(Picture of Kelsey Owens)
• • •
The moment I saw Ally walk out of my brother's room with her eyes red and her cheeks slightly flushed, I knew things have somehow ended between them.
"Ally," I call out to her as she descends the stairs. I've been sitting with Cass on the couch, trying our best to ignore the undying crowd in my home which I now no longer recognize. Everywhere is littered with drinks, snacks and people. So many people.
But she tries to wave us off, averting her gaze to the ground. She should know better by now than we wouldn't let her go without a fight. So we jump up on our feet, marching to her before she can make an escape out the front door.
I don't know if it's relief, but seeing them having closure makes me feel a weight lifted. Not simply because that things will no longer be as tensed as it was, but for Ally too. When she first mentioned about her crush on Wayne, I'd already made my opinions known. And even though he's my brother, I'd always had the gut feeling that he isn't good for her.
Maybe I should've interfered before things could have gone up a notch between them, but they're adults. And neither of them needed anyone to teach them not to get into what they shouldn't. Just because their relationship did not end up well does not mean this couldn't be a lesson learned.
Instead of picking sides, I decide to just be there for her now then talk to Wayne later.
"It's okay, I'm better now that we talked." She sniffles, chuckling slightly. "I'm just going to go. But don't follow me. I'm only taking a walk." Ally says as she goes outside in search for her footwear among the fifty over pairs crowding the entrance.
"Are you sure? Because we can come with." I insist, feeling worried and hesitant of letting her leave on her own.
"Oh, yeah! We can go drive around, eat some yogurt at Frolio, go to the beach and scream or just do whatever you want to!" Cass perks up with suggestions and her over-enthusiasm. She must've not wanted Ally to feel down, but I wish I could subtly ask her to drop it.
Ally shakes her head, putting a faint smile. "Girls, I know you mean well. I'll be alright, I promise. Keep you updated." She waves her iPhone in her hand.
With a sigh, I nod while Cass pulls her in for a hug. She gestures to me too, rolling her eyes when I stand there just watching.
"We're here for you, Edison. Don't you ever forget that."
———
Wayne eventually emerges from his room ten minutes later, changed into a different t-shirt and berms. I notice him glancing around for awhile, trying to find someone.
"She's already left." I walk up to him at the kitchen where he's grabbing drinks for himself and his friends again.
He jerks up, startled at my abrupt presence and nods stiffly. "I know."
"Is it really over this time?"
Wayne sighs. "Yes."
Knowing he doesn't want to elaborate further, I drop the topic. We are all here for his birthday celebration and I shouldn't be making him feel even worse than he probably already is.
Just then, Zac returns to my side with our gift for him in hand. "Kelsey chose it for you." He shoves the box in Wayne's hands where he struggles to hold with beer cans in them.
"He paid for it though." I chuckle.
Zac has been playing the role of a sweet boyfriend ever since the day I said yes to him. It was unfortunate that the accident came almost right after, but I was grateful to have him around. Plenty of times he was there to help out with things that were beyond me; such as Wayne's hospital accomodations and having to deal with his car insurance.
He was there for me when I was lost and helpless about my brother's condition and always knew how to comfort and distract me from the upsetting stuff.
"Do I even want to open this?" Wayne sighs, putting the box down on the counter.
I shrug nonchalantly. "As you wish."
"Fine." He rolls his eyes and we wait patiently as he fiddles with the wrapping paper. Frankly, it was a dilemma whether to give it to him. I'd chosen a pair of navy blue boxing gloves and a matching pair of boxing shorts. It was a little worrying whether he'd be put off with the gift, but I figured it was time we stop avoiding the subject.
We know he has come to terms with not being able to box on a professional level anymore. But that didn't mean that he had to stop boxing as a whole. We knew how much he loved the sport and I genuinely just wanted to bring him back to it, to remind him about something he was once so passionate about.
Wayne kept quiet for a bit, staring at the box. His hands slowly felt the leather of the gloves, then he picked it up in his hands. There's a little part of me that expected him to throw it against the wall or dump it in the trash.
Then I hear him let out a breath. "Are you an idiot?"
I glance up at him, wide-eyed. Damn it. I made him mad.
"This isn't even my size." My brother throws one each of the gloves at Zac and I. Startled, I manage to catch it. "I wear a 16oz. This is 10oz. You should've asked, dumbass." But he pulls the both of us into a hug anyway.
Finding the situation funny, I burst out giggling and so does Zac. Wayne pulls away, an easy smile on his face. "I appreciate it. But go and get this shit exchanged or buy me a new one!" He chuckles.
———
The week after, Wayne and I decided that it's finally time for us to make a visit back at our parent's. It is long overdued since we have been constantly brushing them off ever since his car accident. Being stubborn as he is, he still keeps constantly reminding me not to let it slip.
"Remember, tell them it was a slip and fall. Just a slight fracture." Wayne repeats in the back of my car.
I roll my eyes, munching on the pack of Lays chip during our two hours drive back to Connecticut. Zac offered to drive and of course I'll gladly let him do so.
"Damn it, I know. Stop nagging!" I throw another packet of chips behind to shut my brother up.
I don't entirely support his decision to keep his accident a secret from our parents, but I can understand why. Mom would freak out and likely demand for him, or even us, to move back home.
Zac pulls up at my family home shortly after and mom's already at the driveway. She pretends like she's watering the plants but Wayne and I both knew she's been waiting for our arrival.
"Momma," I say in a sing-song voice as I hop down from my car. She looks good, in fact a lot younger now with her hair dyed brown and trimmed into a short, edgy bob.
Her grin is magnified when I enter in her vision. "Kelsey, darling!" Her arms open up for me to hug her.
Damn, it's really been so long.
Zac turns off the engine and bring down our bags while Wayne takes his own sweet time to alight. I guess he must've known what's coming for him.
"How're you, momma?" I smile at her, inspecting her new haircut. She even wears much more modern clothes now instead of those oversized blouses she used to don.
"I'm great! I'm good now that you're here! Lemme see!" She spins me around in a circle. "Gosh, darling. You've lost so much weight. Have you not been eating?"
Mothers. Always.
"See. Told you you're not fat, baby." Zac walks up behind me, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. Mom acknowledges him with a friendly smile and a nod.
"Zacson, right?" She abruptly pulls him in for a hug too.
"Yes ma'am."
"Ahh. So you're seeing my daughter now, huh?" She smirks, trying to grill him. But Zac isn't fazed, wrapping his arm around my waist confidently.
"Yes. I love your daughter so much, ma'am. But I swear I've been feeding her. She just has been going for her runs too often."
Mom chuckles. "I trust you, young man. Where's—" she trails off when Wayne not-so-subtly tries to join in the conversation. "Oh my god!" She yelps, zeroing on Wayne's badly wrapped bandage.
"Mom," he tries to hug her but she picks up his left arm instead, gently stroking it. Wayne decided to wrap up his arm in order to hide his scar from the open fracture. We told him he wouldn't be able to hide it for long, but he insisted for us to go with his story.
"What happened, son? Why didn't you call? Oh gosh. Did you break your arm?" She rambles on worriedly.
Zac and I shoot him a look behind mom's back and he holds back an eyeroll. "I'm fine, I'm fine. C'mon. Let's not stand around here."
Mom relents, still holding onto Wayne's arm as we follow her in the house. She makes us sit in the living room while she goes to the kitchen to fetch us drinks.
"Where's dad?" I yell so mom can hear from kitchen.
She returns with cans of beers instead, causing my eyes to widen. What on earth has gotten into my mother?
"He's at the supermarket. Told him to grab some more drumsticks so I can make your favourite cereal chicken." She takes a seat next to Wayne while Zac and I take the couch opposite.
"Beer, mom, really?" Wayne chuckles, taking a sip. "What have you been up to?"
"Well, now that my kids are out of the house, I've had the time to host my own parties." She grins, but it quickly falters when she looks at his arm again. "Now, you. What happened to you?"
"Just a small fracture, nothing to worry." He tries to shrug it off.
"Is it? How did it happen?"
"Uh... just a boxing mishap. Someone accidentally got in the way, y'know, that sort of thing." Wayne gives off a nervous laugh that anyone can see he's lying.
Mom eyes him suspiciously.
"Ah, he's lying." I couldn't help my mouth and Wayne instantly turns to glare at me. "He broke his arm!"
"Kel!"
But I know better than to mention a car accident, so I don't.
Mom lets out a sigh, shaking her head slightly. "You two are grown-ups. Yet still so childish."
I gasp. This isn't my mother.
"But you should know to call me if anything happens! What if you were in an accident and it was far more severe? Your parents deserve to know what happened to you!" She half-lectures and we wince guiltily.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry." Wayne apologizes and mom pulls him in for a hug again. He has always been mom's soft spot and that's something I've known since we were children. I would've been jealous if this was us before, but now looking at them, it only makes my heart warm.
We retreat to our rooms to rest up while mom prepares dinner. Zac will be sleeping in my room with me, not that anyone even tries to stop us.
"Your parents are nice." He casually comments while sprawling out on my old bed. I slowly unpack our 1-week worth of packed clothes from our bags.
"Yeah, scheming and conniving, but nice." I joke, knowing now that my mom had once deliberately made up a lie so that I'd move in with my brother against my will.
"Well, I'll still choose to live here instead of my house. The atmosphere here is just so warm and cozy, and even though it's much smaller than what I'm used to, but at least you get to see each other, sit together and just talk nonsense." He gazes out the window wistfully.
I put down the clothes in hand and join him on the bed, lying on my stomach as I brush his hair away from his face. "You never really talk about your parents." I decide to ease into the subject. I was never one to pry but that doesn't mean I've never been curious.
"Yeah, you never ask." He chuckles, but he knows well why I don't. "Nothing much, really. Dad is a property mogul, earns simply from rents and investments. Has been keeping mistresses in his other homes for years, that's why you've never met him."
Man, I guess I expected something along that line. I've always wondered why his father is never around.
"Does your mother...?"
"She knows." He forces a fake smile. "We've all known for a long time. She's not going to divorce him. She's sort of just accepted it and, I guess you can see, she's a little hard to get to know." I nod.
The relationship between Zac's mother and I is complicated to say the least. In the beginning, she was skeptical of me and have on many occasions, brought up Becca's name in my presence.
After Zac confronted his mother about why she let Becca in the house on the day I found them on bed, she became hard to find. The first few times that Zac brought me back to his house, I've never seen her around and I doubted she knew I visited too.
It was only for the past week that I lived there that I really sat down with her and ate together again. She didn't say much to me and neither did I. It was awkward, tensed and incredibly uncomfortable especially if Zac and Carson weren't around. I had the instinct that she didn't like me that much; so as soon as Wayne declared a stop to his crazy party-in-the-house phase, I returned to the comfort of my own room.
"That's why Carson and I rarely stay home. It's empty and just filled with my mother's depressing aura."
Not knowing what else to say, I lean down and peck him on his forehead. His hands come up to cup my face and moves me further down so our lips meet.
"You're my light, baby." Zac says through the kisses.
"I am?"
He nods, his arms lifting my entire body up so I lie above him instead.
With his arms wrapped around me and our gazes meeting, I smile. "Then you're home to me."
———
All of us gather in the dining room in the evening where mom whipped up several of our favourite home-cooked food. There's her trademark fried chicken drumsticks, my all-time favourite prawn mayonnaise dish, Wayne's favourite baked cheesy potatoes and even my most hated pig's organ soup.
Dad sits at the head of the table while mom takes the seat on the left, next to Wayne. Zac and I sit on dad's right.
"You, young chap, I'll need a word with you later. Come join me in the back after dinner." Dad says to Zac.
I've never been that close to dad, but I'm sure mom tells him enough about the things I've been through. He's never talked to me about any of it although I know he does care. So, him wanting to talk to Zac in private must have something to do with my past. "Dad..." I give him a pleading look, hoping he don't make things difficult.
"It's okay, baby." I feel Zac's hand on my thigh under the table as he assures me. "That's fine with me, sir." He answers my father.
My heart squeezes at how he's just so okay to deal with my parents.
"God, how long have we been thinking of a meal like this?" Mom chuckles to dad. "It's like a dream come true to have them sitting at the same table with us."
Wayne and I look at each other. The last time all four of us ever sat together at the same table was almost five years ago. And that wasn't a pleasant dinner. We would fight over the food, Wayne would dump his dirty dishes on me and I'd seethe at how I wish my brother would just get out of the house already.
With a sly smile on his face, Wayne scoops up a bowl of soup and places it right in front of me. I glare at him, noticing the amount of pork organs there are in it. He knew I hated it!
"It's all you, honey. Seems like your plan worked." Dad laughs.
"I told you it will! Our children are stubborn but they're still ours. Making them live together might just be the most brilliant plan I've ever came up with." Mom smiles at Wayne and I, clutching a hand over her chest.
"You think, momma?" I raise a brow. Wayne's hand reaches out to grab a drumstick the same time I use a fork to poke it. "He's still the most annoying brother ever!"