The Girl

FORTY-SEVEN: LOVE ON THE BRAIN

"Oh, and babe I'm fist fighting with fire just to get close to you. Can we burn something babe?"

SONG: LOVE ON THE BRAIN
ARTIST: RIHANNA

"We planned everything for two years, not six months," Brenda snapped as she stared at all of the receipts for all of the places we had put deposits on. I felt really bad, but Brianna kept reminding me that it was our money.

"Mom, we're not going to lose the deposits," Brianna groaned and ran her hands over her face, annoyed. "I mean, I don't know about the venue, but everything else is flexible."

"Really? Did you know you were going to move the wedding day?" Brenda asked, shooting me an annoyed look. I looked down at Brianna's hand, intertwining our fingers together.

"Sort of--I mean, I wanted to," I told Brenda and watched her cross her arms in exasperation. "We just talked about it yesterday."

"Dios mio, Brianna, are you pregnant?" Brenda asked. Brianna and I looked at each other and our lips curled in complete amusement.

"No mom," Brianna laughed and licked her lips. "You of all people should know that it takes more than one day to get pregnant."

Brenda's face paled as she realized what she had done. "Oh, yeah--I totally forgot. I'm sorry, Luke."

"I'm not going to cry over the fact my penis doesn't work," Is what I wanted to say, but this was Brianna's mum and I had learned to fear her. She was a Latina, you don't fight with a Latina.

Instead, I said, "It's fine. I'm not hurt."

"The venue is easily taken care of," Brenda said suddenly. "I just hope you haven't written the dates on the cards."

"We have," Brianna spoke softly. "We agreed on a date before you came so we wouldn't be in that much trouble."

Brenda smiled softly. "Okay. Luke have you gotten a band?"

"Yeah, I got a band," I assured Brenda.

*

"Lyssa, if you don't fucking put that down I'll throttle you," I snapped as she went to wash to the dishes again. Brianna turned her body and then placed herself between Alyssa and the sink. "See, even Brianna wants you to go away."

"I'm trying to help," Alyssa muttered and backed away, crossing her arms over her chest while Brianna got to doing the dishes. "You two are so mean."

"No, we have a system," I began to explain and took the wet plate from Brianna, shoving it inside of the dishwasher. "We wash everything but the plates because we hate touching food."

Alyssa managed a smile. "I remember that. Liz would make you wash everything just to see you flinch away."

"Yeah," I swallowed and realized that I couldn't handle other memories of my mother, much less my own. "She was kind of evil."

I hadn't even noticed the way Brianna started washing the plates.

"She knew what to say in order to get you to do what she wanted," Alyssa smiled softly and then looked down at the floor briefly before back at me. "I mean, she convinced you to talk to me when we were in seventh grade."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to your friend," I admitted and watched as Alyssa's face turned into one of shocked amusement. "But I got you."

"Yeah, you did," Alyssa bit down on her lip and then there was the clatter of dishes as Brianna fumbled with the plate. My ex-girlfriend jumped and realized what we were doing. "And now you've got Brianna and I have a kid."