Still summer of 2011
I tore apart my entire room as I searched for it, my lungs burning and my heart beating frantically as I had my very first panic attack in my life. There was no reason for me to make a mess of my room looking for my 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle when I knew damn well it fell out of my pocket next door, but I hoped and prayed that Kayla, at some point, had put a curse on it that would hide it somewhere in my room so I would make a mess of it and get in trouble with my parents. After having searched every square inch of my bedroom, leaving no paper, poster, or book unturned, I sank down onto the floor and hung my head in my hands. I started to sob uncontrollably. I wasn't so much distraught by the fact that it was gone as I was by the fact that Felix could listen through it and discover that I had Hannah Montana on it.
It was embarrassing enough that I bopped to Hannah Montana in the first place, but to have Pewdiepie, my favorite YouTuber in the whole wide world, know that I did would have killed me. He already thought I was uncool because of my name. I couldn't fathom what he would think of me when he found out I want the best of both worlds.
Dad's head appeared in my doorway and he knocked on the door frame since my actual door was still lodged in my wall from when Kayla busted it down earlier. "Hey, Jimmy," he said softly.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and the snot from my nose with the collar of my shirt. "Go away, Dad," I huffed. "Can't you see I'm busy having a mental/emotional breakdown?"
Mom peeked his head in from the other side of the doorway. "Quit being an angsty little bitch," he said with an eye roll. "The new neighbors invited us over for dinner and we are going whether you want to or not."
Dad furrowed his brows at Mom. "Prince, we have to be more considerate of our son's feelings," Dad responded.
"Mikey, darling," Mom replied as he put a hand on Dad's shoulder, "listen. I get that. But we aren't going to be the asshole neighbors. We are going to let them make the wrong move first so that they will be the assholes, and then we can ignore them and not feel bad about it."
Dad narrowed his eyes. "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. We should go to the dinner because we are polite, not because we're waiting for them to fuck up."
"OMG, can you guys talk about this somewhere else?" I asked with frustration through labored breaths.
"I'm going to go round up the demon child," Mom said to Dad. "You get this one ready." His head disappeared.
Dad shook his head and came into my room. He sat down on the floor next to me. "Just breathe," he said sweetly to me. "Focus on breathing."
I did as he said hesitantly, but to my surprise, it was actually working. My brain was still a mess, but at least my lungs were getting the oxygen they needed. "Thanks, Dad, but I don't wanna talk about it," I said, preemptively dismissing the inevitable and obligatory "what's wrong, buddy?"
Dad nodded his head and patted my back. "You know where to find me if you need me. Now please get ready to go next door for dinner. We are going to welcome these people into our neighborhood and pray that your sister doesn't send them to the underworld or unleash God knows what sort of demonic creature into their home." He stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. "Besides, I think you'll have fun and make some new friends. Mrs. Kjellberg said her son Helix hasn't stopped talking about you since you went and visited them earlier, and he sure is looking forward to seeing you at dinner."
My cheeks burned. "What about Felix? Did they say anything about him?"
"Sorry, buddy. They didn't mention anything about him." He walked over to the doorway and looked back. "We really need to call someone to come fix your door... and the drywall." He left my room, and I returned to my regularly scheduled panicking.
Jesus Christ, I thought to myself. What if Felix got a hold of my iPod? What of he listened to it and makes fun of me at dinner in front of my parents? What if Helix hates me because of it?
"Oh, by the way," Dad chimed in as poked his head back into my room and interrupted my thoughts, "if this room isn't clean by the time your uncle gets here tomorrow, you're grounded." He left once again.
After a while, I got up off my bedroom floor and changed my shirt that was covered in snot. I brushed my hair and removed the boogies and crusties from the corners of my eyes with a tissue. I kept worrying about what Felix was going to think of me and what I could do or say to make him think I'm not that lame. My name had no bearing on my personality.
I made my way down to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were busy wrestling a knife from Kayla's sticky little demon fingers as she growled and hissed furiously. I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips as I watched Kayla throw Mom across the kitchen. When he smashed into the wall and fell to the floor with a thud, he looked up at me with anger in his eyes and screamed, "HELP!"
I groaned with discontent. I ran and jumped on Kayla's back, causing her feeble 12 year old body to collapse to the ground under my massive Sasquatch body. I sat on her back as her arms and legs flailed as she tried to squirm out from under me. Mom crawled over and grabbed a hold of her wrist. I held back her other hand so she didn't gouge Dad's eyes out with her demon claws as he snatched the knife away from her. He grabbed a straight jacket and a muzzle out from under the kitchen sink. The three of us struggled to get her into the jacket, but once we did, putting the muzzle on her wasn't too hard.
"We will take this stuff off of you when you start behaving," Dad said as he helped her up from the floor. He turned to me and looked at me with tired eyes. "I just don't know where I went wrong with this one."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Not everyone's a winner," I replied.
Dad sighed heavily and led the way out the front door to the neighbor's house. I was in charge of making sure Kayla got there without a hitch. Mom knocked on the Kjellberg's door. I watched the sky turn a fiery shade of orange as the sun gently kissed the horizon, silently contemplating what my next actions would be and asking why it mattered to me so much if Felix liked me. After a moment, the door opened and I saw a familiar face smiling back at us. It was Helix. I could tell because his hair was parted slightly different from Felix's. I smiled at him, genuinely happy to see him. I remembered our encounter from earlier that morning, the pleasantness of it warming my body all over.
His smiling face contorted to one of concern when his baby blue eyes fell onto my sister who looked like she just escaped a mental asylum, which I wasn't too sure didn't happen. "Don't worry about her," Mom laughed nervously. "She's alright."
"She just bites a little," I remarked, earning a laugh from Helix and a death glare from my mom who snapped his head back so quickly I was surprised he didn't get whiplash.
"Come on in, guys," Helix said, welcoming us into his home. "Dinner is almost ready."
We shuffled in, and he shut the door behind me. I looked back at him as I pushed my sister forcefully, making her walk forward so I could get out of the way from the door. Helix continued to smile at me, and I could swear his smile was getting wider with each passing second. We didn't break eye contact for the longest time until his chipper mother whisked into the living room from the kitchen. I was pulled out of whatever trance Helix was putting me in, and the delightful smell of Swedish meatballs wafted through, making its way into my unsuspecting nostrils. "That smells delicious," I remarked.
My parents didn't look as excited as I was about the meatballs. Helix must have noticed because he asked me about it. "They're both vegetarians," I whispered to him.
"What about her?" Helix asked softly. I noticed that Kayla looked displeased as well. "Is she vegetarian?"
"No, she only eats meat raw and freshly dead," I answered.
He seemed mildly disgusted but amused because he giggled. His giggle made me giggle, and before either of us knew it, we were having a giggle fit. Our parents were looking at us like we lost our minds, but then they smiled because at least we were getting along.
"Helix, will you go get your brother?" Mrs. Kjellberg asked in a very thick Swedish accent.
"Yes, mother," Helix said, accepting the order. He turned to me. "Would you like to come with me?"
I smiled at him nervously, remembering the mission was to retrieve Felix for dinner. "Sure," I said anyway, ignoring my best judgement. On our way up the stairs, I decided to interrogate Helix about the iPod Shuffle, which he seemed to be familiar with. "Did you happen to find it?"
"Oh, yeah," he answered as he reflected back on our meeting. "It fell on my floor as you ran out of my room. Felix picked it up." My heart stopped. "I told him to give it to me so I could return it, but he refused." The panic was beginning to settle in all over again. "He said he wanted to hear what was on it. I think he's been listening to it since you left. I keep hearing bursts of laughter through the wall." My heart split in half and sunk into my stomach. "I tried to go get it, but he locked me out of his room."
Felix had my iPod and listened to it. He was laughing at me, I just know he was. We got to Felix's room, and Helix knocked on the door. He announced that dinner was done, and a few seconds later, the door opened. Felix looked at me and smirked. He held up my little blue 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle. "Interesting taste in music you have, Jimmy," he snarled. I tried to grab it away from him, but he pulled it out of my reach. "You can have this back when I'm done with it."
He pushed past me and Helix and headed for the stairs. I looked nervously to Helix who looked sorrowfully back to me. We followed Felix back down the stairs to the living room.
We all gathered in the dining room. Mom and Dad had removed Kayla's muzzle and straight jacket, seemingly trusting that she would behave herself. She looked very angry and dissatisfied, but she was keeping her razor sharp teeth in her mouth and her hands to herself, which was a good sign. She sat between Mom and Dad. I sat between Dad and Helix. Felix was sat next to Helix.
All through dinner, Felix kept giving me looks like he was about to ruin my life. I barely touched my food because I was so terrified of what Felix was going to do and what he was thinking about me. Helix was in the middle of it all, seeming to dread the tension between me and Felix. Kayla was mumbling things in tongues, and our parents didn't take any notice to any of this. They were too busy laughing and talking about adult things to care what was going on.
Towards the end of the meal, Felix finally said something. "So, you listen to Hannah Montana?" he said snobbishly. "What are you, gay? Are you a little sissy girl?" My cheeks flushed and the table got quiet. Everyone was paying attention to him, but he didn't care. He kept going. "Do you play with dolls and wear dresses too?"
"Would it be so wrong if he did?" I heard Dad say from next to me. I looked at him, and he was glaring angrily at Felix. He waited for Felix to respond, but he said nothing. "The answer is no, it wouldn't be wrong because we all enjoy different things. I think Hannah Montana is great. In fact, I think I'd like to listen to one of her songs right now."
He rose from the table and walked to the computer that was in the living room. Everyone followed him. Mr. and Mrs. Kjellberg were eager to see what Dad was going to do. They seemed excited. Mom was busy keeping his eye on Kayla to make sure she didn't do anything evil while Dad had his back turned. Helix and I kept exchanging looks of concern and worry, all the while Felix was fixated on my father, his piercing blue eyes trying to penetrate my father's soul to destroy it. But my father, a carefree spirit that radiated his own special light and did what made him happy regardless of what others thought of him, pulled up "Hoedown Throwdown" by Miley Cyrus on YouTube. Felix was angry that Dad stopped him dead in his tracks of humiliating me, but he couldn't break my father's spirit. "This is a song you can dance to!" Dad announced with a smile. We all gathered around and watched the video. The parents were bopping to the song while us kids were caught in the tension.
When the video ended, Dad looked to Felix. "I think I'm ready to dance, how about you?" he asked him with a devious smile. He replayed the video and listened tentatively to Miley. He followed her instructions, clapped when she told him to clap, popped it and locked it when she wanted him to. He didn't need to look at the video to know what to do or how to do it. After watching it once, he knew the routine by heart. He was putting himself out there, dancing to a Miley Cyrus song shamelessly to deflect the embarrassment from me onto himself. When the second chorus hit, I decided to join him. Mom joined as well, adding his own funky flair to the dance and doing the splits at the end.
He played the video over and we all danced, and Mr. and Mrs. Kjellberg joined in. Helix moved in next to me and danced right along with me. Kayla was busy summoning demons in the corner of the room, and the creatures joined in on the fun that should have been seen as us making fools of ourselves. Felix watched us angrily, his hatred for me growing stronger as I refused to let his teasing get to me.
When the song was over, I looked at my dad and silently thanked him for standing up for me.
As we were saying our goodbyes, I retrieved my iPod from an angry and reluctant Felix and made plans to hang out with Helix the next day. I went home feeling giddy and happy and so grateful that Michael Jackson was my dad.