Come As You Are Read Online Free

tell new U of M students? Plan on being mugged if you live in Minneapolis. I’d been mugged so many times I joked about making a T-shirt with the dates and locations. Like a band tour T-shirt, but with muggings. But Rose? Nobody messed with Rose.
    “I texted you a million times.” Without uncrossing her arms, she pushed away from the wall with her shoulder. Under normal circumstances I got the feeling she would have chewed me out. These weren’t normal circumstances.
    “I had to get out of here.” My phone. Where was my phone? “All of those people. I couldn’t stand it.” Back to the living room, Rose following. Drop down on the couch. Lie down on the couch. Oh my, God. I felt so awful. The two glasses of water churned in my stomach. “Advil,” I whispered. If I talked with any volume I might throw up. “Could you get me some Advil?” I pointed. “In the kitchen.”
    She left and came back with another glass of water and two pills. I sat up long enough to swallow the pills, hand the glass back, and collapse, throw pillow under my head, another clutched to my stomach.
    “You’re hung over.” Not an accusation, just an observation. I could feel her staring at me. “What happened?”
    “Don’t remember.” Faint voice, arm slung across my face. “Blacked out I guess. And I have to go see a lawyer in a few hours.”
    “I could fix you something greasy like fried eggs. Sometimes that helps.”
    “No food.”
    I heard her sit down in my dad’s La-Z-Boy. I tried not to think about how I was lying on the very couch where he’d died. I needed to get rid of the couch. And the La-Z-Boy.
    “I woke up in bed with some stranger,” I finally confessed without uncovering my face.
    “Been there, done that, got an STD to prove it. But that’s not you.”
    “I know.”
    “Were you roofied?”
    “I just think I drank too much.”
    “Jesus, Molly. Not about the drinking, but about the way it happened. I should have been here.”
    “Mmm.” That’s all I could manage to get out.
    “What’d he say? The guy?”
    I dropped my arm to my side. “I left before he woke up.”
    “Was he cute?”
    I stared at her.
    She blushed. “Oh, God. I’m so shallow. Sorry. I’ve never dealt with death before. It’s hard. Like hard to know what to say. Oh, crap. Now I’m making this about me.”
    I’d never seen Rose rattled. “It’s okay. Really. I don’t know if he was cute. Maybe. Doesn’t matter. It’s over and done. I have more important stuff to deal with. He’s obviously some loser who hits on drunk girls. Hopefully I’ll never see him again.”
    “Right. Loser.”
    “Creep.”
    “And now I gotta go,” Rose said. “Gotta be at work in a few hours. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
    I heard the relief in her voice, and I had to wonder if she knew more about me than I realized. I’d never talked to her about the bridge, but maybe she’d somehow picked up on my infatuation with it.
    “Sorry about running off,” I told her.
    “That’s cool. I get it. At least the running part. And the drinking part too.” She stood up and shook her long shapely legs so her shorts weren’t quite so short. “Need anything before I leave?”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Are you staying here tonight? Or at the duplex?”
    “I’ll probably stay here a few days at least.” I didn’t like the thought of sleeping upstairs in my old room, but I’d be alone and I needed to be alone for a while. The duplex was usually party central, and I couldn’t deal with that right now.
    “I wondered if you’d stay here for good.”
    “Maybe I’ll rent it out.”
    Rose looked around. “I’d so move back if I were you.”
    It was a nice house. A lot of thick, dark wood. Kind of Frank Lloyd Wright, I supposed. But shitty carpet and shitty furniture. Other than the upstairs bathroom nothing had ever been updated, my father always saying he couldn’t afford it.
    I’d never move back.
    Rose was ready to leave when I stopped her. She paused