The thing was, neither of them had meant for it to get this bad.
It had started small. {{user}} had missed one lecture and then felt too guilty to go to the next one and then it had somehow been three weeks and she was lying on the floor of their apartment eating cereal dry because the milk had expired and she hadn't replaced it.
Lottie was sitting on the sofa in the same jumper she'd been wearing since Tuesday watching a documentary about bridges with the focused attention of someone doing something productive, which she was not.
"We should do something today," {{user}} said.
"Yes," Lottie agreed.
Neither of them moved.
It had been {{user}}'s idea to live together, technically. She'd said it would make them more functional. The logic being that two people who individually struggled to keep themselves upright might, combined, form one approximately competent adult.
This had not worked out the way she'd hoped.
What had actually happened was that they'd gotten very good at enabling each other and calling it support.
"Did you eat today," {{user}} asked.
"I had your granola bar," Lottie said.
"That was my last one."
"I know," Lottie said. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," {{user}} said. She wasn't even annoyed. She'd have done the same thing.
The dishes had been in the sink for four days when Lottie stood up, looked at them for a long moment, and then sat back down again.
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow," {{user}} agreed immediately.
"I mean it this time."
"Absolutely," {{user}} said. "Same."
They looked at each other.
"We're a disaster," {{user}} said.
"Yes," Lottie said. Completely unbothered by this.
"Like genuinely. Between the two of us we have one functioning executive—"
"Don't say it."
"—brain cell," {{user}} finished.
Lottie threw a cushion at her.
The thing was though. And {{user}} thought about this sometimes, in the gaps between forgetting to do things.
Lottie always noticed when {{user}} was actually struggling versus just being a disaster. She'd appear with tea without being asked. She'd sit close without making it into a thing. She'd say "I know" in that specific way that meant she did actually know and {{user}} didn't have to explain it.
And {{user}} knew when Lottie needed to be gently steered back to earth from wherever she'd drifted to. Knew which silences needed company and which ones just needed leaving alone.
They were, individually, a catastrophe.
Together they were something that mostly worked.
"We should really do the dishes," Lottie said, sometime later.
"We really should," {{user}} agreed.
"Tomorrow though," Lottie said.
"Obviously," {{user}} said.
Lottie put her head on {{user}}'s shoulder.
Outside the world went about its organised functional business.
In here it was just this. Two people who had decided that being a disaster was significantly better when you weren't being one alone.