stay soft, but don't be gentle

it's altogether m e n t a l . . .

〰️〰️〰️

For as long as I'd known Gus, which had been most of my life, he was always late. He was never on time for anything. Didn't matter if it were parties, reservations, work, events, or anything in between; you could guarantee he'd be running late. I was convinced he'd never break the habit.

Now usually, it would be the girl in these types of situations. The boyfriend waits impatiently for his girlfriend as she has a trauma about what to wear and rushes through her beauty routine, until they end up in the car and she's still not happy with the outcome. Our relationship was a little different – I was the one waiting for my consistently unprepared boyfriend.

On Saturday morning, I'd had enough of pacing in the kitchen as Ziggy watched me and instead, I took a seat at the island. I didn't even have enough patience left to scroll aimlessly through my phone. There was nothing left for me to look at on social media because I'd browsed on everything already.

"What the fuck, Gus, we gotta go!" I snapped, the idea of my sister strangling me from possibly being late to her bridal shower pushing me to do so.

"Alright! Alright," he yelled back in the same, sharp tone I used.

But just because he surrendered still didn't mean he was ready. Every second that ticked by was another second closer to me pulling the trigger on my temper.

As soon as I heard his footsteps leave our bathroom, I leapt out of my stool. Ziggy mimicked my frantic pace by twirling in circles, getting himself tangled within his leash. He was never a still creature, so it took me a minute to unravel him. A minute of him re-entangling the leash as soon as I'd fix it and trying to lick my face.

With his leash finally secured around my wrist, I threw my purse into the gigantic plastic container I'd previously filled with party favors and decorations, and hoisted it off the island countertop. When I turned around, I managed to shoot a glare at Gus through our brief eye contact.

"We should have left twenty minutes ago. If we get stuck in weekend traffic, Sutton and my mom are both gonna kill me," I mused in annoyance, more so just voicing my inner thoughts while aiming the blame at Gus.

He pulled the door open for me with his car keys in one hand and a bouquet of balloons in the other. "Are you the one driving?" He retorted.

"No, but I have to sit in the car with you and listen to you complain about the traffic that you got us stuck in because you weren't ready on time."

"What the fuck ever," he mumbled, pressing the down button for the elevator once we got to it. Usually, the wait was never too long since there were four elevators and only twenty floors. Today, it felt like years before one came to our floor.

The two-plus hour drive in front of us was looking better with every passing moment.

I never thought the dinging of an elevator would bring me as much joy as a dismissal bell at the end of a school day did to a child, but there I was, practically knocking the door down so I could get in. Ziggy followed suit, then Gus, who pushed the button for the lobby and watched the doors slide shut with an impassive expression. Therefore, it was a quiet ride down from the tenth floor to the bottom.

Gus getting out of the elevator with a dozen balloons in his hand resulted in obscenities flying left and right. I was surprised none of them popped when we all made it out from Gus being unnecessarily aggressive about the whole thing. Our doorman just sent me an empathetic smile when we passed by him, and I subtly shook my head in return. Thankfully, he was so numb to our antics that he knew it was nothing more than a typical day in the life of us.

"Why do you even need to bring these fucking things? You just pop them or let them go into the sky after anyway," Gus grumbled, though despite his anger, he still held the door open for me.

Crisp air surrounded me upon stepping outside, causing goosebumps to rise along my bare legs. For once, the weather actually felt proper for it being October. It was so irregular around here that you never knew what temperature you might wake up to.

"Those are from the store, so they're the only helium balloons we got. I have the rest in here which I'll blow up myself when we get there," I explained, gesturing to the container in my hands with my chin.

All he had to offer me was an unamused, sullen pout. It was interrupted by one pesky balloon floating into his line of vision, to which I giggled and he violently shoved out of his way.

We approached his car in the parking garage behind our building, the lights flickering on once Gus unlocked it. He popped the trunk for me and I dropped the plastic tub with a grateful sigh, shaking out the tension in my arms. You'd think the guy would carry the heavy stuff and the girl would carry the balloons, but like I said, we were a little backwards.

I rounded the car after I grabbed my purse and shut the trunk, only to see Gus fighting with the balloons once again. Him attempting to put them in the backseat was apparently really fascinating to Ziggy. His excited yaps echoed throughout the parking garage, followed by my failed attempts at shushing him.

Gus emerged when the balloons were set in place and didn't hold back when hollering, "And did we really have to bring him? We're only gonna be gone for a few hours, it's not like we're leaving for a week." An accusatory finger was pointed at Ziggy, who stopped barking now and was staring at us with his head tilted to one side.

One complaint after the other. It never ended. I knew the template of our arguments, how every single kind of fight had its own formula, and this wasn't the time to have a screaming match.

Instead, I shut my eyes and let my shoulders fall. I was worn – we were worn.

"Can we please just go? We're already late enough as it is," I begged, too exhausted in every sense of the word to say much more.

It was enough for Gus to oblige and silently get into the car. I huffed in aggravation, bending down to help Ziggy climb in the backseat. Then I got myself into shotgun, and we were off.

〰️〰️〰️

The party was supposedly a surprise, but my sister trusted her intuition like most people did with their hearts. Or heads, depending on who you asked. Whatever the case may be, Sutton always had a keen sense of suspicion, and I was betting she already knew about her bridal shower.

Gus dropped me off at the swanky restaurant my mother picked out to host the party at forty minutes later than I initially planned. While I got lectured by my mom, Gus was off the hook and went to spend the day with my dad, Ziggy, and my younger brother, Asher. I only wished I was a guy so I wouldn't have to deal with all the pre-wedding bullshit.

I was racing around our reserved banquet room like there was an Olympic medal on the line. Adorning the walls with cliche bride-themed banners and balloons that had seen better days, scattering confetti on the tablecloths, and making sure the place looked like Pinterest chewed it up and spit it back out.

Not so much spit, but maybe more of a graceful cough.

My mom's voice was a ringing in my ears the whole time, commanding me to fix something or telling the caterer what they did wrong. I swear my eyes rolled into the back of my head when she mentioned something about needing help with "The Bubbly Bar". To simpletons like me, it was a saccharine way of naming a mimosa station.

"Where the hell is Valerie?" I heard one of the bridesmaids question as I was arranging miscellaneous airplane bottles of vodka on the party favor table.

"She should have been here by now. She's bringing the cake, for Christ's sake."

"I love her, but does she understand what being maid of honor even means?"

Guests were arriving and the room was filling up. Between the ear-splitting chatter of a hundred or so women and the maid of honor being late, I found my fingers swiping a mango flavored airplane bottle. I would have cracked it open and guzzled the whole thing if it wasn't just barely lunchtime, and if my grandmother hadn't come over to say hello.

But if we were being honest, I was going right over to the goddamn Bubbly Bar the second my sister walked in for a potent mimosa. My dear grandmother was the only thing holding me back from pre-gaming a bridal shower with an airplane bottle that was initially meant for the guests.

"I'm here! I'm sorry!" Valerie's voice suddenly cut through everyone's, all the bridesmaids except for myself scurrying over to her like a flock of starving sheep. A childhood flashback ensued in my mind anytime she spoke, a momentary glimpse back to innocence when all I wanted to do was hang out with my older sister and her friends. Watch them do their makeup or listen to them talk about boys or act like I was one of them.

The truth I didn't understand then was that I would never be one of them. I couldn't fit in no matter how hard I tried, but I realized that was how it was meant to be. I wasn't meant to be anyone else but myself, and young, gullible Bayla couldn't comprehend that at the time. Older, somewhat matured, seasoned Bayla knew her family was never big on normalcy. It wasn't embedded in the Barclay genes; wasn't in any of our cards.

I would never be the girl that made time pause, drawing in eyes and ears like moths to flames. I would never have my life planned out on fresh white pages in elegant cursive. I would never be anything more than what I already was.

I stood back with my grandmother and observed the five girls, wondering how Valerie had the ability to make a room abruptly stop and revolve around her. The mellow tone in how she spoke mixed with dark, sultry features could have been the reason. She had been one of my sister's best friends for as long as I could recall, but they always had a strange relationship. It was like they were constantly in competition with one another; who looked better or dated the hottest guy or had more money. All the inside jokes and memories were lined with customized insults and sneers behind backs. I never understood it.

"I don't know why Sutton likes that place. They're a bunch of idiots – they forgot to ice the cake! That's what made me so late," Valerie told the other bridesmaids like it was a life-or-death situation.

They went on discussing the cake ordeal, which I clearly never realized how dramatic such a situation could be, so I linked arms with my grandmother and took seats where our designated place cards were.

It wasn't much longer until my sister floated into the room, accompanied by her fiancé whose hand was on her waist and whose lips kissed hers in a sweet goodbye. He was no longer required to be there, and as I watched him walk out, I mentally did the same.

Sutton, wearing the most synthetic smile I'd ever seen and a white floral wrap dress seemingly made for her body, was soaking in all the attention. My duty as a bridesmaid was providing most of that attention, so I pranced over to my sister with the rest of the bridal party. We all exchanged hugs and hello's after my mom and the future mother-in-law were done. Our embrace was the least pretentious of them all, but it could've been because we were siblings.

"Did you know?" I murmured, smirking.

"Of course I did."

"I figured as much. Don't let Mom know that," I said into her ear before I backed away. She pursed her lips to hide her grin and gave me a quick nod, then went off to greet the rest of her guests.

Just as I'd planned, I went in the other direction and requested a mimosa with a little extra champagne and not so much orange juice from the timid-looking boy tending the Bubbly Bar. I knocked it back in record time and got another, and at least one more before the food was served.

Three months and however many days left. I had to keep repeating the countdown to push through this wedding until it was fucking over.

Not that I didn't love my sister. I loved her, I loved my two brothers, and I loved my parents. My relationship with my family was good, but between the six of us, we could be a lot to handle.

Sutton was an enigma, and that was the only way to describe her. She was free-spirited as all hell; the type of person that made you wonder what she actually did with her life because it was never quite clear. Being twenty-six, never having a real, secure job, and marrying a man she met in Hawaii when she moved there on a whim a few years ago only made sense for her. If it were anybody else, I'd think they were absolutely insane.

Koa was a dependable guy with pure intentions and a huge heart. He'd do anything for Sutton, like even move from his isolated Hawaiian island to the mainland for her. The happy island lovers now lived in a tiny Maryland town about an hour south of where we grew up. It was known for being a great place to raise a family, which I was sure my sister would take full advantage of as soon as she could get her married paws on Koa.

He changed his life for Sutton. He wasn't the type of person I ever imagined my sister ending up with, mostly because I never imagined her settling down at all, but they were perfect. He kept her stable and sane, while she pushed his limits and cracked his shell. They just worked and there was no other explanation for it.

They had an exquisite sort of love. The kind you could feel just from looking at them. It'd make me sick if it wasn't so infectious.

I loved her, and I loved him. I didn't love the whole wedding thing. It was far too much stress for my liking and if it wasn't bad enough that she was having a huge wedding in the first place, having it be a destination wedding was the icing on the cake (one that had been left bare due to the idiotic bakers that Valerie had dealt with earlier).

Yes, a destination wedding. In Hawaii.

It was in Honolulu, to be specific, because they met on the north shore of Oahu but the southern part of the island was where the city life and famous Waikiki beach was. I wasn't sure where she got the nerve to force all her guests to fly across the fucking country for her wedding, but then again it was Sutton and she could do that sort of thing.

I was torn because for one, I was happy about not being maid of honor and two, it was a trip to Hawaii. Those were about the only perks for me and it sealed the deal in my mind that I'd never be in another wedding unless it was my own. And who knew if I even still wanted to get married afterwards – getting to experience it all firsthand through the eyes of a bridesmaid was pretty horrific in itself.

Regardless, it'd (hopefully) be a nice vacation to an all-inclusive resort on a beautiful island. For a few days, I'd get to escape the atmospheric prison that was winter in Philly. If that wasn't enough to push through this shit show, then I wasn't sure what was.

〰️〰️〰️

- introducing sutton, the flawless older sister who's getting MARRIED!!! dang y'all kinda wish i was in her position. getting married in hawaii????? it's a dream, really. any thoughts on her, or anything else in this chapter?? we're just getting started guys. it's gonna get good from here on out. you'll meet more people in bayla's life and learn more details about them (which will hopefully be easy to remember and if not, i will remind you subtly in the story). just remember that sutton is getting married. i don't think you will forget lol.

so it's like the dead of winter and there's really nothing exciting going on with me other than work and writing when i get the chance. i did go to a free concert last weekend to see young the giant which was pretty sweet! it was SO COLD but it was so much fun. i love them. other than that i've got concerts lined up for every weekend in march so i'm impatiently waiting until then to live again.

hope you're enjoying this story so far. can't wait to get to the real juicy stuff. thanks for reading & you know i love ya lots!

fun fact: the song i linked to this chapter is bad behavior by the maine and if you look in the comment section of the official music video on youtube my comment is one of the top ones :') i love them so much ok goodbye

xoxo, sabbbycat