How it Happened

Nineteen

Nineteen

Wedding day

     "Avery! Get your ass back up here!"

     The people who normally wear the title of Aubrey's best friends, but today wear the title of Aubrey's bridesmaids, continue to stand at the top of the stairs screeching at me. Sasha's weapon is a blush brush that's perfect poof matches her perfect mane of curls, while I'm afraid Brenna is a few minutes away from branding me with the curling iron curled inside her fist.

     "I'll be right back," I hesitantly assure them as my feet continue to shuffle back and forth on the wooden step. I escaped my room, which has been turned into a full-blown salon, and made it halfway down the stairs before I was spotted.

     "Avery!" Aubrey's towel covered head pokes over the banister. "Don't leave me with these people!" my sister's laugh is melodic as she flounces away. She's been laughing since last night, but she's happily delirious because of today's events opposed to any lack of sleep our antics left us with.

     "Avery." Sasha sends me another warning when I take another step down.

     "I just have to do one more thing," I say and hold up the number with my finger before dashing down the rest of the stairs. The bridesmaids' whines fall behind me as I run into the kitchen and happily slip my feet into the teal flip flops I left by the sliding glass door. "You know people are already here, right?"

     The sponge in my mom's hand freezes against the counter top as her eyes dart up to mine. My mom's green eyes shrink as she squints back at me, and I immediately throw my hands up in surrender. That's all it takes for my mom to start laughing, but she still shakes her head at my comment.

     "Do you know where the Christmas lights are?" the pep is back in my voice while my mom's back to scrubbing the counter.

     "I think they're in the shed, but dad's outside if you want to ask him."

     "Okay," I chirp as I pull back the sliding glass door. "Dad!" I yell the second the door closes behind me, but quickly turn my head to the left when I sense movement. "What are you doing?" I ask when my dad yanks his hand behind his back and pulls himself upright.

     "Nothing." My dad tries, but when I begin to give him the same disapproving stare my mom gave me seconds before, he quickly flings his hand out. "Feeding the chicken."

     I sweep my eyes around our small, wooden fenced backyard, but Cluckie is nowhere to be found. I open my mouth prepared to ignore the lie, but gasp when I catch my dad squishing his slipper into one of the cement stones that line a pathway to the other side of our house.

     "Dad," I moan in disapproval.

     "I'm sorry okay!" he flings his hands up. "I'm a fifty-year-old man, I can do what I want."

     "But you quit smoking years ago." I don't even try to hide the whine from my voice.

     "I did." My dad triumphantly pulls his robe tighter around himself before tightening the strings. "I just needed a little something to get me through today."

     "Well, I need the Christmas lights!" I stomp my foot into the ground when I remember I'm a maid of honor on a mission to complete one last duty and can't waste time on my dad's bad habits.

     "There in the shed." My dad looks at me like I'm crazy, but I quickly begin sprinting across the grass to grab them.

     I wrench back the shed door, but when something comes crashing down onto the lawn mower, I immediately call out to the sneaky robe covered man again. "Dad!"