CHAPTER FOUR: "Unmotherly Love."
I WOKE up grumpy, for some reason.
I don't know why; maybe it's because I got severe cramps in the middle of the night and I'm not due for a couple more weeks, or it could be the fact that my dad is screaming downstairs in Spanish about how he is going to kick someone's ass.
"Suck on that, you rotten tomato! Oh, yeah? You wanna work that way, huh? Well let's see how you react when I make you slip on a fucking banana peel, bitch!"
My eyes widen at my dad's profanity and I lunge out of my bed, not even bothering putting pants on, even though my shorts aren't all that revealing. I skip down the stairs, nearly breaking an ankle in the process, and rush to the living room where I see my dad sitting in front of the TV. Screaming. At my best friend. Playing Mario-Kart.
"Dad! What are you doing?" I ask warily. I have to admit, gaming is no laughing matter. I have the tendency to cuss out whoever I'm competing against, so that's probably where I inherited it from. My dad thinks he is amazing at Mario-Kart; or any video game, really. He gets so into it, he honestly can't stop unless someone does it first.
"What does it look like I'm doing, Brooklyn?" He snaps, "I am whooping your best friend's ass at this game."
"No you're not." Justin laughs. "I'm whooping your ass."
"Are not!" Dad argues.
"Are too!" Justin retaliates.
Lucky of me to have a dad and best friend who out-cuss each other all day every day. I seriously don't know how I ended up with a family like this.
Well, at least my parents love him.
"Guys, it's not even 9:00 in the morning. Why are you screaming at each other so early?" I ask.
"Because I wanted to game and you were sleeping! Who else was I going to bother?" Dad interrupts, and I watch as he gets blown up by a bomb I recently watched Justin throw behind him. "Hey! That is murder! Now I'm in last place!"
"Aaron, you were always in last place." Justin points out as he passes another obstacle that has been targeting him: orange turtle shells.
"No way! I was tenth five minutes ago!"
"My apologizes." Justin says sarcastically. I watch in amusement as dad shrieks once he gets what I like to call 'Whirly Birds.' Those blue bomb shell things the player in first place gets? Yeah, those.
"Take that, bitch!" Dad yells, dancing around the couch opposite of Justin. I take a seat next to my best friend so I don't get trampled on from my father. I watch as the blue thing comes up and starts to blow Justin up, when suddenly Justin defeats it by using his giant mushroom to make him grow larger. "What the absolute hell?! You can't even get those in first place! You cheater!"
I start laughing my ass off as dad continues ranting.
I roll my eyes and excuse myself to go shower after the fifth round of dad losing and Justin laughing and spreading his victory in his face. I can still hear the boys fighting as I turn on the water and undress.
After my shower was completed and I changed into comfortable clothes, I decided to start prepping for the party tonight. I made a list of things I needed to get from the grocery store, and things that needed to be put away for safety measures.
It takes me three hours to get everything organized, and when I'm ready to go bug my father to drive me to the store, he and Justin are still going at it in Mario-Kart.
"Dad," I groan as I see him standing on the couch spinning the plastic steering wheel like he's doing zigzag's with his arms.
"Hold on," he says in a determined voice. "No! You bastard!" Dad growls and throws himself onto the couch in defeat.
"Dad." I say again, more authority in my tone.
"Fine, fine, what do you want, devil child?"
"I'm your only child." I point out.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
"Can you drive me to the store? I need supplies for tonight."
Dad lets out the longest, dramatic sigh you could ever imagine. "Do I have to?"
"Yes, dad, you have to." I chuckle.
"Can't you just take the car instead? I don't wanna go anywhere!"
"I would but I, you know, can't drive." I point out with an eye roll.
I have my beginners, but I can't drive unless I have an adult with me. That being said, dad needs to come whether he likes it or not.
"Motherfucker." He grumbles.
"Language!" Justin exclaims in my native language.
"Shut up you little dog." Dad hisses at Justin. Justina just laughs and shakes his head. "Fine. You better hurry the hell up though, I have a boy's ass to kick."
"You aren't going to win, Aaron." Justina smirks, and pulls me out of the house. Luckily I threw on shoes before I came downstairs. Dad huffs but nonetheless follows us.
***
"What, are you having the whole country over or something?" Dad mutters once we're in line to pay.
"Just a few bigger countries. Canada, India, and China are for sure coming." I grin, nudging my shoulder with his. He sighs loudly, and starts to put the items from the cart onto the counter. Once everything is rung up, we get our total and dad's jaw literally drops.
"Brooklyn May! You are one hell of an expensive brat!" Dad exclaims in my ear quietly.
"Daddy, I never asked you to pay for it, did I?" I reply with a roll of my eyes. I shake my head at him and hand the lady behind the cash register the total. My father looks at me confusedly, and out of the corner of my eye, his eyes widen.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
"Does it matter?" I ask.
"You're not selling drugs, are you?"
I sigh. "No, father, I am not."
"Then. . ."
"I saved up from babysitting around. You don't remember how I babysit the neighbourhood, do you?"
Dad blushes as he processes this and hangs his head down in embarrassment. "Carry on, then."
***
"Everything looks to be in order. We got everything ready, right?"
"Yes."
"Positive."
"Yes."
"A hundred percent?"
"A thousand."
"What aboutâ"
"JâLo, for real, stop overreacting. It's just a party. You act like you haven't thrown one of these."
"I haven't in a while." I hiss. "What if Stacyâ"
"Stacy won't do anything. This is your house."
"You're right," I say in defeat.
Dad left not too long ago, heading to the pub to meet up with some of his friends. He helped a little bit with the setup until Justin and I kicked him out once Lacey and Jody came. Justin and the girls helped me with setting up the rest of the house, and now we're just finishing up and double checking to make sure everything is how it's supposed to be.
It's really not all that big of a deal, but the whole school will be coming, and that's a few hundred kids. My house is big enough to hold that many kids, but it will be crowded as hell, and the fact that the popular kids would even consider coming makes me even more nervous.
What if they don't like it?
What will they say on Monday?
What if Stacy finds out?
All these questions are worrying me crazy. I'm already a target of a popular girl and her henchmen, and the last thing I want is all the populars to target me. One bad thing from a party from a popular kid, and my reputation can be in jeopardy.
With very, very bad consequences.
"Of course I'm right. Now, go get dressed and meet me back down here. People will be arriving soon." Justin says, pushing me up the stairs.
"But I'm already ready." I point out, and halt in my steps. Justin's eyebrows rise and he looks taken aback. He checks me out slowly, and then shakes his head.
"No, you aren't." He responds, and drags me up the stairs.
"Fix her, please. She thinks she's ready." Justin sighs to the girls, and begins walking out.
"Worst best friend ever! Why the hell am I even friends with you?! I hate you more times than not!" I shout at him.
"Brookie, baby, just because you scream at me in Spanish doesn't mean I don't understand you. You taught me the language, remember? I know everything that you say. And, as a fact, I am the best best friend in the history of best friends. You're welcome." He tsks, and winks and closes the door behind him.
"Arggg! I hate you!" I scream.
"You love me!" He shouts back, and I cross my arms with an aggravated huff as my two best friends take me by the arm and drag me to my closet.
"I'm thinking cute but sexy." Jody squeals, throwing items all over my floor.
"I'm thinking innocent, but life of the party." Lacey inputs, and the two girls high five one another as they start matching outfits.
An hour later, and I'm sat on my bed with wavy hair, and a short dress on. The dress is white and goes just above my knees. It's very plain, nothing designed on it. Why it took them a half hour to settle on my outfit is beyond me, since I could have easily picked that. But nobody allowed me to wear my skinny jeans, so now I have to settle with this. It has a sweetheart neckline, and is tight around the waist but flowy from there down. It shows curves, which is probably why the girls chose it, but nonetheless, I'm satisfied.
They refused to let me wear my converse, but I fought with them endlessly and they finally ruled in my favour once they seen that I wasn't going down without a fight.
Or maybe it's because I purposely spoke Spanish to them until they finally gave in, told me to shut up with my gibbering, and threw the shoes at me.
I knew I could get a hit out of them; especially with Lacey since I kept using words that involved me rolling my R's, and she was getting agitated because she still sucked.
The doorbell rang and now the two girls and I are skipping down the steps. Justin opens the door and that's when people start piling in. Person after person after person, it takes not even an hour for my house to be swamped with a hundred kids, minimum.
The place was initially BYOB, but I did supply some. I laid out several different bottles, and people are already digging in at the alcohol.
A few hours in, and we all were hammered.
Well, that is, everyone but me.
I do drink. I do, and that's often. I'd choose alcohol over marijuana and cigarettes any day, but the thing is. . .
I have a high alcohol tolerance.
Like, really high. I chugged a bottle of vodka once, and I only got a slight buzz. It took three bottles for me to finally get drunk to the point where I didn't care about anything. So while everyone was drunk out of their minds, I was just starting to get drunk.
Drunk me is very fun; or at least that's what I'm told. I don't drink too much to the point where I get drunk, because then it's like I forget English. I usually only speak Spanish, and very little English, if anything. I talk and talk and talk, but nobody understands me unless they know the language.
Another reason why I don't get drunk is because I am a little mean and flirty.
And I hate flirting.
"Rocking party, Brooklyn!" One of the freshmen slurs to me.
I give them a wide grin, and bow down with my bottle in hand. "It is, isn't it?"
"Either I'm a lot more wasted than I thought and I'm making up languages, or you're speaking crazy." He laughs, and tilts his head to study me, seeing if he's actually making things up or I just spoke something foreign.
See?
"It's. . . Spanish. I speak Spanish when I'm drunk."
"Oh! Well, I only heard that first part, but cool! See ya." He cheers, and howls before running off to the living room to go dance.
"Brookie, Brookie, Brookie, baby, I love you! Marry me? Marry me, please." Lacey runs up and throws herself into my arms, collapsing on me.
I laugh as I hold my best friend up. "Lacey, Casey is your future husband!"
"Casey is soo boring, though! I need fun! You're fun!"
"I am like Channing Tatum. Dancing with hallucinations. When he's high on WIFI in the Jump Street series." I grin, and Lacey nods her head rapidly.
"I want WIFI." Lacey pouts.
"Go ask Casey." I push her, and she jumps and shouts back an 'okay!' before running off to find her boyfriend.
The rest of the night is spent with me dancing around with Justin and Johnny. Johnny's swaying with me to the beat and Justin's on my other side, so I'm stuck between two of my grinding best friends.
Suddenly, a strong hallucination overpowers me and I see my mother standing beside me, looking at me with wide, angry eyes. I stop, pushing Johnny and Justin off me to rub at my eyes and get rid of the horrible image.
Sadly for me, the image doesn't disappear.
"Oh shit." I gulp, and my two best friends that I was just grinding on, turn to me and their eyes widen.
"Oh shit is right." Mom snarls. "Everybody out!" She screams, turning the music off and throwing kids out of our house. So much for fun. Now I'm drunk and have to deal with a cranky mom.
She eventually gets everyone out, our house looking like a Hell Hole.
"You are in so much trouble!" She snaps viciously, and steps towards me tauntingly. "You just wait until your father gets home!"
"Dad's not home for another hour. He even said so." I point out, laughing.
"Excuse me?"
"Dad knows. He even helped set up!" I giggle.
"You won't be laughing when I ship you away." Mom threatens, and I giggle even more. This woman cracks me up. So, so funny.
"You're funny, mommy." I say, slapping her shoulder teasingly and taking another swig from the bottle, but it gets ripped out of my hands, causing more than half the liquid inside to fall onto our floor. "Hey! I was drinking that!"
"Yeah, well not anymore. You're too young to be drinking! Let along throwing parties!"
"You're no fun!"
"You're moving." My mother hisses.
My eyebrows shoot up. "I'm moving right now, mom, obviously." I point out with an eye roll.
"No, Brooklyn, you're not going to be living here anymore. You're moving. I'm moving. We all are moving."
My smile drops. "What?"
Moving? What does she mean by moving? Moving across town, across the city, what?
"I took the job in New York. I'm moving there at the end of the month." Mom says a bit more softly.
"So? I'll just stay here with dad then."
"No, Brooklyn. Your father is coming too."
Huh. Well, this is probably the worst crashed party in the history of crashed parties. "I guess the Big Apple will be fun."
"See, that's the thing, honey. You're moving to Canada."
My jaw drops to the floor. She can't be serious. Is this some drunken hallucination? Am I a lot more drunk than I thought? This is crazy. I'm not moving out of the country! No, this is just my mind playing tricks on me. I'm not actually moving, and my mom didn't just spill a $50 bottle of booze out of my hand.
"You're just so, so lame in my hallucinations." I snort, and shake my head to go to my room, since she crashed it.
"This isn't a hallucination, Brooklyn. You. Are. Moving. To. Canada. In two days, to be exact."
I stare at her for a minute. "Pinch me so I know I'm not sleeping." Justin shrugs and comes up, pinching my arm. "Ow!"
"You asked me to!" He exclaims. For a while, I totally forgot that my friends were still here, listening to us. Maybe that's why mom says some parts in Spanish and the others not. Sucks for her though, because my friends know exactly what she's saying. And by the looks of Justin and Lacey's faces, they aren't all too pleased by it.
I realize that what she's saying is true and I feel my giddiness change into pure anger. I snatch my arm out of her hold and grab the bottle that remains in her arms. "You're shipping me off to another country?! Alone, by myself?! What kind of mother are you? What kind of witch just ships her kid off to some place she doesn't even know well? You're the worst mother ever! I hate you!"
Have I mentioned that drunk me is not only fun, but also a complete bitch?
I gasp at what just came out of my mouth, but I don't take it back. My eyes widen and I make a quick dash for the door, swinging it open and running off. Where to, I have no idea. But I just keep running.
And I don't stop.