I Do Until I Don't

Chapter 2

I always feel like I'm being tortured when my older sister, Julia, tries to put my hair in a bun. I never tell her that, though. She'll just say I'm a weak little baby which she knows will annoy me because I hate being the baby of the family. Even though I'm seventeen, I'm still treated like a child who knows nothing about the world.

It does come with advantages, don't get me wrong, being the "baby" of the family. I can ask for almost anything, and my father will give it to me, I have fewer choirs and have a lift almost any time I need one. I just don't take advantage of these advantages because that's not who I am. Being the middle child, like Julia, that's the best in my opinion. No one pays attention to her unless she asks for it, and she can get away with almost anything. Except for that one time when she was sixteen and announced to the family that she didn't want to be a nurse like mom and our older sister Melanie but a stylist. It made quite a buzz at home, but it was nothing compared to when Melanie announced that she was dating a woman. Julia and I took it pretty well --- we took it the same as if she would have told us she was dating a guy --- but my parents were shocked. She had already told them she was bisexual, but they always had assumed that she was going to marry a guy. And since Melanie never talks about her love life and since she and Nia had a long-distance relationship for most of their relationship, my parents assumed that it was only just a fling. And then, they announced that they were engaged. Believe me, that made quite the buzz at home, but they got to meet Nia who is so awesome, and they got over it. Because, seriously, who wouldn't love Nia?

"I give up," Julia lets out in a sigh, playing with my hair which falls in cascade on my shoulders since the elastic popped a few seconds ago. "I'll just straighten your hair, kay?"

"Kay."

Julia tries to open our room's bathroom's door, but it's locked. She knocks angrily on it. "Mel! Mel! Open up!"

"I can't!" someone shouts from the bathroom. "I'm drying myself."

"Then put on a towel. I need the hair straighter." She bangs on the door.

"Can't you wait two minutes?"

"No! You know how much time it takes to straighten Ella-Mae's hair. I have to start now. And her hair is even more curly now that she's been to the beach. Now open up!"

Melanie lets out a loud, exasperated sigh and opens the door. The water drips from her dark brown pixie cut hair, to her shoulders, along her legs, and onto the wooden floor.

"Mom's gonna kill you if the wood is ruin because of you," Julia warns her. She enters the bathroom and comes back a few seconds later with two hair straighteners. Being part of a three-daughter household does come with advantages such as never running out of tampons and having two of almost everything.

"Well I'll tell her it's your fault," Mel shoots back, drying her hair with a second towel in front of the mirror.

"How is it my fault?" She hands out a hair-straightener to Melanie. "Help, please."

"It's your fault," Mel starts, taking a lock of my hair to straighten it, "because you're making me --- a to-be-wed woman --- very angry." I wince. Melanie is much more gentle than Julia but more clumsy, too, and burns my head a couple of times. "That means that, in two months, this girl right here," she gestures herself with the hair straightener, "will sign a contract that will bind her forever to someone. So it is, in fact, your fault. Everything, until I get pregnant with my second child, is your fault."

"I thought you were going to blame everything wrong in the world on the person who annoys you," I remind her.

Melanie waits for me to continue. When I don't, she says, "Your point? Julia is the one who annoys me."

"Not all the time," Julia defends herself. "Not when I'm sleeping."

"You snore when you're sleeping."

I pinch the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from laughing. I have to remain neutral.

Julia shoots me a can-you-believe-this-girl? look. She's the only one in the family with piercing blue eyes, the rest of us have brown eyes, and since she's the master of eye shadow, she makes them pop even more. And when her eyes pop, man, it's like she's the queen of evil. You better not mess with her, or else. Still, every queen of evil has one soft spot, and it appears I'm hers. And that's the only reason why I'm not scared as I give her the you-can't-make-me-pick-sides-but-if-you-ask-me-Melanie-is-right shrug.

"Just," Julia gives up, "help me out, okay? We've got your proposal party to go to in, like---" she checks her phone, "---TWO HOURS!?! Move it, people! Move it!"

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xoxo Emilie