self-confidence. It was getting to the point where I just didn't know what to do to show her how worthy she was of only the best. She was kind and beautiful and smart, but no matter how many times I told her that, her mentality never changed.

And lately, especially lately, she even started to get snappy with me when I tried to talk to her about it.

"Well then you must not have heard my tone correctly," she persisted, stepping on the gas to run a yellow light. Before I could get a word in, she changed the subject. "Spencer was looking for you last night."

"I know," I said on a dramatic exhale.

"Was he texting you?"

"Do you really need me to answer that?"

Lindsay snorted. "Well, I think he's starting to catch the feels."

I suppressed a groan and repeated, "I know."