Work Text:
As Jess calmed down from her high, she slumps off of her friend, Barb, and laid next to her in her bed. Barb herself was trying to catch her breathe from what happened between the two and ultimately took a puff from her inhaler, of course balancing that out with a cigarette. Barb offers Jess a smoke but she couldn't even respond, she was too busy spacing off.
"Are you going to say anything? Or are we just going to lay in silence and pretend nothing happened between us?" Barb broke the silence.
"No I'm just thinking about things.." Jess finally uttered.
"Geez, I think I would’ve preferred if you just called me bad in bed" Barb joked although somewhat genuinely offended.
"No it's just..." Jess tried to muscle but was kinda tripping over her own thoughts, she lets out a quick frustrated sigh as she tried to express what she was thinking, "I don't know how to feel about this, I just cheated on Peter, my boyfriend, with a woman!"
And there it is Barb thought painfully, she did like Jess a lot and it felt like a dream come true for her when she came into her room and started making moves on her. It all felt too good to be true, and apparently it really was, as Jess seemingly regretted it. And all because of fucking Peter.
"You really think Peter doesn’t cheat on you? You think he won't get bored of you anytime soon and move onto somebody else who can tolerate him?" Barb remarked, she knew that she was hurting her but at this point she didn't care. Her already low self esteem was damaged and she felt like she needed to lash out at someone else. "As we're speaking he's probably in another girl's bed thinking about how little he truly cares about you".
Jess' eyes well up with tears, "You really are a miserable person, Barb" she hisses as she gets up and attempts to get dressed.
The words felt like a dagger in the heart to Barb, because they were true, it's the truth she didn’t want to hear from anyone but especially not Jess.
"Look I'm just saying that you shouldn’t feel guilty about cheating on him when he's the worst" Barb attempted to save herself, Jess pauses; "he's terrible and I truly do think you deserve better than him. He's selfish, he doesn’t listen to you, he doesn’t give you any form of genuine affection unless it benefits him, he doesn’t love you like- *she stops herself from saying anything too weird* he just doesn't love you; And I think that's his fucking loss!"
Jess looks at Barb, tears now falling from her eyes.
"And I think you know all of this" Barb closes her statement, "because otherwise, why did you come to me?"
Jess sits back down on the side of Barb's bed. Barb gets up and joins next to her. Barb offers her a smoke again and this time Jess accepts. Jess takes one long somber drag and hands the cig back to Barb.
"Look, I don’t regret what happened nor did I dislike it, I just hate how weird it feels" it's Jess' turn to break the silence.
"I guess I understand" Barb empathized, "I'm assuming it’s your first time with, you know, truthfully I didn’t know you played for that team".
"It was all kind of spontaneous for me. I guess I didn’t know either" Jess chuckled a little, "I didn’t know about you though"
"Really? I don’t really put much effort into hiding it, you've seen me bring back a girl or two" Barb replies.
"Yeah but you always said that it was for studying".
"That's because I thought 'see you guys later, I’ll be in my room fucking this girl' was too informal" Barb joked. Jess laughed, to which Barb would as well; “I’m actually more shocked that you thought I studied that much before an exam” she continued to giggle.
The two continued to laugh for a little longer when Barb gets serious for a moment. "Jess, I shouldn’t have said all that to you earlier about Peter, I was just being a total bitch for no reason... I'm sorry.. I don’t think anyone could ever get bored of you".
This was maybe the first time Jess has ever heard Barb genuinely apologize for anything she's ever said, even if she said the cruelest thing imaginable and even regretted saying it afterwards she would rather be caught dead than truly apologize to the person she said it towards, so Jess knew she was being serious. "It's okay, I'm not upset at you" Jess accepted the apology although deep down, and she would never tell her, she knew that there was more truth in what Barb said than there was insult.
Barb smiled at Jess, although a bit of an awkward smile, she did mean everything in her apology but she was more apologizing for the fact that she clearly hurt Jess by saying it, and the fact that she knew Jess would be hurt by it but did it anyway. But she also meant everything she said about Peter, it wasn’t fair to her how such a self absorbed pretentious prick like him was able to date the most beautiful and sweet girls she's ever talked to, it made her hate him, and in a way hate herself, more and more as time passed. She was apologetic about making Jess cry over it, but she wanted so much worse for him..
Barb goes to put her cigarette out on the ashtray near her bed when she notices the time.
"Oh shit, it's getting late" Barb gestures to the time "If you want you can head back to your room, especially if you have courses tomorrow I get it". Barb is a little disappointed that it being this late means Jess would have to leave, as well as the possibility that this situation may never be talked about, expanded upon, or repeated again, made more likely with him still in the picture.
Jess starts to get up but stops herself, a few seconds of consideration and she asks the question that Barb was hoping she'd ask, "Actually if it's alright with you.. Is it okay if I sleep here with you for tonight?"
Barb was taken aback by this, though it was impossible for her to contain her joy with this offer, "Well- Of course, I mean of course!" her and Jess make their way back under the covers, Barb pauses for a second; too good to be true; "But.. aren't you afraid that people will get suspicious or even that we might get caught, together, like this?" she asked, although nervous that Jess would change her mind. Jess smiled;
"It's okay, we can just tell them we were studying.."
Barb smiled back; The two stay in the same bed for the rest of the night falling a sleep into each other, maybe the chance wasn’t as one in a million as she believed.