Brown curls flying, Ariana sat in the drivers seat of her Jeep. Her radio was blasting old school rock tunes, which were by far her favorite type of music. All her friends, including her best friend, Jennette, was obsessed with pop music, and Ariana couldn’t stand the genre, to be frank. But the worst, was Jennette’s favorite band— One Direction. Frankly, Ariana thought they were nothing but five wannabe NSYNC members, and their music was generic and had no meaning whatsoever. They had seven or nine or who knows how many people writing one song that just repeated the words “Na na na” over and over again, and it made Ariana sick that five people that untalented could get rich and famous and make it, when Ariana couldn’t. She sang real music— and she’d been told it was beautiful. Just the thought of her best friend jumping around with Ariana’s little sister screaming about how Zack or whoever had gotten engaged to the-girl-with-the-platypus-name made the brunette sick.
Her breaks came to a screeching halt as she pulled up to a red light. She took the time to adjust her lip gloss in the rear-view mirror, and adjust her half-up half-down hair style before the light changed to green again. Once the girl pulled up to her quaint little home in Tampa, she unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the door, and hopped out of her car. She was dreading walking through the front door, but she couldn’t put it off any longer— her younger sister, Jaqui, had been screaming about how the boyband Ariana so loathed was going to be in town that night, and as discreet as her mother had tried to be, Ariana knew that she had bought Jaqui tickets. Worse than that? Ariana was to be forced to take her younger sister.
Once she walked in through the front door, Ariana ran up the stairs, fast as she could, attempting to make it to her room before her mother, Joan, could stop her. But it was a shot in the dark, and standing right outside Ariana’s heavily postered wall was her mother, dark hair curled and a smile on her face, and dimples that made her somewhat look like a teenage girl again. Ariana smiled sweetly at her mother before asking her politely “Hi mommy, can I please go into my room?”
"Oh you know it’s coming," Joan grinned back at her. Ariana rolled her eyes and groaned.
"Why can’t you go?" Ariana inquired, flashing her whitest and sweetest smile.
"I’m busy," was the only response Ariana got out of her mother. She handed her the two tickets, and Ariana sighed heavily, seriously considering burning them. This is not what she wanted to be doing on her Friday night, and what was worse— what if someone she knew saw her there? They’d think she was a fake for saying she hated One Direction all the time, but she really did. She hated her mother even more at the moment.
"Now, don’t sit in your room too long, dinner’s on the table and I made Chinese." That made Ariana grin a little, because she knew when her mother said "made" she actually meant "ordered". Which really didn’t matter to the girl, since as long as she had her sweet and sour chicken and fried rice, she was content, or, at least for the time being.
Ariana shut her door and turned on her music from her iHome, kicking off her shoes, and setting her backpack on her bed. Singing along to the music streaming into her ears from her desk, she unlocked her iPhone and messaged back Jennette, “Yep. She’s making me go with her.” Only a few minutes later, her best friend had texted back. Ariana opened it up, and it read “What?! You could have told her I’d take her.”
Rolling her eyes, Ariana quickly typed back, “I tried, she says this will be great ‘bonding time’. Doesn’t really matter anyway, I’ll probably just sit in the bathroom the whole time, Jaqui won’t notice.” With that, Ariana raced down the staircase, to the dinner table. She didn’t want her Chinese food getting cold.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was six o’clock and the last thing Ariana wanted right now was to be getting ready to take her thirteen year old sister to a One Direction concert. But, she figured there might be other older brothers being forced to take their younger sisters with them, and she decided she should at least look presentable. She decided on a floral v-neck dress with the sides cutout, which she’d worn despite her mother’s protests that the dress “was way too sultry for a boyband concert.” But Ariana had brushed her off, and slipped on some white flip flops on and fixed her hair and makeup.
Six thirty now, and Jaqui was freaking out because they were “gonna be late!” Although, the concert didn’t start until seven thirty and they lived all of ten minutes away from the arena, plus they had assigned seats anyway, so it really shouldn’t have mattered if they missed the opening act twelve minutes of winter or who or what or something. Ariana shrugged it off, laughing when she saw her younger sister, dressed head to toe in band merch. The “Mrs. Horan” shirt was the most laughable, as the boy must have been at least seven years older than her. But a close competitor for comedic value was the “One Direction loves my Little Things” knee high socks. Overall, her younger sister was a walking joke.
Ariana suppressed the laughter, at least until they were in the car on the way, so her mother wouldn’t yell at her. Then she let loose, almost having to pull over because there were tears in her eyes. “I’m good, I’m good.” She giggled, pulling up to the stadium.
"Just try not to embarrass me, Jaq." But even speaking the words, Ariana knew it was futile, as they walked into the arena, and Jaqui let out a couple of screams as the guy scanned her ticket.
