Plane Ticket To You

Chapter 3

ELIAS

"You can't ground us," my sisters said simultaneously as soon as we had gotten into the car.

During the entire car ride home, the atmosphere between us had been frosty. Jas and Penny had refused to speak to me, and I had been too worn out to scold them.

It wasn't like they would listen to me, anyway. It felt hopeless sometimes that I would ever make a good guardian for them. How could I be an adequate guardian at the age of eighteen, if I couldn't even stop my sisters from running off to attend a concert in another city?

Suddenly, I felt a rush of annoyance and bitterness for my father.  Aside from the fact that everywhere I went in this small town, I was known as a convict's son, there was also the fact that I had to play-act as Dad for my two half-sisters. And sometimes, I couldn't help but feel like an imposter while doing it.

Our mother had left us shortly after Penny's birth, claiming that she was searching for work in California. But  we all knew why she left.

She despised my father and didn't want to stick around with his kids long enough to see if we'd turn out to be like him. Our mother had only agreed to hand over guardianship to me of my sisters because she didn't want to deal with them herself.

Every time I thought about that, it made me want to punch a wall. We deserved better than what life had given to us, than what our parents had given to us.

Now, at home, Jasmine and Penny immediately went to their room and shut the door.

I collapsed onto a nearby couch, covering my face with my hands. I couldn't afford to go to university. I could barely afford to keep up this apartment. What did my future hold?

I glanced at the clock, knowing that I had approximately thirty minutes until I had to get ready to go to the club, to play piano for a mix of rowdy college students and relieved parents off duty.

Unlike Billy Joel's song suggested, it wasn't exactly a glamorous job to play piano at a club. I had been trained classically, but now I mostly played pop music or oldies, or whatever the crowd wanted to hear.

I missed playing classical music. I missed the melancholy of Chopin and the infectious energy of Beethoven. I wanted to play classical again, but it seemed like I never had time anymore to commit to learning a piece. Besides, the electric piano that we had in the apartment wasn't exactly conducive to the mellifluence of classical piano music. 

I got up from the couch, feeling more than a little pathetic. I knocked on the door to my sisters' room.

"You can't come in!" I heard Jasmine shout. 

"Yeah!" Penny chimed in. "Or else we'll curse you to have uncurable acne the rest of your life!"

"Incurable," I corrected her softly. I sighed and hit my fist against the door in frustration.

What I needed was a break. A nice, long break.

---

Towards the end of my shift, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I had just finished up a jazz piece.

I whirled around, not used to people sneaking up on me. 

When I realized who it was, I relaxed. "Orion, what are you doing here?"

He crossed his arms, looking around the tightly packed bar. "I gotta talk to you. Now."

I knew he wasn't playing around because of the anxious gleam in his eyes, and the way his hands were shoved deep in his pockets.

"All right," I said, twisting around on the bench to face him. "What is it?"

He took a deep breath. "So, you know how Lucia and I were going to take that trip this summer, right?"