It Ends Where It Starts

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I woke up the next day to the sound of snoring inside my room. Technically, it wasn’t snoring—it was like words or whatever coming out from someone’s mouth. It was more like a sound, though. I couldn’t really describe it, but it was one thing—disturbing.

I rubbed my eyes and then stretched, and as I did I came in contact with my phone. I grabbed it and looked at the screen, and saw the time. It was 9 in the morning, and I was meeting Jess at 11.

I decided to get up, but as I was about to touch my feet to the floor, I saw the one that was making those weird noises which woke me up.

Kennedy.

And no, he wasn’t alone. He was with John, and that someone who I didn’t like having around.

I rolled my eyes, wondering how they had gotten into my room. I knew I didn’t lock my door, but for God’s sakes, John had a room. And so did our other brothers, Shane and Ross. So why did they crash into mine?

I didn’t want to be a bitch, but I didn’t want them in my room, since I had somewhere to go to and I would be using it to get dressed and stuff. I started shaking John’s body with my feet, still sitting on my bed.

“Johnny,” I said, using the name us O’ Callaghans used whenever we wanted to wake him up. He stirred, and his face contorted, but his eyes didn’t open so I tried once more.

“Johnny,” I said louder this time, giving him a soft kick in the stomach. He groaned with his mouth shut, but still didn’t open his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake, could you shut up,” the asshole said, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. After doing so, he glared at me, but that glare soon faded as his eyes travelled from my face, down to my chest, and down to my legs. I looked down at what I was wearing, and that was when I remembered I’d changed into a tank top that showed my cleavage and shorts that were, well, short. I laughed louder than I intended to as I looked at him.

“Did you just check me out?” I said, finding it really hilarious.

“No, I didn’t,” he quickly snapped, taking his gaze away from me. But we both knew he did, and I had this over him.

“You totally did,” I teased, couldn’t contain my laughter. “Aw, you’re blushing! Are you starting to have a crush on me or something?” I pretended to sound giddy.

“Get over yourself, not everyone wants you,” he snapped again, angrier this time as he stood up.

“Aw baby,” I cooed, batting my eyelashes at him, “Don’t worry, it happens. Most guys get sexually frustrated over me, and it’s okay if you’re one of them. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” I wasn’t really bragging, I was just teasing him. Both of us knew I was winning, and I loved how he couldn’t come up with any of his witty remarks the moment.

“Fuck you,” he spat as he rushed to the door and slammed it hard. That woke John and Kennedy up. I smiled to myself, happy that I finally was holding something over Stephen.

“What was that about,” John groaned, stretching his arms until it reached Kennedy’s face. Kennedy groaned as well and slapped his hands away.

“None of your business,” I snapped at John as I gave him another kick which made him groan. “Get your asses out of my room. I’ve something to do that doesn’t involve any of you. Why are you even here anyway?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Kennedy muttered, turning to his side.

John finally sat up and rubbed his nape. “The other guys went to sleep in my room,” he answered. “And Ross and Shane locked theirs, so we just crashed here.”

“Well, you can leave now, because as I’ve said, I have important things to do,” I said, fixing my pillows.

“What are you gonna do, baby sister?” John asked as he rested both his arms and his face on my lap.

“I’m meeting Jess,” I answered as I pushed him off and stood up. “So, you two know the door. Or do you want me to open it for you?”

“Where’s Stephen?” Kennedy muttered again as he stood up as well and looked around. His question made me smirk.

“Oh, you mean the one who slammed the door? He’s such a morning person,” I said, shaking my head. Really, I couldn’t wait to see him again and tease him about it. I was winning!

John rolled his eyes. “What did you do?” he asked, as if it was my fault why Stephen had gone pretty much ballistic again.

“Ask him,” I just answered with a laugh. “Now go!”

Finally, after giving me pouts, John and Kennedy walked out of my room. As soon as they left, I took a long bath. When I was done, I started blow-drying my hair. I was standing right in front of my vanity mirror with only my towel on so you could just imagine my surprise when suddenly, my door opened and in came someone.

“What the fuck!” I exclaimed as I saw Stephen come in with his head down, avoiding eye contact with me, obviously. He quickly ran to my nightstand and took an iPhone which I hadn’t noticed until that moment.

“I forgot my phone,” he said simply as he started to walk towards the door.

“Didn’t someone teach you how to knock or something?!” I snapped, thinking of different possibilities and scenarios, like I could’ve been dressing up when he came in, he could’ve seen everything.

“Didn’t someone teach you how to lock your door?!” he snapped back but in a low voice. Right after he’d said that, he walked out and slammed my door shut.

He had issues. That young Mexican had a lot of issues.

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After Jess picked me up that afternoon from my house, we quickly went to the mall to buy new clothes for both of us. Jess was my shopping pal and she was pretty much like my sister, and I was beyond happy to have her, since all of my siblings were boys and none of them wanted to shop with me. Well, John accompanied me sometimes, since I was his princess, but I didn’t really like going out with him because there were lots of delay due to the fact that he was being cornered at almost every boutique in the mall by fangirls asking for pictures and signatures.

Jess was the only good thing The Summer Set has brought to me. I swear, without her the band would just be full of crazy people. John was the sanest among the boys, and that was something considering he was Stephen’s brother. Brian, who was the vocalist, had a big mouth. He would talk non-stop and not only that, he talked really loud, too. He wasn’t capable of having an “inside voice”. Josh, meanwhile, was a sex machine—or at least he thought he was. Every party he went to, every bar he hang at, he always desperately tried to talk to girls and get them to his bed—and he always failed. Well, not always, but most of the times, he did. Stephen—well he was weird, annoying, full of shit, a jerk, a douche bag, an asshole, a pain in the butt, and I could go on for days, believe me.

After shopping, Jess and I just chilled at Starbucks, and talked for a few hours.

“I swear, if I ever drink that shit-mix again, I’ll die,” I said, talking about the drink John had mixed a few weeks ago out of experiment. It was the shittiest thing ever.

“I’m so glad I didn’t get the chance to taste it,” Jess said with a laugh. Their band was still on tour that day and were they ever so lucky. I was pretty sure I was scarred for life after tasting that.

“So, did you have fun last night?” I asked, remembering that I’d spotted her last night talking to a guy whose name I wasn’t sure of.

Jess rolled her eyes at me. “I know you saw me talking to Nick. That was nothing,” she answered.

“That was Nick?” I gasped, then laughed. “I swear, I didn’t know. I saw you talking to someone, but I didn’t notice it was Nick.” Now I was laughing so hard. John had told me that Jess and Nick had a thing when Jess was still in a band with Kennedy called Last Call for Camden. Their relationship didn’t work out well because of a few misunderstandings...well, okay, a lot of misunderstandings.

“Shut up,” Jess said as she slapped my arm. “Stop laughing. It was nothing. We were just catching up.”

“Why so defensive?” I teased. She and Nick were just so cute together.

“Can we just like, move on, before I tease you to Stephen,” she shot back and my smile turned into a big frown. Now it was her turn to laugh.

“Are you bipolar or something?” she asked, laughing.

“You know how there’s this one person in your life who’s like the sunshine, that when he or she is around everything just turns right?” I said, feeling the need to express my hatred towards Stephen in metaphors. Jess nodded. “Stephen’s the opposite of that. Whenever he’s around, everything goes wrong, lightning strikes, children get hurt, people die. He’s like the black plague, you know?”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?” Jess said with another laugh.

“No, that was me sugar-coating my hatred towards him,” I said with a smirk.
Jess shook her head at me. “So, who’s your sunshine, then?”

I licked my lips, “Well, he hasn’t arrived yet,” I said, thinking, “but he’ll come soon.”

A naughty smile played upon Jess’ lips. “Well, you know what they say,” she said as she rested her chin on her connected palms. “The more you hate...”

“Don’t you dare,” I warned, pointing a finger at her. Just thinking of that quote sent shivers down to my spine. It wasn’t true at all. It didn’t apply to everybody and it most certainly didn’t apply to me.

Jess just laughed it off, knowing how violent I could get about the jerk. We just continued sipping our drinks.

<>

Jess came home with me that day, as we decided to go watch a movie at my place. I figured John and the others were gonna have band practice or something, but it told me otherwise when I saw Garrett’s yellow car parked in front of our house.

Jess and I entered the house and there they were, playing cards in the living room. By were, I meant the boys of The Maine. Thank God the jerk wasn’t there. Good thing he wasn’t part of The Maine—just imagine, if he was, he would be “family” too. Ew.

“Can’t you guys spend a day apart or something?” I said with an eye-roll.

“We’re lovers lost in space, don’t hate,” Kennedy answered without looking up at me.

“I didn’t need a song reference.” I rolled my eyes again. “We’ll just be up in my room.”

John looked at me this time and gave me a teasing smile. “Are you gonna get some? Are you into Jess?” he asked excitedly. “I knew it, you’re a lesbian,” he commented, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” I snapped, not really appalled because I knew that it was just John being...well, John. As Jess and I began to walk away, Garrett spoke.

“Those are a lot of shopping bags,” he said. I turned to him and smiled.

“Yeah, we did a little shopping,” I said as I smiled at him. About the same time I did, John glared at me.

“Stop flirting. Fuck off!” he yelled at me and at that moment, Mom entered the living room.

“John Cornelius, watch your mouth!” she exclaimed at him, and that made John pout like a 5-year-old. I laughed silently as I stuck out my tongue at him, and then Jess and I went upstairs.

We picked the movie You Again, but just about five minutes through the movie, Jess’ phone began to ring. As she picked it up, she gave me a look, and that gave me an idea of who she was talking to.

“Hey, Stephen?” she said, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I felt like he was always around me even if physically, he wasn’t. I hated it.

“Uh, yeah, I’m here at Ace’s—okay, John’s place,” Jess said with an eye-roll and I could almost hear the jerk saying Do not say her name or some sort of shit. “Alright. What time? Okay. Yeah, I brought my car with me. Okay. See you guys.”

She then brought her phone down and looked at me. She gave me an apologetic smile. “We have practice at 5,” she said.

I looked at my clock. It was 4 PM already. I looked back at her and smiled. “It’s alright. We still have plenty of time to hangout,” I said.

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow or next week,” she replied and then gave me a peck on the cheek. “I have to go now. I’m really sorry...” she added as she picked up her belongings.

“Really, it’s okay. I’ll walk you down. Maybe I’ll just join the guys or something,” I said and then we both went down.

As soon as Jess left, I had nothing better to do than watch the guys. I sat beside John the whole time, my head rested upon his shoulders, and pretty soon, I fell asleep.