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Andrea

“Why would you take several clearly drunk texts I sent at one in the morning as confirmation you could actually throw a party here?”

I whirl around to face Brayden after locking the front door. He’s wearing board shorts and a t-shirt for a band who seem to be really into Viking aesthetics.

“It just seemed really hardcore of you,” he says, holding his hands up to feign innocence.

He is not innocent. Once I dealt with the whole puking into the sink situation, the first thing I did was run outside—through the front door, rather than the deck door, since the last thing I want is for anyone to get into the house—and start shrieking Brayden’s name while I waded through the crowd to find him.

He was in the middle of setting up a keg, and I could tell after a few seconds of screaming at him that he was already a couple beers in. The music was so loud I had to drag him all the way around the house and pull him inside to stand a chance of getting my message across. My message is that he needs to shut this party down and get everyone out of here in the next ten minutes.

“Well, I’m not interested in being hardcore today,” I tell him. “Are you going to stop this party or not?”

Instead of marching out there to shut the music off, he leans against the wall and tilts his head to the side. “You seem really stressed out. Do you want me to grab you a beer?”

I let out a scream. “Brayden, this party cannot be happening, and I have a feeling those people are not going to listen to me if I try to get them out of here myself. You need to shut this down.”

“Okay, Okay.” He pushes off the wall and lifts his hands again. “I’ll do my best. You sure you don’t want a beer, though? Seems like you have a lot going on, and sometimes a beer and a bit of headbanging is all you need to fix that, you know?”

I stare at him for a couple seconds, and once it sinks in that he’s being completely serious, I can’t help it.

I burst out laughing.

I double over and laugh so hard my ribs ache. I stagger across the entryway end up slumped against the wall, still howling as I slide all the way down to a seat on the cold tiled floor.

“Uh…” Brayden says.

The quick glance I take at his freaked out expression just makes me laugh even more. It’s not even funny. None of this is funny, but my body doesn’t seem to be getting the message.

“I’m sorry,” I wheeze once I can finally speak again. “Uh, yeah, you could say I have a lot going on.”

Another bark of laughter bursts out of me before I go on.

“This is my dad’s house. I’m supposed to be taking care of it, and now my mom is going to show up here any minute and see I’m actually destroying it, which is not going to surprise her because she’s used to me being disappointing.”

I ball my fists up in the sleeves of my hoodie and stare straight at my knees as the words pour out of me. I’m sure Brayden’s probably plotting an escape from the girl having a complete mental breakdown on the floor, but I can’t stop.

“I’m supposed to fly back to Toronto tomorrow and commit myself to finally being the perfect daughter, but I’m not the perfect daughter, and I think for the first time in my life I’m actually…okay with that? Except it’s still terrifying, and also on top of all of that, I think I’m in love with this girl I really messed things up with. I have to go find her and tell her that before it’s too late, but there’s a raging heavy metal party out there destroying my dad’s backyard, and my mom is probably pulling into the driveway as we speak.”

The thump of the bass outside and the muffled shouts from the party fill the silence that falls once I’m done.

“Oh,” Brayden says after a couple seconds tick by.

“Yeah,” I say. I look up and grimace at him, all the laughter now drained from my body. “That about sums it up.”

He steps closer and crouches down in front of me until we’re eye to eye.

“Andrea,” he says, “that is very hardcore. I’m going to go stop this party so you can go find that girl.”

He straightens up and heads to the kitchen. I hear the sliding door screech open before the volume from outside increases by what feels like fifteen decibels. I get to my feet to run over and lock the door behind him, but it seems like nobody even noticed him slip outside. He’s disappeared into the crowd. I stand with my nose pressed against the glass, my foot tapping out a deranged rhythm as I wait to see what happens.

There’s no way we’ll clear them all out before my mom gets here, but things might go marginally better if she shows up and finds a crazy party ending instead of one in full-swing.

I’m considering cracking the door open to see what’s taking him so long when the boom of the music shuts off. There’s a split-second of silence out on the deck, and then I hear the rumble of murmuring voices and some shouted complaints.

The whole party turns to look as Brayden’s head and shoulders pop up above the crowd on the deck. He must have jumped up on one of the tables. I can’t make out everything he’s saying through the glass, but it doesn’t take long for his announcement about the party ending to get drowned out by a chorus of ‘Boo!’ from all sides of the yard.

Brayden tries to wave down the protests, but he’s interrupted by a scuffle of movement in the crowd, and the next second, he disappears from view. A few people start cheering, and then a wide enough path is cleared for me to see why: two ridiculously buff dudes have grabbed Brayden by his arms and legs and are carrying him to the side of the pool.