Not a bad thing

“Izzie! I need you! Please come over!” I picked up my phone and heard Brian all exited while I was still sleeping. Or maybe not quite, but I wasn’t awake enough to deal with him all being hyper. “Brian, is someone dead?” “No” “Is your arm falling off?” “No” “Leave me alone then!” I hung up.

That guy needs to learn that I don’t want to live in the morning, just like him usually. What’s up with him? It’s normally me waking him up. Argh, I can’t stand this. Now I can’t sleep anymore! I closed my eyes and tried to hide under my comforter. After a few minutes I turned around and opened my eyes. I screamed. Brian was there, sitting next to my bed, his head at the edge of the mattress. With me turning around we were nose to nose. “What.. the... hell!? Brian you have to stop doing that, you almost scared me half to death!”

“You hung up on me, I had to come over. I need your help” he almost begged. What’s up with him this morning, he never begs. “How did you got in anyhow? My mom isn’t home, is she?” “No she is not, but I got my mom’s emergency keys to your house, because that is what this is... an emergency” I grunted. “Let me brush my teeth first, I have a horrible taste in my mouth” “Yeah, you smell Izzie, go brush your teeth” I threw my pillow at him and walked into the bathroom. I heard him move around my room and jump on my bed. “Brian, if you break it, you buy me a new one!” I heard Brian chuckle at my threat. Damn that guy.

I brushed my teeth, put my hair up and walked back into my room. Brian was lying on my bed, impatiently waiting for me to come back. I laid down next to him and turned his way to look at him. “So what do you need, Haner?” “You need to break up with Katie for me, she’s driving me crazy!” I just couldn’t believe it! This was his emergency?! Damn, this was the reason he had to wake me up?! Why was I surprised really, this was what we did. Like ever since he had me break up with his first girlfriend, after he got bored after two weeks holding hands in the schoolyard. Many girls had followed that one; Linda, Jo, Lauren, Kelly, Ellen, Jessica, Sandy, Sam, Bianca, Cathy, Michelle, Chloe and all the girls I don’t even remember the names of. Nothing has changed in the 10 years I had known him. And even though he was 17 now, he still let me break up with the girls. I was already know as “the sniper”. Only going in for the kill.

“Brian, I don’t want to. I like Katie. If you need to dump her, do it yourself! What’s wrong with her anyways?”

While Brian was starting to recite a very long list of everything that was wrong with Katie, I let my mind wonder to the moment we met for the first time.

We had just moved to Huntington. My dad was transferred here and his company bought us a house. I was only six years old, but I hated coming here. My parents didn’t know because I kept to myself, like I always did. Brian’s mom was the first person in the neighbourhood to come and welcome us. My mom and her instantly hit it off and that day a close friendship between them was born.

Me and Brian? ...Not so much. I met him a few days later when his mom was taking me to school. My mom started her new job and couldn’t bring me herself. He was looking at me all disgusted... “Mom, why is there a girl in my car?”. His mom looked at him “Brian, please be nice to Ismay, she is our new neighbour and she will be riding along to school today. And baby, this is not your car.” Brian just looked at me with a big frown... “Girls are stupid”. His mom just laughed and looked at me “Please don’t worry sweetie, my son just thinks he’s too cool for girls, now he’s 8 years old”.

I snapped back from my thoughts. I heard Brian talking about Katie, her eyes were not the right colour, he didn’t like the dress she wore last night, she called him before 8 am this morning.... “AHA! Now I know why you don’t want her anymore, she just called you too early. Brian, you can’t break up with her for that! Come on, grow up!” An annoyed look came my way. Yes, I totally got the thorn out. That was the sole reason he was dumping her, or better said the reason he wanted me to dump her.

I sat up and folded my legs underneath my body. He looked at me and put his hand under his head, leaning into it lazily. “You are going to give it another month. You are with her for two months already, another month won’t do you any harm. If you don’t change your mind, I will break up with her for you. But I promise you, you will have to convince me. Badly!” Brian looked at me and I could see his mind working “Ow, and one other thing.... This will be the last girl I break up with for you”. I got up from the bed, grabbed some clothes and went into the shower, leaving him all flabbergasted.

The hot water felt so good. It’s the only thing that can get me awake really. I heard Brian knock the door “Izzie, can I come in?” “No you can’t! I will be done in a minute, just wait.” I finished my shower, got dressed and just did my hair up in this messy bun. As I entered my room again, I saw Brian looking at a picture of me and Chris. Chris had been my boyfriend for the past few months, we were actually hitting the 6 month mark today. I still felt butterflies every time I saw him. “What if I broke up with Chris for you, would you still be my break up girl?”. Was he serious!? “Please tell me you didn’t just say that. You like Chris! You play videogames together, you have movie nights without me.” Brian turned around and hugged me “I was kidding, I just want you to be my sniper. I don’t want to do my breakups myself, girls always cry because they are losing this fine ass”. I pushed him away and laughed. “Yes Brian, you are god’s gift to women. I just don’t understand how I put up with being in one room without jumping you”. I walked out of my room and went downstairs. I heard him laugh as he followed me.

As I ate my breakfast, Brian hung around, trying to convince me to break up with Katie today. But I had made up my mind and I wasn’t going to fold. If he wanted to break up with her now, he had to do it himself. But I think he kinda liked the ultimatum. He liked her more than he would dare to admit. I think he will change his mind and hold on to her. That’s fine by me, I really liked Katie and we were at the start of becoming friends. Thinking of it, I should call her and ask her to go to shopping with me, I have this big date with Chris tonight, I want to look great. “Brian, hand me my phone”. I chose the right number and called. “Hi Katie!” I saw Brian’s face lit up. “Do you want to go shopping? Yeah? Ok, great, I will pick you up in half an hour”. I hung up and saw Brian looking at me all sad. “I thought you were going to do it after all”. “Ow my god Brian, of course not! I just told you I wouldn’t and even then... I would never do that by phone! Ah, you suck!” “You suck too Izzie!” I grabbed my purse and pushed him out of the door before locking up. “You coming along?” “No, I will hang out with Jimmy, talk to you later. And Izzie... If you feel the need, you totally have my permission to break things off with Katie” he teased. I shot him a look, hugged him and got in my car, turning up the stereo. I saw Brian smile when he heard Duran Duran coming out of my speakers, while he waved at me and walked home.

In the 20 minutes it took me to drive over to Katie’s, I listened to the cd Brian made for me to play in my car. He always hated the music I played, so he made me a cd with music we both could enjoy. That guy was serious about his music. Just as I was... we just had a slightly different taste. I liked my boy bands, he likes Metallica... I didn’t know what he complained about. Justin kicked ass! But not for Brian, he would bang his head to the dashboard every time he got into my car, so we agreed on classic rock songs, Duran Duran (his guilty pleasure) and some songs that were hits now, but we which we knew would become instant classics. Barbie Girl by Aqua for example. You would be amazed how on key Brian was when he sang “I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world”... My “come on Barbie, let’s go party” was completely of key, but it did the trick every time.... It made me laugh like crazy. When I heard the first notes of the song I skipped to the next. Brian wasn’t here, it was no fun like this.

Iris, the first girl I sniped on for Brian, was known as Barbie Girl if we ever talked about her. She was always carrying her Barbie doll around. After Brian finally had convinced her to be his girlfriend, she had her doll in the one hand, her Brian in the other. That’s how it all started. Brian had enough of the doll, enough of her holding his hand. After two weeks, yeah, Brian had the attention span of two year old. The fact that he “fell in love” with Linda, or that was at least what he called it, probably didn’t really help either. When his mom came over for coffee at our house after school one day, Brian came along with his mom. As our moms were chatting like there was no tomorrow, Brian and I were playing in the garden. He still thought I was pretty stupid because I was a girl, but with no-one around he at least acknowledged me. “So you and Iris huh?” “Yes, but I don’t love her anymore, I love Linda now” he said. “Who’s your boyfriend? I think Sean likes you” I suddenly turned my head his way. “H-he does?” “Uhuh” Brian looked at me all serious, this deep frown on his forehead. I looked at him and could see from the look on his face that he was figuring something out. “So, are you going to talk to Sean?” “No... I ....” I stuttered. Brian smiled “Ok, I will talk to him for you, ask him to be your boyfriend. But you have to do one thing for me.” I wondered what he would say, if he talked to Sean for me, maybe Sean could be my first ever boyfriend. Maybe he could hold my hand! I looked at Brian curiously “What?” Brian knew he would have his way, he just knew it. Even then, at age 8 he had the ability to wrap everyone around his tiny little fingers. “You go talk to Iris and tell her I won’t be her boyfriend anymore”.

At lunch the next day, he talked to Sean, and I talked to Iris. By the end of the day Brian had a note with a ticked box at “yes” below the question “will you be my girl?” from Linda and Sean was holding my hand. All was well at the world of elementary school. When 3 weeks later, Linda had to be out of the picture, it was already obvious for Brian, and me, that I would do the honours again. It had worked the first time, it would work again. And it did. Many, many times after that. A sniper was born.

Notes

Soooo, here goes nothing!