Johnny Baby

💙4💙

Johnny

    “Ow!” I accidentally yelped as my sister tugged a little too harshly at a tangle in my hair.
    “Sorry sorry!” Layla yelps, pulling the brush away from my hair for a minute. “Jeez, you really need to brush your hair more often, John.” She said, grabbing the piece of hair she had just been working on and continuing to brush it much more gently.
    “I do. It just gets tangled really fast.” I answered, shifting back into a comfortable position, leaning back against Layla’s legs. She simply hummed in response and continued to brush through my hair.
    “Are you  sure you aren’t just saying that to get me off your back?” She asks, smirking down at me.
    I stared back at her with a deadpan expression for a moment. Sure, she might have been right but that doesn’t mean I was just gonna admit it.
    “Shut up.” I said bluntly, trying to fight off the grin from creeping onto my face as she laughs and rolls her eyes at me.
    “Hey, You know I don’t need help getting ready, right? I’m 16. I’m perfectly capable of brushing my own hair.” I laughed. Of course, I wasn’t complaining. When she wasn’t pulling, I usually liked when Layla, or anybody really, brushed my hair.
    “I know but this is homecoming! You didn’t go last year for whatever dumb reason and now you are so I want you to look fantastic.” She explained, leaning forward to look down at me, her long curls hanging in my face.
    I was silent for a short moment.
    “You have more clothes for me, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I have more clothes for you to try.” She admits bluntly before going back to doing my hair.
    Layla is an aspiring fashion designer. It started off with her doodling out dresses she saw in movies and cartoons that she thought were pretty. Then, she started adding her own little designs to her shirts and jackets. She’d sew on patches and stitch in little words and designs. Now, as a 26 year old, she’s able to make full dresses in a very quick fashion. As her little brother, I have a sort of unspoken agreement to be her little fashion doll to dress up. Again, not complaining.
    “Alright, hold still or I’ll mess these up.” She says, slouching forward a bit as she drags the end of a comb through my hair, carefully but still precisely parting my hair. I tried not to make too much noise when she would tug a little too hard.
    When you’re constantly fidgeting, it isn’t very easy to sit still and let people do your hair. Then again, it isn’t easy to do a lot of things when you’re so restless. Whenever I hold any type of paper in my hand that needs to be trashed, it ends up being torn to bits before it even reaches said trash. If i’m working on something and I suddenly stop, it often gets harder and harder to continue on with it. I get too distracted.
    When I was younger, I thought this was normal for everyone. I would see kids constantly bouncing their knees in class and instantly just assumed everyone did those things. It was only when I turned 15 that I started realizing
“Hey, apparently this is normal for everyone.” “Apparently, not everyone needs more than an
hour to actually fall asleep.”
“Not everyone gets overwhelmed when more than 5 people are talking at once.”
    Weird
    “Ow.” I muttered as I felt another tug at the side of my scalp.
    “Sorry sorry. Hold on. We’re almost done.” She hums.
    I sit as still as my bouncy body will allow until Layla finally finishes.
    “Done!” She says cheerily.
    Her tan hands grab onto my paler ones and pull me up from the floor. I could feel my feet tingling with pins and needles from sitting in my criss cross applesauce position for too long.
    With minor struggle, I let her pull me up off the floor before I walked over to my dresser and gazed into the mirror hung up on the wall.
    My hair is parted slightly farther to the right than usual. All my hair is combed over to the left while the rest of the hair is kneaded into three tight braids along the right side of my scalp. I could feel the faint tension from how tight they were. However, they looked awesome so I wouldn’t complain.
    “Wow, you did it again, Layla.” I chuckled. Layla has always been a sort of beauty guru. Her and Alexia both. They used to do each other's hair and makeup all the time being the only girls in the family. When I started growing out my hair and realized I wasn’t into the same things as my brothers were, they kinda started treating me like a pet or something. They would put makeup and stuff on me. It never bothered me. Even now, it doesn’t bother me. So, it kind of fell into my folder of “normal.” I let my sister use me as an uncompensated model so she can make new clothes and she likes to style my hair whenever I go anywhere to dress up. I joke about being able to take care of myself, but I am also too awkward to dress just however I want. So, I let my sister decide these things for me so I have an excuse if anybody tries to tease me for it.
    Layla grins brightly at me.
    “You like it?” She asked.
    “Of course I do. You really brought it.” I laugh.
    “Aw hell yeah. I always bring it.” She chuckles.
    “Oh! Hold on! Let me get the outfit.” she says before rushing out of my room and downstairs.
    I laugh slightly at her excitement before focusing on my contacts. I should probably put those in before I forget.
    Layla had a lot of energy for someone like her. Of course, I mean no harm in that. It’s actually really impressive. She has two daughters, an all day job at a country club as some kind of server, a side job where she sells clothes she makes online. She just works a lot and yet, she has more energy than I do.
    With that thought, I quietly hum to myself and put in my contacts, glancing around the room to let the clear lenses find their proper place on my eyes.
    Contacts aren’t my favorite things to wear, but they are a bit more convenient than glasses. They’re less likely to get damaged so that’s why I wear them 95% of the time.
    “Alright, I’m back!” She calls happily, closing my bedroom door behind her, a plastic bag now hanging from her wrist alongside her jingly bracelets.
    “Alright. Let’s see what you’ve got this time.” I hummed, tossing myself onto my bed, instantly sitting criss cross once again.
    “Alrighty!” She happily agreed, hopping up with me, sitting on her knees, keeping the heel part of her shoes off my bed. I wouldn’t really care if she had them on the bed but, I liked that she cared enough to not do that.
    I dug my hands into the bag after she dropped it into my lap. I wasn’t surprised to find it had a mainly blue theme.
    Blue has always been my favorite color and I knew Layla had picked that up by now. Usually, if the clothes she’s giving me are made specifically for me, they are almost always blue.
    I dig out the shirt and pants in the bag and examine them a bit closer. The shirt was a simple button down, but the sleeves had been replaced with a sort of mesh fabric. You could see there were little fabric flowers within the thin layers of transparent fabric that made up the sleeves. The pants weren’t anything too special though. They were black and high waisted. However, along the sides of the legs I noticed Layla had added on some flowers practically identical to the ones in the mesh sleeves.
    “Well? What do you think?” She asked, leaning forward onto her knuckles as she waited for me to reply.
    “They look great Layla.” I smiled at her. “Very Harry Styles-esque.” I added.
    She gave me a sort of questioning look but her smile never left her face.
    “Are you just saying that because you know I adore him?” She asked.
    “...Maybe.” I joked, laughing as she playfully punched me in the arm.
    “Alright, go on. Go put them on!” She squealed, practically shoving me off my bed.
    “Okay okay! I’m going.”
    I walk off into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me and hoping that no one would barge in.
    Not long ago, we broke the lock on our bathroom door and we just haven’t gotten to fixing it. My older brother Angel agreed to fix it the next time he dropped by but, with his wife being pregnant and his son taking care of my dog in hopes of earning the right to get his own, Angel has just been too busy to drive down here. It is a pretty annoying drive from his house. He’s only about two hours away at most, but he lives in a big city. Traffic can be a real pain in the ass up there.
    With little to no struggle, I switch out of my casual day clothes and into the brand new outfit from my sister.
    The pants are snug but not suffocating like some of the pants she’s made me.
    I look in the large mirror above the somewhat crowded sink and examine myself in the mirror. The tight pants looked pretty cool with the comfy, flowy dress shirt. I could probably match them with some boots and call it a fit.
    I smile at the sight in the mirror and do a couple poses. I may not be the most overly confident, but I can tell when I look good. And right now, I look pretty damn good.
    My hair bounces around a bit whenever I move. Coming from a family of Mexicans with lots of hair, it tends to grow pretty thick. I love my hair. It’s probably one of my best qualities. However, I very rarely do anything with it. Of course, I brush it, I’m not an animal. But, I don’t do anything with it. I’ll ponytail it when I’m working and need it out of the way, but other than that, I really don’t do anything with it. Don’t braid it or pin it. Don’t curl it or straighten it. I do nothing with it. That’s why my sister loves to do it for me. She likes to try new things on my hair. She could do it to her own hair of course. Her hair is way longer than mine though, so maybe it’s a bit harder when you have so much hair to take care of.
    It felt a bit odd having all this fluff just brushed over to one side, but it wasn’t too bad. I’d just have to make sure that I didn’t brush it to the wrong side and mess up the look. If I did then all that struggling and hair tugging would be for nothing.
    “Johnny!” My sister calls from my room. “Apurate!”
     I laughed at the sound and tossed open the door.
    “Alright, alright! I’m coming!” I called to her, dramatically throwing my leg out the door and walking back to my room.
    “Oooo!” She says in awe, clapping her hands frantically.
    “You look amazing! Come on! Give me a twirl!” She demands, happily squirming around on the edge of my bed.
    I give her an overdramatic pout before giving her a small spin. Although the action wasn’t anything special, she still cheered.
    “Woo! Ay, muy guapo.” She teases.
    With a laugh I make my way over to my dresser, looking in the mirror before grabbing some eyeliner from my little set of drawers atop my dresser. Like most things I’ve done today, I don’t wear makeup very often. I really don’t often see the need to when most people don’t go out of their way to notice me. If I’m smart about it, I could very easily not be spotted around school. I don’t try too hard to cover up any imperfections I see because most people don’t even notice them. However, when I dress up, I never see a reason not to go the extra mile sometimes. The extra mile is usually a very short mile when used in my vocabulary, however it’s still a mile.
    “Wow, is that makeup I spy?” My sister asks, her voice dramatically hopping up an octave.
    “Yes, it is. And you know I have fidgety hands so  shush. Let me focus or I'll mess up.” I laugh, leaning forward over the white dresser, one eye closing and the other staying as open as they can be so I can see my work in the mirror.
    Before I start drawing on my eyelids I see my sister in the reflection of the mirror playfully zip her lips shut with her fingers and smile at me. Nerd.
    As carefully as possible I draw with the cold liquid liner. I never realized how hard eyeliner was until I actually tried using it. Pencil eyeliner is a bit easier to control but I can’t really stand the way it feels when I use it and liquid is just a bit more precise. It’s just often really cold and nerve-wracking to use.
    After what felt like five minutes of occasional muttered swears breaking the silence, I finished. It wasn’t anything too extreme. Just some simple small wings and some smudged black under my eyes. My eyes are fairly small and my skin is pretty pale for a Mexican boy, so my eyes don’t stand out as much as I’d like them to. So, when I use eyeliner, it usually makes a huge difference.
    “Wow.” Layla starts, sliding off the edge of my tall bed, her skirt wrapping around her thighs oddly before she adjusts it and walks over to stand beside me. “You’re almost as good as doing eyeliner as me.” She giggles, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
    “Almost? Where’d I go wrong?” I asked playfully.
As much as I hate to admit it, I tend to be very self-conscious about what people think about me. Not really in the way of how I look. Or at least not mainly. It’s more like the mistakes I make. If I do something and I’m even slightly proud of it and someone even slightly says they don’t like it, it tears my confidence down by at least 50%. However, with Layla, I very rarely feel that way with her. She always sounds so happy and fond when she speaks so it doesn’t ever hurt when she teases me or tells me when I goof up. I have to be in a really awful mood to get torn down by Layla.
“You got some smudges here.” She says, licking her thumb and wiping some off the top of my eyelid.
“Ewww, Layla!” I laughed, trying to pull away from her gross spit fingers.
“Come back! I’m trying to be helpful!” She laughs.
As quickly as I can, I drop out from her grasp and rush out the door, hearing her heels not far behind me. It’s kind of intimidating running from someone who knows how to run in heels.
I feel my socked feet slide on the carpeted hallway floor but that doesn’t deter me. I let the sliding help with my speed before zooming into the kitchen. My mom squeals and laughs as I run behind her, not even noticing Axel by the island in the kitchen.
Layla comes rushing out into the kitchen only for her boyfriend to catch her by the waist and lift her up.
“There she is!” He laughs, laying her over his shoulder.
“Hey! I was trying to tackle my brother thank you very much.” She tries to sound serious but her giggles keep spilling out when she does.
“Wooow.” I drawl out in fake offense and shock. “And when I thought you were just trying to help me. I feel betrayed.”
She pouts and sticks her tongue out at me. I do the same in return.
“Alright alright settle down. The girls just settled in for a movie after running around for almost an hour.” Mom says, grabbing her coffee mug off the counter and taking a big sip.
“Yeah. They really do take a lot out of you.” Axel sighs, shifting the position of his arms to keep Layla’s skirt in it’s position.
“You say that like you’re 50 or something.” Layla laughs, letting her body just kind of go limp over his shoulder, her long brown curls brushing against the floor.
“I may as well be. I’m getting old, baby.” He chuckles.
She gasps in playful offence and smacks his back.
“What?!” He asks, confused by the “aggressive” response.
“Don’t say that! If you say that then that means I’m getting old too!” She explains, squirming around in his grasp again.
“Maybe you are. I mean, you’re kids are like 6 now.” I comment, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter.
“That does not mean I’m getting old!” She yells, reaching out as if she could even do anything from her upside down position.
“Johnny,off the counter.” My mom comments casually, taking another sip of her coffee as she gracefully walks out of the kitchen and sits in her comfy reclining chair.
I hop off the counter with my hands up in defence before I hear the doorbell ring.
“Who’s that?” Axel asks.
“It’s probably for me.” I chuckled, happily jogging over to the front door. Upon opening it, I see that I was correct. It was for me.
My friends Joey and Markus stand before me all dressed up. Joey’s hair is tied back in it’s usual long braid but he’s wearing a black button down shirt with a pac-man themed tie. Joey had joked about getting a gamer themed tie, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it. ((NOV 10 update))Markus also looked nice in his warm, orange button down with a black vest overtop of it.
Whenever I see them together, I always remember how easily you can tell their personalities. I forget it until I actually look at them.
Markus has this super confident aura around him when he stands. He stands straight but not in a really overconfident way. He stands up in a chill way but he still holds himself high enough that he doesn’t blend into a crowd easily. He also is filled with energy more often than not so he’s constantly rocking back and forth on his heels or bouncing around on his toes when he stands.
Joey on the other hand, stands with a bit of a slouch due to his height. He isn’t shy, not in the slightest. However, he does prefer to blend in a bit more. Joey is a genius and master debater and he knows it. You can see it in his attitude. He’s confident in his abilities. He’s not stuck up about it but, his attitude and posture might make you think otherwise.
“Jeez. And here I thought I was gonna have to walk to homecoming.” I joked, smiling at the small eyeroll Joey gave me.
“Hey! We didn’t have to pick you up. You literally live like a block away from the school.” Joey chuckles.
“True, but, would you really make me walk when I look this good?” I asked, giving them a small twirl.
“Yes.” He answers without hesitation.
Markus chuckles and lightly bops Joey on the arm like a scolding mother.
“Okay that’s valid. Let me get my shoes on.” I say quickly, opening the door further so they can come inside while I rush upstairs to slip on some boots.
“Wait! Let me pick them for you!” My sister laughs, finally worming her way out of her boyfriend’s grasp and following me up the stairs.
“Alright fine, but don’t take too long. I hate making them wait.” I tell her as I throw open my closet and look through the fabric rack holding all my shoes.
“Oh cmon,” She starts, standing next to me and examining my seemingly endless supply of boots. “It’s Joey and Markus. They don’t care if you make them wait an extra minute or two.” She says, pulling out a pair and examining them.
“They might not, but I do.” I hummed, crossing my arms over my chest
I saw the way Layla cast me a small glance before focusing on the shoes again.
Layla has a big heart. She cares so much and that kinda sucks sometimes since I know she worries about me often. I get myself into trouble often with my own attitude that I throw around. Then there’s my constantly crumbling mental health that she has to stress over. Because of that, I often try to keep any self-deprecating jokes or minor anxieties and insecurities to myself.
“Aha!” She says triumphantly as she pulls out a pair of heeled boots. “These ones!”
Layla got those from a punk website for me last year. I saw them online once and just needed to have them. They weren’t anything super special. Just some black boots with thick heels and a small chain hanging around the front laces.
I laughed as I grabbed them from her and shrugged. Seemed fitting enough.
I hopped onto my bed and slid them on, taking a moment to adjust to the odd feeling of wearing heels. I usually don’t since I don’t like to get distracted by something so simple like heels. They also are much louder when I bounce my feet in class. So, I rarely wear them. Luckily though, that means they’re still in top condition.
I stood up on the heavy boots and gave my sister another quick spin.
    She looked way more excited than I was. Not to say I wasn’t excited to go out with my friends. However, she seemed a bit overly excited.
    “You look amazing oh my goodness! I really wish you had a date so I could see their reaction!” She squeals, wrapping her arms around my waist and lifting me up off the floor for a couple short moments.
    “Wow, way to remind me how single I am.” I wheezed, quickly inhaling when she released me.
    “Awww I’m sorry.” she laughs, wrapping her arm around my neck and leading me out into the hall again.
    “It’s fine. I’m not really looking for a boyfriend at the moment.” I chuckle.
    She hums, holding me a bit closer.
    “Just because your last boyfriend sucked doesn’t mean all of them do.”
    “No, it doesn’t but still. I’m just not looking for it right now. I’m already too busy with home stuff. I can’t let a boy get in between me and the girls now can I?” I chuckle, wiggling out of her grasp and hopping over to the couch in the living room and planting loud, playful kisses and the girls foreheads.
    “I’ll see you two tomorrow!” I tell them.
    “Bye uncle Johnny!” They called in almost unison.
    I walk over to the door to see Markus and Joey still hanging out by the door. They aren’t the type to be awkward around my house and you can tell they aren’t. However, I think the sudden fancy attire has caused them to pull away. Probably because they know my sister would get overly excited over it.
    “I’ll see you later, Mama.” I told her, leaning over the back of her reclining chair and giving her a quick side hug.
    “Alright, Mijo. I’ll see you tonight. Have fun!” She says, waving me and my friends off.
    “Wait, Joey!” She calls.
    The tall boy quickly whirls around and leans back into the living room.
    “Yeah?”
    “Please do not speed into the school parking lot. I don’t trust you as a driver.” She teases, throwing a playful wink at Joey.
    The comment earns a small bark of a laugh from Markus and I.
    “Wow, Thanks Mrs. Rosales.” Joey chuckles before turning and walking back outside into the breezy fall air.
    “Alright, are we ready?” Markus asks, hopping over the four steps in front of my house onto the hard concrete out front.
    “I think we are.” I responded, adjusting my hair once again after the wind slightly misplaced it.
    “Then let’s get going!” Joey calls, already hopping in his car, his keys jingling as he tugs them out of his pocket.
    Here we go.