To own is to… Take
My open-toe wedges do little to protect my feet from the rain as I make my way down the sidewalk, clenching the handle of my umbrella and hoping I don’t look half as out of place as I feel. I worry that I'm overdressed, or underdressed, considering I took Clara’s advice and wore the sexiest thing I own. It’s not necessarily ideal attire for mid-November, much less in the rain, as I walk down the streets of Hepton City. There’s not a ton here, but enough to have a decent nightlife. Truthfully, it’s a pop-up city crushed between two major highways, the perfect place for those passing through on their way to somewhere better. That’s abundantly clear as I round the corner, staring at the already packed Sour Grape Bar, a place I’ve walked past a trillion times but never had the balls to actually walk inside. I step under the black awning of the building to shake any lingering droplets off my umbrella before heading inside. The warmth of the bar hits me nearly as hard as the glare of the lights. They aren’t particularly bright, just enough to bring water to my bad eye, making the world blur a bit more on that side.
“Birthday girl!” Brady roars from his spot at a large round table filled with people, a mixture of strangers and people from the office. I give him a warm smile before heading over, clutching my bag and coat a smidge tighter. I'm not really a shy person, never have been. My schedule is important to me. I like to know what my day holds, what’s going to happen at noon and six when the day is over. I need the structure like I need air.
It's your birthday. Screw the schedule, Chloe. Live a little.
“Those shoes are so cute! Okay, lose the coat. I need to see the whole fit,” Clara orders, bounding back from the bar, her tight curls wound up on top of her head in a sleek bun. Before I speak, she already has a drink in my hand. I laugh, awkwardly shifting it between my hands as she strips me of my coat. Brady rounds the table along with a few others already drawn in by her. I hand the sweet-smelling drink off to Brady so I can give her a proper spin, showing off the dangerously short, collared peach babydoll dress that has sat in my closet for over two years. She purses her lips, bringing her hand to her chin as she studies me, “It's giving cottage core sugar baby. I’m shocked, Chloe Tyson. I didn’t think you owned anything that wasn’t work-appropriate.” She winks, and I follow it with an exaggerated roll of my eyes.
“Hang on. Let me get my phone out to document this,” Brady chimes in before handing my drink back to me. “It’s your first legal drink. This is a milestone. We’re making core memories, Chloe!”
“Who am I supposed to show my ID to?”
My cheeks heat when laugher comes from the table behind us, Clara and Brady barely suppressing theirs before her hand lands on my shoulder.
“You sweet girl, they don’t card anyone here. Drink up! We’ve got twenty-one years worth of sobriety to undo tonight.”
I frown. “I’ve had a drink before. Kind of.”
“Sure, you have. Stop stalling and drink!”
“Drink, drink, drink, drink!” I stare incredulously at them as the chant from our table spreads, picking up others in the bar. Blush creeping up my throat, I tilt it back, swallowing deeply. It burns like hell, and I damn near hack to death afterward, but judging by the applause that follows, everyone is pleased. Soon, I'm jerked under Brady’s slender arm. “Maybe pace yourself next time, dork.”
“They said drink. I'm simply giving the people what they want,” I retort with a wink, making his face turn seven shades of red before settling on bright pink. Clara tugs me from him, and I'm already feeling a little more weightless than I was when I got here.
Does alcohol really hit you that fast?
“Me, you, karaoke now,” she states, and I can’t possibly dig my heels in fast enough to stop her from pulling me toward the small, raised platform in the corner of the bar. I laugh it off, hoping the alcohol is enough to mask the tension in my voice. “Hard no. I would, although, like to buy my first drink. Legally. If I don’t get carded, I’ll cry.”
She smirks, changing direction. “It’s your party…” Oh, God, no. “You can cry if you want to.”
“I walked into that one.”
I swear, Clara knows every song that has ever been written, who wrote it and when. She loves music, listens to it constantly, singing constantly. It annoys half the office to death, but nobody has the heart to say anything. Well, no one but Dr. Abrishon. He’s a kind man deep down, but his bedside manner is pretty awful. Clara has more personality in her pinky finger than he does in his whole body. I smile at myself as she stops just before the long-wrapped bar. “My ultimate goal tonight is to get you trashed enough to sing.”
“Not happening.”
She raises a dark sculpted brow, “How I, of all people, ended up being friends with a music hater is beyond me.” With that, she turns and resumes tugging me to the bar. I just laugh, but again, she isn’t wrong. I don’t do music. It sounds alien to most people, and it is. There was a time in my life when music was everything. I ate, slept, breathed music. It filled every moment of my life, scarred my hands, bled me dry.
Now, it only makes my stomach roll and my chest tighten.
Still, the urge to play is there, to sing along to whatever is playing on the radio. I constantly catch myself tapping my fingers to a melody in my head. A quick glance at my hands is more than enough of a reminder of why I'm justified in feeling this way. Even if nobody else would understand it, I do, and I most certainly hate music.
“Okay, what do you want?” She asks, edging us into a space at the bar before waving at the bartender.
I just shrug, staring blankly at the bottles on the wooden display behind the bar. “The green one looks cool.”
“What?” She makes a perturbed face. “No. You don’t order the bottle like that; you order a drink made with it. That’s yager, by the way. Ick.”
I bite my lip before shrugging again, racking my brain for drinks I’ve heard ordered on TV as she huffs, smiling brightly at the bartender. “Two mint juleps, please.” He nods, giving her a small wink before heading back down the bar.
“That sounds gross.”
“You’ll love it, or you’ll be too fucked up to care. Either way, it’s a win.” She laughs in that infectious way of hers, and I can’t help but join in. A guy over her shoulder catches my gaze, and I quickly slam my eyes to the countertop, but not nearly quick enough.
“Dude, sick eye. Is that real?”
Annoyance picks at my chest, but it’s only half as strong as the embarrassment festering there, the pungent smell of saltwater and memories surging back with it—ones that drown.
“Oh yeah, that’s wicked looking,” his friend chirps, and I can already see Clara’s sunny disposition flat-lining.
“Ah man, tell me you didn’t fill in your beard before you got here,” Brady chimes in from behind me seconds before Clara and I erupt into laughter. The guy laughs too, but it’s not genuine. I hike an eyebrow at him, making my most convincing sad face before he leaves the bar, shaking his head and muttering something about not being able to take a joke. Clara is still releasing residual waves of laughter as the bartender returns with our drinks.
Brady leans on the bar, his tall, lanky frame towering over us. “She’s underage, by the way.”
I gawk. “Am not!”
He just smiles as the bartender slides my drink back toward him. “I'm going to need to see your ID.” My lips pull up into a painfully wide smile as I shift through my purse, proudly displaying that I am most certainly not underage.
He nods toward me before sliding my ID across the bar. “Ah! Birthday girl needs a special birthday shot, I see.” When his eye catches Brady’s, something unspoken passes between them. Knowing him, Brady probably planned this whole birthday shot thing weeks ago when he started hounding me about the Sour Grape.
Clara leans forward with a smirk. “It’s my birthday too.” I shake my head as Brady and I exchange looks. My first sip of the Mint Julip really isn’t bad at all. Sliding up another shot glass, the bartender laughs, his long, ash-colored hair piled nearly higher than Clara's. Filling the glass with a sickly-sweet-smelling liquor and garnishing it with rainbow sprinkles, his hands fly so fast, it's nearly impossible to follow the diabetes-inducing ingredients.
This is most certainly going to mess me up, but I'm already here, and my entire head feels warm. I don’t plan on repeating tonight. I came once just to say I did it. Tomorrow, business as usual.
“Happy birthday to the pretty birthday girls.” He winks, sliding the shots over. We clank them together, Clara wagging her eyebrows at me before we tip them back. It tastes like alcoholic cake icing, but I think Clara was right: I’m caring less and less. Rapidly.God, I’ve been here all of, what? Half an hour?
I keep my eyes down while the bartender and Clara shamelessly flirt. I’m wondering how long he’ll ignore the other customers waiting for drinks when Brady nudges me, and I look up quickly, my head swimming.
“Dance?”
Brady is a sweet guy—very sweet. Almost as sickly sweet as the birthday shot. I'm not proud of the fact that I’ve entertained his flirting more than I should. I don’t like him like that, but I wish I did. He’d be an amazing boyfriend. He’s just so…easy to get along with. Still, there’s no tension there, and dating your boss’ stepson would never end well anyway. I laugh as he starts awkwardly shifting on his feet as we work our way into the middle of the dance floor. Once we arrive, he busts out in some kind of offbeat sideways shuffle dance I have to bite my bottom lip to try not to laugh at. He smiles at me, moving faster, even though he knows it looks ridiculous. The music has a heavy beat, and I can’t help but think about how well it would translate to piano. The alcohol drums through my veins, and soon, I'm feeling the music in all the right places, letting it carry my hips as we laugh at the other’s terrible dancing.
Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but I think this might be one of the best birthdays I’ve had since I was a kid.
Chloe Age 10
November 17th
The music is loud, but even so, it’s not nearly loud enough to drown out the giggles of kids I barely know and Grandmother’s needle-like voice as she scolds Dad for letting us listen to what she deems trash music. She takes every chance she can to mention that she didn’t make it into the Philharmonic by listening to Kidz Bop—not that they had CDs back in the olden days.
Right?
“How old is Grandma, do you think?” I ask Renee as she tucks her bent arm close to her chest, using it to hold a marker we aren’t supposed to have as she finishes one of the maze worksheet games that came with the party decorations Mom bought.
“I don’t know. Probably a hundred or something.” She barely gives me the time of day as she drags the marker down the page, still getting the hang of writing like that. I frown as I watch the frustration grow on her face; neither of us understands why her physical therapist had such a problem with the way she held her pencils before.
“Why don’t you just hold it the way you like?” I ask, poking at a group of ants, my legs finally giving up on hovering above the ground as I plop down on the dirt beside her.
“Mostly because Mom is watching.”
I peek up, finding Mom is, in fact, watching. Her sweet expression traded for a glare as she gestures for me to stop playing in the dirt. I do, flexing my hands underneath my baby pink lace gloves, wincing at the way healing scabs pull with every move. It’s a reminder of why I wear these dumb things. It feels stupid wearing them all the time, sitting here while all the other kids play tag, tossing balls around, and having fun—all things I’m not supposed to do, all things Renee can’t do. When I look back, it’s at the sound of the marker dropping onto the page. Renee’s clenched hand rubs against mine, her violet-covered wrist frills all disheveled and out of place. I lean in, pressing my forehead against her shoulder, letting it rest there.
“I’m bored. Want to sneak down to the water?” She muses, her eyes wide. Grandma always says she has eyes like she has been here before. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s creepy. Her green eyes are normal, like Mom’s.
“I got in trouble last time,” I whisper before her yelp interrupts me and pain blasts across my left hand. The wiffle ball kids have been hitting around rolls off my lap as tears bead in my eyes. The sound of Mom and Grandma’s footsteps are already in a race to see who will reach me first.
“Are you okay?” Renee asks, comforting me the best she can as my tears spill over.
“Oh, my God, her hand!” Grandma shrieks. “There is a concert tomorrow evening!”
“Control your mother!” Mom screams back at Dad as he helps Renee into her seated walker.
I just stare at the pile of ants I smashed, watching their friends flee from their bodies in a panic. It looks like how my chest usually feels: smashed, ugly… frenzied. All the kids gather around, and I cry harder.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to. Don’t be a baby about it,” John offers, bobbing down to grab the ball off the ground.
“You should’ve been being more careful! She is a prodigy! What are you? A janitor’s son?” Grandma sneers, jerking me to my feet as she turns the venom usually reserved for me onto the kid. His eyes widen before filling with tears of their own.
I watch him with curiosity before the guilt finds its place in my chest. “Grandma, please… It’s not that bad.”
“Do not lie to me, Chloe. You could have a fracture. She needs to be seen immediately!”
“Mom, come on; she says she’s fine. Don’t make a scene on her birthday.” A rare comment from Dad seems to shock Mom almost as much as Renee and me.
“Yes, the birthday party I was against because of this very thing! She could’ve had a perfectly fine time having a tea party at the manor.”
“Yeah, the perfectly boring Tyson manor,” Renee mumbles under her breath, and I almost smile.
The rest of the party filters out quickly as I’m ushered into Grandma’s town car, her ancient driver waiting patiently outside. Renee and I share pointed looks as I’m buckled in, Grandma fussing loudly enough to draw the attention of the nearby high school soccer game. If I had a mirror, no doubt my tear-stained cheeks would be a wild shade of red.
Happy Birthday, Chloe…
Write a comment ...