Drenched | ✓

uno

My sister was flaffing as usual— not even half-way through her packing, yet still having managed to scatter most of her wardrobe around her room. I watched from my sat position on her bed as she graced into her ensuite.

"I can't believe you're making me go alone," I told her retreating slender figure.

I could hear her looking through the cupboards in the bathroom. "Julie, you're eighteen. I think you can handle a little plane journey by yourself."

I groaned into my arms. "I know, I know, but we always go together."

"Exactly," she said, coming back into the room with mouthwash and toothpaste in each hand. "Change is good. Aren't you the one always saying that?"

"Out of everything I've ever told you, you just had to choose that to listen to?"

She grinned at me, using the yellow scrunchie on her wrist to tie up her brown hair in a low bun. "Come on, give me a hand."

I felt an ounce of jealousy at the sight of her smile. Of course, I was used to her flawless looks, but that didn't mean it was any less of a forceful blow when I was faced with them. Ever since Stephen McGonnagen had asked me— fourteen year old Julie with eyes too big for my face and a mouth full of metal— why I wasn't hot like my seventeen year old sister, my confidence hadn't exactly been soaring. Now four years later, and I was still thinking about it.

"Elise, I'm serious," I said, halting in rolling up a towel. "Why can't you go to France afterwards?"

"We planned the Paris trip months ago," she said, now in front of her wardrobe and pulling hanger after hanger, discarding the majority. "Paris for a week, then I'll come over to Spain for the rest of the holidays, okay?"

"Okay," I relented. "Are the others coming?"

The 'others' were her friends from university. I'd met them very few times, but all the times I did, they were either intoxicated beyond functioning or were rude or both. I avoided them when I could, for good reason.

"Probably not." I tried not to show how relieved I was. "Here, look, take this."

She handed me a tight-fitted red silk dress I was sure had been an impulsive buy.

"No way am I wearing that." Her face morphed from happy to sad, that infamous puppy look on full display. God damn it. "Does grandma know you're not coming until later?" I said, snatching it from her and shoving it in my own bag.

She bit her lip. "You can tell her."

"El—"

A horn outside sounded. She hurriedly jumped on her bag and zipped it up. "I've got to get going!"

☼  ☼ ☼

I shook my shoulder to rid it of the snoring and probably drooling man beside me. He'd already made my arm numb from laying on it pretty much as soon as we'd taken off and now being unable to bear it anymore, I was squashed against the window.

At long last, the light ahead came back on, and I looked out of the window to see the city below. Once we landed, I almost cried in victory when the man wiped the slobber from his lips and got up. I let him take his luggage from overhead and disappear down the aisle.

Hope I never see you again, sir.

"That looked like a nightmare," one of the flight attendants said to me.