With a Little Help from My Friends

The flight attendant refuses to serve me a drink without seeing my I.D first. Is there something wrong with my face? Why is it that everybody refuses to believe I’m of age now?

Grudgingly, I pull my wallet from my jeans and hand her my driver’s license. She looks at it, and then peers over the card to look at me. As if my unshaven stubble weren’t enough to prove that I’m old enough to drink bourbon and coke.

Why the fuck does this always happen to me?

Grudgingly, she hands me my drink. I give her a cold smile as I put it to my lips and swallow the flat soda mixed with cheap bourbon. She stares daggers as she wheels her metal cart away, and moves on to the next passenger. Fuck this shit.

I fall asleep with my iPod stuck in my ears full blast, only to wake to find Miss Bitchy tapping me into consciousness. She smirks when she walks away and disappears into the cockpit. The aisles are empty, and even the cleaners have moved in to suck up all the discarded peanuts lying on the floor. My neck is sore and my body aches, and some of the drink I ordered was spilled in my lap and left a sticky residue.

“Fuck!” I curse myself, and the drink, and quickly make an escape with my luggage.

I don’t look back. Just forward.

I check my messages before I go to pick up the wheelie bag I’d brought on tour. I can smell it on the conveyor belt a mile away, it is that fucking rank. I always wonder how the four of us could get along with each other smelling that bad and I came to the conclusion that we’d gotten so used to the putrid smells of the other that it didn’t seem so disgusting when we were together. But now that they’re gone, it smelt awful. That’s what you get when you shove three months worth of dirty clothes into your luggage.

There’s no one there at the greeting point. It was foolish of me to think there would be. My parents don’t even know I’m coming home, nor do they seem to care. I just come and go, smile and grit my teeth through dinner conversations, say my ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’s and things seem to run much smoother that way.

They never really did approve of me much. I used to spend all my days holed up in my room playing Nintendo, and then I picked up a guitar and started playing ‘devil music’, and then my devil music took me places. I have money, and yet they still classify me as unemployed, and constantly remind me of the opening down at my dad’s law firm, and how it’s never too late to go to law school.

Of course, no one’s home by the time I get there. The house is empty, and it usually is until three thirty, when my little sister comes home from school. I dump my stuff in the laundry, get a load going, and blob out on the couch. Next thing I know, it’s eight pm and my monster of a sister is pummelling into my gut.

“Bren, you fucker! Wake the fuck up!”

A raspy noise escapes through my throat, and catches when her knee sinks into my stomach. “I guess mom and dad aren’t home, huh?”

“Why are you here?” She demands sharply.

I never bothered flipping on the lights in the living room, since the sun was still out when I fell asleep. The TV was still on, and I could just barely make out her tiny figure in the blue glow of the TV.

“You’re ruining EVERYTHING for me!” Quinn stomped her foot impatiently, the way she always did when nothing went her way. I smiled, and I couldn’t help it. No matter how much of a complete diva she was, I missed her. She didn’t seem to miss me much when I pulled her in for a brother-sisterly hug.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She screeched, and shooed me off the couch. “Mom and dad are out for the weekend, and in half an hour, my friends are gonna be here.”

I suddenly felt aware of her. “For what?”

“A little get-together,” She mumbled, quietly, finally coming to the realisation that she was not in a position to be swearing and screaming at me.

I sighed a deep sigh, letting my hands roam through my hair sluggishly. She watched me start for the kitchen, and curiously trailed behind. She’d planted herself on a kitchen stool as I got out the cereal and milk and a bowl and spoon.

“It could be like, some sort of ‘welcome back’ party?” Quinn asked, in a sugar sweet voice. Her big, brown eyes pointed at me like lasers. She was trying to sweet talk me. Too bad I’d collected enough bullshit to last me a lifetime touring with my band.

“Fuck no,” I told her, savouring the fact that the cereal I was eating was for once, not stale at all.

I could hear the gears meshing in Quinn’s masterful mind – or maybe it was me chewing my cereal? Regardless, she was a devious one, that one. I don’t know how she came to be that way, but she did.

“Puh-lease, Bren?” She clasped her hands together. “You never got to go to parties when you were my age! Consider this a second chance.”

I snorted.

“I’ve got it all planned, I’m sure of it! You won’t get in any trouble, since technically, mom and dad don’t even know you’re back. And they won’t be back until Monday afternoon, which is plenty of time for me to clean up the mess me and my friends are going to make.”

Quinn kept babbling as I finished my bowl. And she kept on pleading well into my second bowl of Fruit Loops. They were just that good.

“…so what do you say?” She asked, her eyes widening again in that innocent way.

“No.”

Quinn’s tiny body trembled. It was like watching an earthquake go through a seventeen year old. Her face went red as her hands curled in on themselves, and her muscles all went stiff, and next thing I know, she lets out this horrible noise at the top of her lungs. She doesn’t stop until I shove a hand over her mouth, which is a bad move on my part. Her hands uncurled themselves and she clutched at my arm and began twisting.

I had never, ever, experienced an Indian burn that bad.

“Holy shit, Quinn! You fucking bitch!”

She laughed, though her eyes were full of tears, as they usually were when she was throwing a temper tantrum. “I don’t give a shit. I’m having this party. And if I get in trouble, I’m telling mom you supplied it with beer.”

I stared back at her, the devil wrapped in a teenager.

“Welcome home,” She laughed.

Welcome home indeed.