A Fine Mess

by Hughes, Breanna

  “So what happened?”

  Emily could feel her legs shaking with nerves and tears began to fill her eyes. “She basically told me I was a complete disappointment in her eyes. She said she could never look at me the same. She said she was gonna tell dad, but…I don’t know if she ever did. Maybe she never got the chance. It happened just a couple days before the accident.” Emily’s legs were now visibly trembling and her voice was choking up. “The thing is, I think she may have told him. Because when they said goodbye to me the night before the trip, there was something about the way he looked at me and the way he hugged me and…I felt like he knew. But since they were going away for the weekend, he didn’t want to deal with it at the moment. And mom…she didn’t even look at me. She just said ‘I’ll see you when we get back on Monday’ and that was it.”

  At this point, Emily’s face was buried in her hands. She was afraid of this. Once she opened the floodgates, there would be no turning back.

  “That’s how they remember me. Their last memory of me is of some ungrateful, drugged out, spoiled brat loser. They died thinking they had failed raising me.” That was all she could get out. The tears and sobs had now completely taken over her body.

  Seeing how distressed her sister was, Harper pulled the car over and put it in park. So much for trying to make Emily feel guilty.

  “Jesus, Emily. I had no idea.”

  She heard her sister mumble something, but couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It didn’t matter. She reached out and tried to soothe her sister by rubbing her back. The idle car engine sputtered softly as Emily continued to bawl, hoping one-day forgiveness would find her.

  CHAPTER 14

  Harper paced up and down the hall, hoping each creak and crack of her feet on the hallway floor didn’t disturb Emily’s slumber. After breaking down in tears, Emily decided she wanted to go straight to bed and passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow. Harper thought this would have been a great opportunity to try and get some sleep, but it turned out that having Emily home made her even more apprehensive and it was nearly impossible for her to even close her eyes. What if Emily decided to wake up in the middle of the night and take off again? Harper couldn’t bear the thought of having to lose her sister once again.

  She took a break from her pacing and stood in the doorway watching Emily breathing deeply in and out. The darkness of 2 a.m. made it difficult to make out her silhouette, just hearing the sound of Emily’s breathing brought a bit of comfort to Harper. After a half hour of hanging out in the doorway waiting for any kind of change in Emily’s sleeping pattern, Harper began to feel a bit creepy and stalkerish. So she gently closed the bedroom door and backed away into the hall once more. She stood there for a few minutes completely paralyzed and unsure of what exactly to do. She decided it was safe enough to at least go into the living room for a while. If Emily was going to leave, she definitely wouldn’t go out the window. That thing hasn’t opened since Emily’s little experiment with the super glue when she was eight.

  Harper, dressed in her faded old Donald Duck pajama pants and pink tank top, plopped down on the couch and sat contemplating on whether or not to pick up the phone and dial the number her fingers knew by heart.

  ***

  Harper’s head was beginning to ache. Part of her just wanted to follow Emily’s example and head straight to her room to shut everyone out, but that wouldn’t be the proper thing to do, would it? She looked around, hoping to find at least one ally who wouldn’t look at her with infinite concern and pity.

  Finn walked into the front door with his black blazer hanging over his arm. He loosened his tie and hung up the blazer in the front closet. When he spotted Harper, he made his way over, put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Do you want the truth or the answer I’ve been giving everybody else?”

  “Sorry. It was a stupid question.” He lightly massaged her shoulder. “Sorry I’m late. I had to give people directions here from the cemetery.”

  “I figured you got held up.”

  “Do you need me to get you anything? Something to drink?”

  “I’m okay. Thanks, though. You should get some food.”

  He kissed her on the cheek one more time. “Okay. I’ll be back.”

  As the day progressed and afternoon turned into the evening, people slowly started trickling out of the house after offering their condolences to Harper and — once she emerged from drowning her sorrows in the back yard — Emily.

  With alcohol fresh on her breath, the younger sister sat at the counter dividing the kitchen from the dining room and picked up a photo frame that held a picture of the four of them at Disneyland eight years ago. Harper walked over to join her.

  “I think that’s my favorite picture of us.”

  Emily continued to study the photo. “So what do we do with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what do we do with all their stuff? And the house? Do we sell it? Do we rent it out?”

  “Whoa, Emily, slow down. Let’s just take it one day at a time. We’ll figure all that out at a later date.”

  “I don’t think I can do this one day at a time. I kinda just want to go to sleep and wake up in a year.”

  Harper could smell the liquor on her sister’s breath.

  “Well, drinking the pain away isn’t gonna help you at all.”

  With that, Emily threw the photo down back on the counter, shot Harper a disconcerted look, then hopped off the chair and ran straight to her room. Harper started to go after her, but decided to leave her alone for now.

  Kiley finally took a break from her post in the kitchen and came to talk to Harper with two freshly opened beers in tow.

  “Have you eaten?” asked Kiley, handing a beer to her friend.

  “A little. I’ll have something later. Right now, I just want everyone to leave. Emily’s really not up for this.”

  “And you?”

  “I just want to take a nap. I feel like I haven’t slept in forever.” She took a drink of the beer.

  “That’s because you haven’t.” Kiley looked around. “Well, they’re almost all gone. We’re pretty much out of food, so that should help them to leave a little quicker.”

  Harper nodded indifferently. She could feel her wall starting to crumble. In the past few days, she had managed to remain stoic and brave, but the mask was slowly deteriorating. There was only so much longer she could keep this up without entirely falling apart, but she refused to do it in front of strangers. Feeling as though she couldn’t stay standing for much longer, she leaned her head on Kiley’s shoulder hoping her friend could lift some of the weight she had been carrying with her for the past ninety-six hours. After crying for seventeen hours straight, she managed to pull herself together long enough to start making some arrangements. Her brain and body were stuck on auto pilot and now it was time for the real Harper Foley to return to herself. The human Harper who was in mourning and allowed to feel sad and fall to pieces when everything around her was becoming unraveled.

  “Kiley, I need to not be here right now.”

  Kiley put her beer down and grabbed Harper by the hand and led her to her bedroom.

  “All right, come on. Follow me.”

  “No, I can’t. There are still people here.”

  “Let me and Finn deal with that. You should rest.”

  She opened the door to Harper’s bedroom and pulled the covers off the bed, then led the exhausted, almost delirious girl to the bed and sat her down. She knelt down to take off Harper’s heels, then opened the middle drawer of the dresser to pull out a t-shirt.

  “Okay, arms up.”

  Harper obliged and put her arms up. “But what about…”

  “Shhhh…don’t worry. Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.” She pulled Harper’s black dress off and replaced it with the old Def Leppard t-shirt she found in t
he drawer. She grabbed a pair of sweats from off the floor.

  “Are these clean?”

  Harper’s eyelids were beginning to win out over her stubbornness. “They should be, I only wore them once.”

  The more she spoke, the more delirious she began to sound.

  “Okay, left leg in first. And now the right.” Once both Harper’s legs were in, Kiley pulled the sweats up to her waist and laid her down onto the bed, sat on the side and adjusted the pillow.

  Harper gazed up at Kiley, thankful she was here at this moment. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  “Emily’s upset. Like, really upset. I should go talk—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep an eye on her. She probably just needs sleep, like you,” assured Kiley. “I’ll check on her in a bit.”

  A small, appreciative grin crept across Harper’s face. For the first time since her world turned upside down, she actually felt safe for a brief moment. It was a welcomed change and part of her wished that this moment could last forever because she was tired of feeling so unsure and afraid of what the future held.

  ***

  Sinking lower into the couch, Harper hesitated briefly before she picked up the phone and called the one person she had been avoiding. It only rang once before a voice answered on the other end.

  “Oh, so NOW you wanna talk. I’ve called, left you messages, been waiting by the phone…but when it’s convenient for YOU, ‘Miss 2:30 in the morning’, then you suddenly wanna talk.” Kiley was still slightly hurt at Harper’s reluctance to speak to her, but she was trying to lighten the situation by gloating a bit.

  Harper knew she was joking, but wasn’t exactly in the mood to play along.

  “Kiley…”

  “No, no. It’s fine,” Kiley dramatically interrupted. “It’s not like I have a life, or anything. I don’t need to spend my time thinking about how you’re mad at me and…”

  “Emily’s home.”

  There was nothing but silence on Kiley’s end until she could muster up one word. “What?”

  “Emily. She came back.” Harper waited while the news sunk in for Kiley, then heard the words that pretty much could have gone without saying.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  They hung up and Harper sat there in the dark, contemplating everything she had experienced tonight. She hadn’t even realized over twenty minutes had passed until Kiley lightly tapped on the door.

  “Hey,” she whispered as she held up a six-pack of Spaten. “Sorry I’m late, but I figured you’d need a couple of beers. God knows I do.”

  Harper smiled at the gesture. “How do you always know what I’m craving?”

  “It’s simple. It’s almost always beer, donuts, or Italian food. I have a one in three shot of getting it right. And I’m really good at playing the odds.” Kiley grinned as she walked past Harper. She put the six-pack down on the kitchen counter and pulled out a bottle opener from the drawer. First a fizz, then a pop as the metal from the bottle cap clanged onto the counter.

  “Here ya go,” said Kiley as she handed the beer to her friend.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of serving drinks?”

  “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it until you brought it up. Thanks.” Kiley grabbed a beer and made herself at home on the couch. “So she’s sleeping right now?”

  “Yeah,” Harper replied, still standing in front of the coffee table. “She’s been passed out for a while. Must be nice.”

  “Well, she’s probably been through a lot. Besides, maybe you can sleep easier now that she’s home.”

  Harper scoffed at that statement. “Doubtful. At least not for a while.”

  “Well, maybe the paranoia will fade.” Kiley leaned back and savored the beer from her now half-empty bottle. Upon noticing that Harper was still standing uncomfortably, she implored her. “Sit down. Chill for a minute.”

  “Right.” Harper joined her on the couch. They sat there for a moment, in a comfortable stillness. Kiley had a million questions, but waited for Harper to show she was ready to talk about it.

  “She was at Finn’s, you know? That’s where I found her.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. She’d rather go to my ex’s place than come home.”

  “Well, she probably didn’t know he was your ex at first. And she probably just needed some time to think about her next move. At least she’s here.”

  Harper nodded.’

  “Why didn’t Finn call you? I would think he’d jump at the chance to bring you such incredible news.”

  “I don’t know. I guess some sort of pact between them prevented him from doing so.” Harper took a swig of her beer.

  Kiley contemplated for a moment. “So…where do you think she was all this time? I mean, what could she have been doing? How did she make money?”

  Harper shook her head emphatically. “I don’t know. I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna think about it.”

  “I can’t even imagine what she’s been through. When you’re young, you never really have that goal of ‘I want to be a runaway and live life day to day not knowing when or if I’m going to eat again.’”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s not really one of the options when people ask you what you want to be when you grow up.”

  “What did you want to be?”

  “Me?” Harper chuckled to herself. “Oh man, I don’t think I wanna share that with you.”

  “Why not,” asked Kiley.

  “Because you make fun of me enough as it is.”

  “Okay, now you have to tell me.”

  “I know I do. I was just hoping to prolong it. Ugh, fine. There was a time when I was eight years old, for about three weeks, when I wanted to be a hooker.”

  Kiley looked over at Harper. “Okay, are you taking notice of my blank stare? Details please, before I start laughing so hard, I can’t hear your explanation.”

  “Hey, it was before I knew what it actually entailed. My parents had rented ‘Pretty Woman’ and I just so happened to watch it while they were away and my babysitter cared more about talking to her boyfriend on the phone than actually watching Emily and me. So I watched it and I just loved how glamorous Julia Roberts was and wanted Richard Gere to pay me to hang out with him and…I really had no idea. My friend Amy was much more mature than me, and her older sister told her everything. So she set me straight on what exactly a hooker was. I really had no clue. So after that, I just decided I wanted to be an astronaut. I knew what that meant.”

  Kiley sat staring at Harper, awestruck.

  “Shut up,” said Harper.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Well, you were going to, so just don’t. There’s a reason eight-year-olds shouldn’t watch R-rated movies.”

  “That’s for damn sure.”

  A sudden flash of fear washed over Harper. It had been in the back of her mind ever since Emily left, but she never brought herself to actually consider the option. “You don’t think Emily ever…I mean. I know she needed money but she would never have…you know…”

  Kiley knew Harper wasn’t ready to go there just yet, so she steered clear of that conversation. “Anyway, I wanted to be a flower delivery person when I was younger.”

  Harper welcomed Kiley’s thoughtful avoidance of where she was going with that little speech.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’ve just always liked the idea bringing flowers to people who need to be cheered up. Plus…flowers are pretty.” “It’s the simple things for you, isn’t it?”

  “Yup. Although, I also wouldn’t have minded being a Hollywood tour guide. ‘Now on your left, you can see the bungalow where Marilyn Monroe was found dead. And coming up, you’ll soon find the house Tom Cruise once lived in.’”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “I feel special when I know things other people don’t know. It makes me feel powerful.”r />
  “You’re a dork.”

  Kiley flashed her infamous million-dollar smile. “Well aware.” She finished off her beer and got up to get another one. “But at least I knew what a hooker was when I was eight.”

  “I was sheltered. Jackass.”

  Kiley opened another bottle. “You want another beer?”

  “Always.”

  Kiley popped the cap off another bottle looked over at Harper. “I’m really glad you called, by the way. I really thought that this might be it. I finally pissed you off to the point of hating me.”

  “Not possible. You’re a pain in my ass Young, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” assured Harper.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have left you like that.”

  “No. You shouldn’t have, but I should have spoken up. I’m such a pushover sometimes.”

  Kiley brought the beers over to the couch. “Well now that your other pain in the ass is back, what happens now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think things will go back to normal?”

  Harper sighed. “Were things ever really normal in the first place? Em and I never had a chance to go back to normal after mom and dad died. Everything’s been in such a state of flux for the last two years. You’d think her coming home would be the answer to everything, but the truth is, I’m absolutely terrified. I’m afraid to even close my eyes in case I wake up and she’s not there anymore. It’ll probably be another two years before I can even think about getting any sleep.”

  “Well, I don’t have anywhere to be. And I’ve pulled my share of all-nighters before so if you want to try to get some sleep tonight, I can stay up and keep an eye on things.”

  Harper put the bottle to her lips and thought about Kiley’s offer for a moment. “That’s okay. You have a life you need to get back to. Besides, I’m pretty wound up. I’m not even really that tired and I’d be too paranoid and stressed out to fall asleep.”