Grounding Hunter

HDE--April 16th

      "PLEASE TELL ME WHY!!!  MY CAR IS IN THE FRONT YARD!!!   AND IIIIIIII--"

      Oh, joy.  I could hear the music blaring from at least a mile outside her house.  Good thing there weren't neighbors close by.  The closest neighbor anyhow would have been my sister, who's music could get just as loud if not louder.  From the sounds of it, today we were channeling her inner grunge, 90s emo kid.

      The song abruptly changed the instant I parked my truck in the driveway.

      The second I opened her unlocked front door, I was blasted with sound.  It was barely 0600...she should not have her music up this loud.  Let alone, be screaming the lyrics at the top of her lungs along with it.

     "I'LL HIT YOU WITH MY CAR AND I'LL LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD!"

      I caught the flash of blonde hair.  That, let me know that Bristol wasn't in the house by herself with Rocky.  I ran thru the list of girls that were with our fucked up 'crew' who had blonde hair.

      Jolene.  Addi.  Baylee.
      Lauren.  Was she even home?  Or back at her house on base? 
      Leah Belle was still on deployment.
      Lennon...I didn't think she was home either, but I could be wrong.
      Where the hell was Rocky?  Some good guard training did.

      Both, Bristol and Aspen had got Rottweiler pups from the same litter, at the same time, and then went with them thru training that apparently was the dog version of Navy SEALs training.  The training stuck a lot better with Blue, Aspen's pup, than it did Rocky.

      I glanced back behind me at the driveway.  No cars.  My truck was the only one out there.  So, whoever was with her must have walked down.  The minute my mind latched on that, Jolene turned around, caught my gaze and did some punk rock air kick.

     Questions answered.

      The song changed again.  I made myself comfortable in the doorway, leaned on the frame and just watched.  Bristol would notice me sooner or later.  I should be happy that she was full of energy, but all I could think of was what time did she finally go to bed?  Did she get enough sleep?  Why the hell was her door unlocked?  She needed a security system.  Why the fuck did I care?

      The new song got to what I assumed was the chorus and I noticed another tiny girl.  This one was none other than my 5'2" sister.  She just crawled right up on the table, mismatched fluffy socks on, hair hanging loose, spatula microphone in hand.

      This was gonna end in disaster.

      "I HATE THAT I SPENT ALL THIS TIME, HOPING YOU WOULDN'T WALK AWAY.  SO, WHAT IF I LEFT YOU INSTEAD?!"

      AHH...now it all made sense on why the 'OG sisters' were here.  It wasn't channeling their inner grunge...it was a 'bash men' morning.  Aspen must have told them last night, or this morning, that she heard Brighton on my end of the call yesterday.  They were trying to get her mind off of the situation.  Off him.

      I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and switched the camera to video.  Our brothers would love to see her belting out lyrics, that none of us knew, regardless that they were angry, 'kick men in the balls' lyrics.  Belting them out all the same.  Having some sort of fun.

      We all worried about her.  Seeing her in the psych ward of the hospital two years ago.  Seeing all the hundreds of white lines on her arm.  The angry red ones that were deep and not healed over yet.  Her tear stained face.  Our parents trying to come to terms with how they missed that both twins had self destructed.  That memory flashed in all of our minds, at random times, and gutted us in our own ways.