"Explain to me again why it has to be at our house?" I hear Pôr whine.
"Because it's our turn babe. I told you this before." Daddy says again.
"But they're so awful. I don't want them to come here. Tell them it was cancelled." He demands crossing his arms over his chest.
"I'm not going to do that. You keep putting this off and the others are getting angry. Fair is fair." Daddy chides.
"But, but, they're going to mess up our house." He complains.
"Whoa, wait just a minute. Why was it OK to have your friends party and trash our house but not yours?" P'Pha asks his dad.
"First, your house is way smaller than ours so that's less to clean up. We can thank Mr. Ego maniac over there for this big ass house." Pôr says waving towards daddy.
"Oh as if you clean it anyway. We have staff for that!" Daddy responds.
Pôr scowls at him like he's debating whether to scratch his eyes out or punch him in the face.
"Plus, because we live in this big ass house in the middle of nowhere..."
"I wouldn't exactly call Bangkok the middle of nowhere." Daddy interrupts and this time does get punched.
When my dad falls Pôr climbs on top of him and holds him down placing his hand soundly over my father's mouth.
"What I mean is we that have no neighbors so no one will call the police to stop the party. They'll never leave! They stayed for three days the last time!" He explains.
"There is that, but what can we do? It's our turn." Daddy says after removing the hand from his mouth and sitting up.
"I blame you." Pôr says walking off.
"Wait, Phi. Come on!" Daddy says following after him.
"He has a point, I would hate the thought of cleaning this place afterwards." P'Pha says pulling me into a hug.
"My dad has a point too though, we have servants who clean." I defend.
"So that makes it alright to allow people over that you know are going to trash your house?" He asks in disbelief.
"No, but he doesn't have to sound like he's the one who's going to be put out either." I argue.
P'Pha gives me a look I've never seen before. He's glaring at me and I think his eye just twitched. I think he's angry with me.
"Pôr ." He calls out as he walks away from me.
I follow P'Pha to our parents' room where our dads are arguing. They both turn to look at him.
"Let's go." He says addressing his father.
Pôr nods and walks past my dad, then they both walk past me without a word.
"What just happened?" My dad asks.
"I have no idea but I think they're mad at us." I reply.
"Oh well that's nothing new. Phichit's always mad at me." Daddy says casually.
"But it's new for me. P'Pha's never mad at me." I say feeling upset.
I pull out my phone and start spamming him with I'm sorrys and then sit and stare at my phone waiting for a response.
"Um son, let's try not to look so utterly pathetic alright? He'll get over it and then you'll make up." Daddy says squeezing my shoulder.
"Let's go, the crowd is almost here and we need to start locking doors." He says leading me through the house.
"Phichit's office." Daddy explains as he locks the door.
"Is he very mad?" I ask.
"No, he just doesn't want to have to deal with the aftermath. Once it starts he'll be just as crazy as the rest of them." My dad says knowingly.
We walk towards the sitting room but get diverted by people coming in.
"Hey I just saw Phichit and Pha leave. Are they going to get something?" P'Forth's dad asks.
"Nope. Throwing a fit." Dad replies like it's commonplace.
"He didn't want to hold it here tonight huh?" He asks in understanding.
"He's afraid of things getting broken." Daddy explains.
"How about if we all go around and remove the breakables and put them in a locked room." He offers.
"That sounds great Yutta." Daddy says.
"Ruang Sak! Yuthakon! A little help, this crap is heavy." Ming's father calls out.
"Yo, you and the young ones go around and take care of the breakables." My dad yells as he's walking out the door.
"What young ones? I'm the only young one here!" I shout after him.
With an exasperated sigh I start wandering through the house and collect things that look important. I'm just walking around and looking at things. How am I supposed to know what he thinks is valuable?
"Yo sweetie, what are you doing?" Ming's mother asks.
Oh thank goodness, she'll probably know.
"Pôr is worried about things getting broken so daddy told me to grab the important things and lock them in a room. The only problem is that I don't know what's important." I explain.
"Here, let us take care of it. We know what Phichit values. You go and start preparing the food." She directs.
I start walking towards the kitchen and freeze. Did she just tell me to make food? Is she crazy? Are they planning a trip to the hospital later or something?
"Um, you know I can't cook right?" I ask turning towards her.
She laughs out loud and comes back to me. Grabbing me by the shoulders, she turns me and leads me to the kitchen.
"It's a party Yo, you can open chip bags right? Cut fruit? Put drinks in an ice bucket?" She asks.
"Yeah. I can manage that." I reply sheepishly.
"I knew you could. We'll leave you to it then." She says with a wink.
I dutifully pull out large bowls and fill them with chips, cut fruit and place them lovingly onto platters, then grab all of the nonalcoholic beverages and put them into a cooler with ice. I'm assuming that the hard liquor doesn't require refrigeration and the wine is already in the fridge so I think I'm good.
"Hello nong." P'Kit calls out as he walks in.
"P'Kit." I reply and notice him looking around.
"Where's Pha?" he asks.
"He and his dad left. They're angry at us." I admit.
"Pha is angry at you? Are you sure?" He asks.
"Oh yeah. His eye started twitching and everything." I explain.
"Yeah then he's definitely mad. What did you do?" He asks.
"Nothing really. Our dads got into an argument and we each took our father's side. I'm not mad at him for saying that my dad is wrong so why is he so upset that I said that about his father?" I say feeling a bit wronged.
"He's normally not so sensitive. There must be something else going on. What else did you do?" He inquires.
"Me? I didn't do anything." I say defensively.
"Are you sure? It's not like Pha to be angry with you." Beam says appearing out of nowhere.
"Boys a little help." P'Kit's father calls.
"Where to?" I ask since I've never been to one of these parties at our house.
"The ballroom." Ming says heading that way.
"The ballroom? We have a ballroom?" I say to, uh, no one since they all left me alone.
I jog to catch up and find that my dad does indeed have a ballroom.
"Hey, if they have this why is Pôr getting so upset?" I ask.
I mean it's a big empty room. There's nothing to get damaged.
"Well we do move around a bit." P'Beam's mom says while tapping my nose with her finger.
"We're also a bit rowdy." P'Forth's dad comments.
"And the larger the space the larger the chaos." P'Kit's mother says innocently.
Ah so they're saying the party won't be contained in the ballroom.
"It's still pretty early. Are you starting now?" I ask feeling concerned.
"Heavens no. We're going to have dinner first. We don't drink on empty stomachs." P'Kit's mother tells me.
"Of course you don't. That would be irresponsible." I say cheekily which earns me slap on the bottom by Ming's mother.
"So what are we doing for dinner?" I ask seeing no food.
"That's what we have." Pôr calls out as he walks in.
He and P'Pha have tons of food that they're bringing to the table.
"There's more in the car." Pôr says pointing to the door causing people go out to help.
I grab plates and glasses and bring them to the table. I watch P'Pha like a hawk. He hasn't come towards me once, hasn't even made eye contact with me. I'm starting to get frustrated. I don't feel like I did anything wrong but I was going to take one for the team and apologize but he won't even acknowledge me. I watch him for a few more minutes before I leave.
I walk out the door and to the driveway. I look up to the sky and will myself not to cry out of anger. Realizing I won't be able to stop that I head to my old fort. It takes a good fifteen minutes to get there even though it's on our property. Pôr wasn't wrong about living in the middle of nowhere. You can't own the amount of property my dad does and live in a neighborhood.
I make my way to my small fort. It wasn't so small when I was younger but I guess I have grown a bit. I look at the walls that are covered with pictures of younger versions of ourselves. Pictures of me, Ming, and of course P'Pha are everywhere. I didn't know P"Kit and P'Beam back then.
P'Pha was so good looking back then. I mean he's handsome now, he's older and more mature, but there's something about the way his eyes twinkled back then that takes my breath away.
I start rummaging through all of my old things, mostly photos. I can't believe how young we all looked. Some of these make me laugh. Thankfully I took a moment to get away, I feel much better. I grab a couple of albums to share with Ming. These are from when we were younger. He'll totally get a kick out of these.
I leave the fort determined to make things right with P'Pha. It's dark now so I use my phone flashlight, though I don't need it. I could find my way back blindfolded. I walk back smiling to myself.
Thinking about it, I have a pretty great life and not many people can say that.
I have a great family. My dad and Pôr , who are happy together, are wonderful parents. There's P'Pha. My hot as fuck husband who loves me despite everything. The dream that I never thought would be mine came true. Then there's Ming, P'Kit, P'Forth, and P'Beam all who have become family over the years. And who can forget all of the parents who would move heaven and earth if we needed them to?
Yes, my life has turned out pretty well.
"Yo!" I hear multiple voices call out.
I stop and look around. There are flashlights being shined around.
"Wayo!" P'Pha calls out.
He's not going to hear me yell from here so I pull out my phone. Damn, he's called a lot. I steady myself and place the call.
"Where are you?!!" He yells into the phone.
"On the property near my fort." I say slowly.
"Fort? What fort?" He asks still yelling.
"I know!" I hear Ming say then watch as a flashlight beam bounces towards me.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Ming practically screams as he reaches me.
His arms are on my shoulders and he's shaking me a bit violently.
"MING! You need to stop. What's your problem?" I ask.
"My problem. You have been missing for two hours Yo!" he yells.
"No way man. I just got to the fort a few minutes ago." I tell him.
He grabs my hand and drags me back towards the house. He's muttering to himself about my needing to grow up and how I should use the expensive watch that I'm wearing. I look at my phone but since I don't know what time I left it doesn't actually help.
I'm assaulted as soon as we walk onto the driveway. People hug me then yell at me for being irresponsible. I just needed a few minutes people, jeez.
"Yo." I hear breathlessly as I'm enveloped into strong arms.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had been gone for so long." I say into his chest.
"I'm sorry I ignored you. Never do this again. I was scared." He says squeezing me tighter.
"OK, I won't." I say patting his arm.
"Let's go have dinner since Yo is back. It's cold now thanks to someone." Ming says as he pulls P'Kit into the house.
The mothers have reheated everything and we're all sitting around the table. I look at each and every one of them, taking time to express my gratitude to whatever force brought them into my life. Finally my eyes land on my husband who hasn't let go of my hand since I came back.
"I love you." I whisper as I lean over to him.
He smiles beautifully and squeezes my hand.
"I love you too." He responds.
There's no doubt that this is our happily ever after.
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I had a hard time with this ending. I knew it was time to end but I still struggled putting it together.
I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read this story of mine.
Thank you for your support.
-Lisa