Big Shot | ✓

05 | family ties

As expected, I was massively hungover on my flight home the next morning. In fact, I might have actually still been drunk in the Uber on my way to the tiny Greenville airport at 4 AM.

My unfortunate run-in with Reid in the bathroom at Blind Tiger had drained whatever social batteries I had left, and I orchestrated a courteous but intentionally vague exit. On the way home, I stopped at the corner store down the street from my apartment for wine and cupcake mix. I ate half of the frosting with a spoon, and wine might have actually gone in the cupcakes, but who's to say? Baking was all about experimenting anyway. Rosé cupcakes could be the next big thing. 

So I folded myself into the window seat on my 6 AM flight and spent damn near the entire two-hours going over my unintentional Reid rendezvous. Nothing about my presence had startled or deterred him, and unfortunately the same couldn't be said for me. Everything about him had me startled, deterred, frazzled, unhinged, and about fifteen other synonyms I could think of off the top of my head. I wasn't a nervous person around most people - especially guys - but I hated being wrong about someone. I hated being so unsure.

It was a sinkhole of thoughts I'd fallen into, but at the very least, it gave my brain something else to think about instead of every turbulent bump and moderately normal rattling noise the plane made. By the time we landed about two hours later, I realized I'd just been playing After Dark by Mr. Kitty on repeat the entire flight.

Even if someone had blindfolded me for the entire flight and didn't tell me where we were going, I'd know that we landed at JFK just from the smell alone - a noxious mixture of fuel and burnt rubber and just...city ick. Thankfully I'd be making a swift exit out of the city and into suburban New York.

My sister Amy was truly the eldest daughter in body and soul, which included being nauseatingly punctual even when it came to picking me up from the airport. Despite being halfway through her residency in Boston, Amy took the holiday weekend off when she found out I was coming home, still able to navigate the streets of Queens in my dad's Jaguar like she never left.

"By the way, do not ask Beth about her promotion," Amy said as we crossed the Whitestone bridge into upper Manhattan, reaching over to lower the music.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Apparently she's already fired some guy because he made sexist remarks in a meeting." Amy replied, pushing her big, bug-eyed sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "I think she's ready to take someone's head off."

I snorted out a laugh. "She should."

"Don't you start too," Amy scolded me with a flick of her wrist. "Remember that I'm the one that would get the phone call from prison."

This time I let out a real laugh, clutching my sides as I leaned back in the passenger seat. "Don't act like you don't love the responsibility of being everyone's emergency contact. Not to mention you'd relish the opportunity to lord that over Beth's head for the rest of her life."

Amy pinched her lips together, but I could tell she was holding back her laughter. She usually did, in true composed eldest sister fashion.

The smoggy air began to clear as we made it out of the city, and so I rolled the window down and propped my chin up in my hand. Rays of sunlight came in bursts through the tree branches, and without me even having to ask, Amy turned the volume back up as The Last One by Maisie Peters filled the car.  

You're bright and it's blinding

Just a small spark, and you're flying

With your wax wings in a back room