Queen of Sunshine

chapter 1 - be my mistake

Edited

Fiadh (fee-a)

Listening to The 1975 is like drinking a stimulating Mountain Dew at two in the morning on the drive home from a Walmart where you and your friends talked about childhood memories you would rather forget.

As I close my eyes and let "Be My Mistake" drown out the sound of my siblings fighting over who cheated in their game of Clue, I am hauled into the memory of last night when I told Alton he had free range of my body in exchange for an hour of numbness. Again.

"Actually," he replied. "I have sort of started talking to this guy and it's getting pretty serious."

"Dude, you have been saying that for years, though." He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to feign embarrassment or shyness as if I haven't seen him in a vulnerable state before. "It's different this time. He asked me if I wanted to be exclusive and I told him I did..."

I sat on the hood of his grey Nissan Altima searching his eyes to make sure he was telling the truth. The curls of his burnt red hair slightly covered the surprise in his blue eyes. The thought of loving someone, even just for a minute, scares him.

"You know what?" I said, after my moment of analysis. "I'm happy for you."

"No, you're not," he chuckled, wiping his sweat-soaked forehead.

Alton and I had agreed to be friends who occasionally hooked up so that we could feel less lonely. We both come from Irish Catholic families - mine of nine and his of eight. People think it is hard to feel lonely coming from such big families, but being surrounded by people who all have different personalities and communication issues makes up for it. It can also be hard to get mental health help in households that barely survive paycheck to paycheck due to the amount of money it takes to simply feed that obnoxious number of children. Eventually, we started talking which lead to empathy which lead to friendship. I don't think I could ever fall in love with Alton but our mutual understanding has made us best friends of sorts.

"What?" I said, leaning back and resting my elbows on the hood behind me. "Am I not allowed to be happy for you?"

He sighed, "You have a fear of me leaving you and never talking to you again once I find someone, Fiadh."

"I have never once told you that."

"You told me two weeks ago when we got drunk and I showed you that tongue thing I learned from Mayah." He leaned back beside me and interlocked his right arm with my left. The moon was brightly reflecting off the hood as if it wanted to be the sun. "You said, and I quote, 'Don't go and fall in love with someone else because you will leave me and never talk to me again.'"

"Oh, so you're in love with this man now?" I laughed, making every effort to get him to look at my face again.

"Ugh," he smiled and pushed his weight into me for a second. "You know what I meant."

"I know," I brought my eyes back to the reflective moon. I felt his head turn, his eyes making contact with the left side of my pale face.

"I still want to hang out," he said. "I just don't want to fuck you."

When I open my eyes the song is ended and my twin brother Fearghus (fir-gus) is resting his head on my shoulder, a waterfall of drool pouring onto my skin which is left bare from my black tank top. I shove him off and give him a healthy smack on the head.

"What is wrong with you?!" he yells.

"What is wrong with me? What is wrong with you!" I shove my finger into a hover above my arm, where the sopping saliva was dripping. "Get real!" I rub my arm on his shirt and stand up just as my younger sister Fionnuala (fin-ool-a) sits down.