Chapter Nineteen

Another Cornell sibling moment before the Homecoming Dance.

Red lipstick is smeared all over my fingertips from the attempts to scrub it off of my teeth. Thankfully it was a successful attempt, but it still doesn’t change the fact that my hands now look like an outtake from Carrie.

                “Candy Corn!” The sudden boom of my older brother’s voice causes me to drop my mascara into the sink.

                “Goddammit,” I swear quietly as I fumble with the thin little brush as it rolls around the perimeter of the sink every time I try to grab it.

                “Candice!” Connor repeats again, his deep voice suddenly sounding very paternal. He’s doing it again…

                “What?!” My higher pitched voice shouts back once I finally have the mascara in hand again. I sigh as I bring it up to my eye, rolling the round bristle skillfully through my lashes. Just a month ago I was a girl who had never worn makeup. Now here I am doing it by myself in a very serious time crunch.

                “Your boyfriend is gonna’ be here any minute!”

                “He is not!” I’m forced to blink as my shout causes me to lose focus, one of the bristles pricking me in the eye. “He is not my boyfriend.” I continue to growl out under my breath. I blink repeatedly as my eyes water, unavoidably wrecking all of the work I just completed on my eyes. Sighing, I slam the mascara down on the countertop before walking to and opening the bathroom door.

                Connor is standing there, arm propping himself up against the doorframe. “Oh, lookin’ good sis!”

                My eyes roll as my shoulder jams into his chest so I can move past him. “Screw you,” I grumble, entering my bedroom and reaching for my dress before remembering the lipstick on my hands that’s still threatening to do more damage. “Jesus Christ,” not even ten seconds and I’m already back onto my bathroom that I just left.

                There’s Connor, in the way again. “Do you remember when you never used to get angry?”

                Glaring up at him, I shake my head slowly. “Remember when you were a nice older brother and used to actually help me get ready instead of just getting in the way-”

                 I’m barely able to finish my last word before he’s raising a hand towel into the air and tossing it onto my red stained hands. “You were saying?”

                Red lips, the same shade as the smudges on my hands, curve into a giant grin as I nod my head at him. “Thank you. And I’m sorry if I’ve been a little bitchy lately. It’s just between the musical and Adam and Shannon and home I’ve just… I’ve been feeling spread a little thin.”

                “And school. I’m sure you meant to include school too.” There’s Connor’s paternal instincts overshadowing his brotherhood again.

                “Yeah, school too.”

                He leans back against the wall as his arms cross over his chest. “How is school going?”

                “How is school going?” My head bows down as I stretch out my arms to indicate that I am dressed in nothing but a plain white tank top and panties. “I’m half naked, my date is going to be here in five minutes and you choose now to ask me about school?”

                “You’re right, I’m sorry” my brother says as he pushes off the wall with his foot and begins to walk towards the staircase. He stops at the top and looks over his shoulder. “Just make sure you hang that towel back up, okay?” His laughter right after is the only thing that stops me from shoving him down the steps and becoming a murderer.

                That still doesn’t stop me from chucking the towel at his back though. “Would you just tell me when you see him coming, please!?”

                “Yeah, yeah,” he begins as his tall frame begins to grow shorter and shorter with each foot that travels down the steps. “I’ll stick my binoculars out the window and keep an eye out for him.”

                Connor has a gift for making me laugh in extremely stressful situations. “Don’t you dare!” I shout with laughter as I rather loudly shut my bedroom door and stand over my bed, staring down at the dress Shannon picked out for me.

                In less than a minute I have the dress pulled onto my person and my hands are fidgeting with the strings in the back. There’s a knock at my bedroom door, and I eagerly rush to open it. Expecting Connor, I have the puppy dog eyes ready to beg him to tie the back of my dress for me.

                Instead, there stands my mother. “Oh, hi Mom.” Slightly more hesitantly than if it were my brother, I spin around and hold my hair up to reveal the loose laces. “Can you tie this for me?”

                “Oh, uh,” I can hear her neck crack as she shakes her head. “Sorry, honey. I was just off to the store and I wanted to tell you that I hope you had fun tonight.”

                “But, wait,” before I can even spin around the rest of the 180 degrees to face her again she’s already descending the staircase. “Don’t you want to meet Adam?”

                There’s no response. “Mom?” The most disappointed sigh you’ve ever heard escapes in the form of one long, deep breath as I hear the swing door swing open and closed.

                This never gets to me, it doesn’t. Connor is the one that deals with her alcoholism. It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me…

                If that’s the truth, then why are tears suddenly streaming down my cheeks again? A sob much louder than I expect escapes as I press my bare back up against the wall and slump down to the floor, my hand coming up to cover my mouth.

                “Candice?!” Connor cries, the concern very apparent in his voice. The thumping of his footsteps culminates in one loud stomp as he reaches the second floor. In an instant he’s squatting down beside me, his hand pressing on the loose strings on the back of my dress. “What happened?”

                Between sobs, with my voice muffled by the way it’s spouting into the material of my dress, I struggle to force any words out. “You were right. She doesn’t care about us. She doesn’t love us,” those are the only broken words I can muster to say before I’m choking on sobs once more.

                “Oh, Candice.” Connor brings his feet out from underneath him so that he’s sitting beside me. His strong hands pull my head against his chest, his hands gently stroking my hair. He’s cautious to not mess with the curls that took up a majority of my preparation time tonight. My brother, the gentleman. Who would’ve thought?

“You know, I think you were right too. She’s a lot of things, but she’s still our mother.” Connor admits as he flawlessly transitions from stroking my hair to tying the back of my dress shut. “She may not always be there for us, but she did give us each other. And we’ve always been there for each other.”

With perfect timing, his sentence ends just as he finishes tying the back of my dress. And as if the timing could not become anymore perfect, the doorbell rings at the exact same moment.

“Well,” Connor says as he lifts my head away from his chest, his thumbs wiping the underside of my eyelids. “Looks like it’s show-time, Candy Corn.”