To Top It Off

"Fuck it and fly"

It was my mother's birthday when I decided I would be a bad mood all day after my sister told me I was going to hell. Now it was late and I had given up my oath. At 1.38 in the morning I was feeling quite pleasant. It was pitch dark but I have never seen a sky more full of stars. At the moment, my mother is talking to Andrew, my sister's boyfriend, about how in life at age 20 you aren't supposed to know what to do and you are supposed to just say "fuck it." She had given him more motherly wisdom I had ever gotten in the last 15 years of my life.

We are all drinking. They are drunk while I am still working on my 2.5% alcohol beer that is cherry flavor. She tells him how he should follow his dreams and "fly". He drunkenly nods to all this advice my mother has told him and decides he needs another cigarette. He leaves our backyard and my mother waits a few seconds to speak to me. I'm busy looking at those stars singing in my head but really thinking about how everyone has problems in their life right now and mine aren't as serious as theirs. My other sister, Leah (the one who said was going to hell) is currently fighting with her husband via text because he missed their cat's appointment and other stuff but I'm not sure what exactly. My father is stressed about his new job and my mother, for crying out loud, just turned 45.

"Gosh." she says. I lift my head up. She has her hand in her hands and those hands run through her short brown hair. "I worry about that fucking kid." I don't say anything. The reason is because: 1. my mother and I don't have the best relationship so anything I say will be awkward and stupid like me 2. I'm too tired to talk. 3. I'm not at a high enough maturity level to have an opinion in a situation like this. This situation was this: Andrew wants to move to Vegas to become a famous director or screenplay writer. I honestly don't know. Logan, his girlfriend and my sister, lives here in Germany and he doesn't want to leave her. My mother tells him Logan wants Andrew to do what makes him happy.

"What's that by you?" For a second I thought she was talking about a moth that was flying in front of me so I tell her it's a moth but I see her point to tinfoil on the ground. "Will that light the fire?" She asks. The fire pit was on early when my whole family was out here and it's getting a little chilly. I examine it. It was the tin foil that wrapped our chocolate for our s'mores. They were still half a bar left in the tin foil but it was dark chocolate so I didn't want to eat it. I throw it in the fire as I get up from our porch swing. Of course it doesn't land on the dying fire so I go to fix it on top of the flame. It doesn't really do anything so she throws Andrew's empty Marlboro box into it. She misses the fire but I still work to build it. I was too busy playing with the fire to realize Andrew is back with a cigarette.

"You have a lighter?" He asks. My mother says no. She used to smoke awhile back but she quit last winter when my grandfather died. "Just light it with the fire." My mother says while laughing. He tries it but he can't get close enough to the burning tin foil. "Hot face. Hot face." He says excessively. I wonder if he was being stupid or if he was too drunk to form a Basic English sentence. He finally picks up the tin foil from the fire pit. The chocolate is dripping off the side and he quickly lights his cigarette and throws the foil back in the pit. I rearrange my fortress to make the fire bolder again. It works.

"It could be worse you know, she could be a Jew and you could be a German trying to put her in a camp." She laughs. Andrew laughs too. I don't. That joke was very messed up so I just say "oh my god, mom" this makes her laugh more. I sit back down on the swing. The patio furniture centers on the fire pit. There are three empty chairs. Andrew and my mother are both to the right of me with one chair between us.

"I'm scared of the not knowing what is to come. Like not knowing if Logan and I are going to stay together or if I'm going to figure life out..." Andrew is normally a very shy person but this beer is really making him talk. My mother tries helping him again.

"You know Andrew; once you fly you will only be hurting yourself. You do you boo boo" yes she really just said "boo boo". I get up and fix the fire because I had realized if I want them to stay up longer I need to keep the fire up longer. The fire wood is stacked up around the flames and I top it off with the Marlboro pack and it seems to do the trick. The fire is better than it was 3 hours ago when my dad made it.

"Aright, I'm going to go to bed." Andrew says. Dammit. I just got the fire going. He stands up and hugs each of us. My mother convinces him to stay longer but he doesn't. We follow after him. My mom goes on without me. When I walk inside I see Leah sleeping on the couch. Her phone is still next to her and I wonder what happened with her problem. I finally head up stairs to sleep in my room. I close the door behind me and lock it and Like after coming home from a late movie I knock out.