Brody & Michelle Ch. 05

Michelle groaned. "Can you pour me more wine?"

Stephanie and Michelle spent the next hour of the class laughing and chatting, while happening to finish another bottle of wine. When the class was over, Michelle and Stephanie showed each other their paintings. When Stephanie saw Michelle's, she erupted into obnoxious laughter. "What the fuck is that supposed to be?" Stephanie yelled out, a look confusion and mirth plastered on her face.

"What do you mean? It's the landscape we were doing!"

"What's that?" Stephanie asked, pointing at the waterfall.

"It's the waterfall, obviously," Michelle told her with annoyance.

"It looks like toothpaste."

"What?"

"It looks like the toothpaste you spit out after you brush your teeth," Stephanie declared.

Michelle squinted at the painting, looking closely at what Stephanie had claimed was a toothpaste waterfall, and, begrudgingly, had to agree. "Oh my God. It does look like that, doesn't it?"

"Do your hands not work or something? I mean, I know we were drinking, but... that's just horrific."

Michelle shrugged at Stephanie. She never claimed to be an artist. Stephanie's painting looked good, though. Like... really good. "Yours is nice, though, Steph. I never knew you could do that."

Stephanie blushed slightly, which was odd for her. "Umm, yeah. I always liked drawing. So did Brody, too, actually. That's one of the reasons we became friends."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He would come up with these ideas for comics, and then we would draw them together."

"That's cute. What were they about?"

"The comics?" Stephanie asked. Michelle nodded. "Mostly weird shit. There was this one called Suicide Lighthouse. People would go to the top of this lighthouse, but, on the way up, see these fucked up images, so by the time you got to the top, you'd want to jump off and die. And there was this one series where his stuffed animal, I think it was a llama, killed this one girl in our class we hated." Stephanie's eyes went wide as she thought about it. "I think we were psychopaths."

Michelle chuckled. "It's not that surprising. I mean, Brody loves Horror movies so much, it makes sense that he was into making such gruesome things when he was a kid, I guess. He's just... such a fucking weirdo," she said the last word of her sentence so affectionately, Stephanie snapped out of her trance and smiled at Michelle.

"You like Brody so much! It's too cute."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I need to go home. This wine is putting me to sleep."

"Well, I drank too much. I can't drive us home."

"Well, I can't drive either."

Stephanie grinned over at Michelle. "I'm sure Brody would be willing to come get us."

"Shut up. I'll call Jude. He lives five minutes away from here."

Stephanie perked up. "Jude?" she asked with an intense look of interest on her face.

"He's gay, Stephanie."

"I know that, Michelle. But he's still pretty to look at."

"Why is everyone in love with my brother?" Michelle grumbled to herself as she called Jude's number.

"Hey, Michelle-don Cooper. What's up?" Jude answered.

"I hate 'The Big Bang Theory.'"

"I'm not the biggest fan, either, Meems. That's not the point."

"Well... Remember when I was fifteen and you told me never to get into a car with a drunk driver? And that if I ever needed you to come get me, you would drop everything and come get me, because I'm your favorite, and you'd be lost without me?"

"I think some of what you just said was hyperbole on your part, but yes."

"Will you come get me and Stephanie? We had too much wine."

Jude made an annoyed noise and said, "Only for you, Mimi."

"Thanks, Jude."

Jude showed up at the Event Center where the Paint & Wine class was held about ten minutes later. Stephanie and Michelle, with their paintings in tow, climbed into Jude's car. Jude looked at Stephanie through his rearview mirror. "Stephanie," Jude said admonishingly, "why are you corrupting my sweet sister?"

"Jude, I've been drunk before. A few times with you."

"Yeah, but you never needed me to pick you up before. When I made you promise me that, I didn't think you'd be cashing in on it seven years later when you were able to drink legally," Jude explained.

"You know," Stephanie interrupted, "I'm a little sluggish, because of the wine, but when you asked me why I was corrupting your sister, I missed the perfect opportunity to say something gross like, 'I'd rather corrupt you' or... something. Just throwing that out there."

Jude and Michelle shared a look and small smile. Whenever Stephanie was near Jude, she became like a frat guy near a pretty girl. It toed the line between annoying and amusing. "Sorry, Steph. You're just not my type; what with the vagina and all."

"I know," Stephanie concurred. "But our babies would be gorgeous." And she wasn't wrong. Jude and Stephanie were two of the best-looking people Michelle had ever seen in real life.

"They would be some pretty babies," Michelle agreed.

"Fine. If I ever need surrogate, you're it, Stephanie."

"I'm in. We'd be doing the world a service, really."

"True," Jude agreed.

Jude dropped Stephanie off at her house, then headed towards his childhood home to drop off his sister. By the time they had reached their house, however, Michelle had fallen asleep in the passenger's seat. "Of course," he muttered to himself, putting the car in park. He got out of the car then walked around the other door, and opened it. "Come on, Michelle. We're home."

Michelle opened her eyes, unbuckled, and let Jude help her out of the car. Worried that she might actually fall asleep on the walk to the front door, Jude looped his arm around hers. When they walked through the front door, their dad was sitting in the living room reading a book. He looked up at them and raised his eyebrows. Judging by his daughter's face, she had clearly had a little too much to drink. "Jude, what have I told you about corrupting your sister?" he asked jokingly.

Michelle became irrationally offended. She wasn't some child. "I'll have you know, Father, I am perfectly capable of corrupting myself."

"Yeah, Dad. Trust me; this was all her."

Jim chuckled and got up from his chair. "Of course you're capable of corrupting yourself, sweetie," he said to Michelle, giving her a pat on the shoulder. "I didn't mean to imply otherwise." He then looked over at Jude. "Give your old man a hug. I haven't seen you in so long."

Still keeping one arm looped with Michelle's, so she wouldn't fall, Jude gave his dad a short hug. "You saw me Sunday, Dad. It's Wednesday," Jude pointed out.

"I know, but I miss my only son sometimes. You left me with here alone with all these women."

"They're not that bad," Jude said, rolling his eyes.

Michelle set her head on Jude's shoulder and yawned. "You're sweet, Jude. I'm not that bad? I love you, too."

Jude gave their dad a knowing look. "I should get her to her room. She's about to fall asleep standing up."

"Just one second," Jim said pointing at the painting Michelle was loosely holding in her hand. "What is that?"

"It's the painting I made from the Paint & Wine class I went to with Steph," she replied, sleepily.

Her dad took the painting out of her hand and gave it a once over. "Did you paint this after you drank a bottle of wine, or...?"

Jude and Michelle laughed. "No! I just can't paint. You gave birth to an incredibly unartistic daughter."

"Shoot. And it's too late to return you. You only came with a fifteen year satisfaction guaranteed policy."

Michelle yawned. "I think I need to go to bed."

"I know you need to go to bed," Jude responded. "Come on."

Jude helped Michelle up to her bedroom, and she collapsed on her mattress. Jude turned on her bedside lamp, and she handed Jude her phone and asked him to put it on her dresser on the other side of room. "Steph and I were talking about Brody tonight, so I've been thinking about him. I don't want to do something dumb like call him when I'm like this or something," she explained.

"I'm pretty sure you would fall asleep before you could even call him," Jude said back to her, placing her phone on the dresser like she asked.

"Better safe, though, you know?"

"I don't know. I think you could say anything to Brody, and he'd still be obsessed with you," Jude said, sitting down on Michelle's bed.

Michelle snorted, then yawned, snuggling into her pillow. "You only saw him that once."

"Still."

When she glanced up at Jude he was looking at her wall with this strange, almost wistful expression on his face. She tapped his arm, and he looked down at her. "What's going on? You okay?"

Jude didn't answer her question instead asking, "Hey. Are you free Saturday? Do you want to go for a hike?"

Michelle sobered up just slightly at the mention of a hike. Whenever Jude was upset about something, he liked to be outside. Something about nature calmed him. "Yeah. I have the day off."

"Okay. I call some Mimi Time."

"Of course, Jude." Jude smiled at her and stood up.

"Good night, Meems," he said, reaching over to turn off her lamp.

"Good night. I love you."

"Love you, too."

_____________________________________________________________

Michelle woke up the next morning with a headache. She looked over at her nightstand and saw a water bottle with a couple aspirin sitting next to it. There was also a handwritten note that said, "Take these. And you promised to go hiking with me on Saturday, if you for some reason can't remember making the plans. Have a good day, Meems. Hopefully you're not too hung over."

'Jude's the best,' Michelle thought to herself, as she took the aspirin and looked for her phone. Where was it? She decided just to reach over for her laptop that was sitting on her desk. She opened it up and saw that it was ten in the morning. Shit. Did she forget to set her alarm? She was late for class. Then it hit her, and she remembered everything from the night before. Her paper. She never finished it. It was due today at eight. She was screwed.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," she thought to herself as tears came into her eyes.

____________________________________________________________

On Friday Brody arrived at Michelle's house a little before six. When he had asked her what she wanted to do earlier that day, she said she didn't care, and hadn't yet responded to his suggestion of going to an Open Mic at this coffee shop his friend worked at. He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. The door opened and on the other side was not Michelle, but a tall, thin teenager with eyes the same color as Jude's, but hair several shades darker than his or Michelle's. 'The little sister,' Brody thought to himself.

"Hello?" she asked, giving him a discerning glance.

"Hi. Is Michelle here?" he asked giving her a small smile.

"Oh," she made a sound in understanding. She opened the door wider, a gesture for him to let himself in. "Brody, huh?"

"Yep," he said, walking through the door. "Penny, right? As in Penny Lane?"

She let out a small sigh. "Yeah," she admitted; then grumbled out, "Unfortunately."

Brody let out a sound of amusement. "Not a fan of your name?"

"It's okay. Jude's name is original and cool. Michelle's is a normal human name, and mine..." she trailed off.

"Isn't human?" he asked incredulously.

"Not really. I mean, Penny is a name people name their pets. I'm not a dog."

Brody widened his eyes and tried not to laugh at her, but nodded in agreeance. She had a point.

Penny was a fairly perceptive girl and noticed the look on Brody's face. "You're giving me a weird look. You know a dog named Penny, don't you?"

"Yeah. My neighbor's dog is named Penny."

"See? My dad likes to point out that my name could've been Prudence or Loretta, so... I should just be happy with Penny. Which isn't even a person in the song-"

"Loretta?" Brody asked.

"A character in 'Get Back.'"

Brody shook his head. "Yeah. I don't know that song very well. Your dad's probably some sort of super fan."

"Probably is a gross understatement," Penny said back very seriously.

"You're right. He's clearly obsessed to the point of insanity."

Penny shook her head somberly. "I know you think you're making a joke, but you're really not that far off."

Brody bit his lip as to not smile at the grim expression that was on Penny's face. "Anyway," Penny started, "Michelle's in her room. She got home a couple hours ago looking really tired. She hasn't had a great past couple days."

Brody's face grew concerned. "She hasn't? She didn't say anything to me about it."

Penny shrugged. "Michelle's pretty independent. She probably just didn't want to bother you."

Brody shook his head to himself and looked down at the floor. "But she wouldn't be bothering me..." he said quietly.

When he looked back up at Penny, she was giving him that same assessing stare that she was giving him when she opened the door. She then smiled at him slightly. "Umm," she said hesitantly. "She likes you. She actually has been talking about you to me. She doesn't do that normally."

"Uhh. Thanks."

"Her room is upstairs. First door on the right."

"Okay. It was nice to meet you."

"You, too," Penny said back, sitting down in the easy chair in the living room.

Brody climbed up the stairs and up to the first door on the right. He knocked lightly and didn't get a response. "Michelle?" he said quietly, opening the door a glancing in the room. And there he saw her. Curled up in the middle of her bed asleep. Her constantly being asleep in his presence was going to give him some sort of complex. He was interesting enough to keep a girl awake at least, right?

He walked over to her bed and nudged her shoulder gently. "Michelle?" he said a little louder this time. "Kitten? I'm here..." he trailed off. "Michelle, seriously. Wake up," he said poking her shoulder a little harder this time, starting to get annoyed. He hadn't seen her since Monday, and she was sleeping when he came over to get her.

Michelle's eyes then slowly opened, and she looked up at Brody. "Brody?" she asked clearly confused. "I thought you were coming over at six."

"It is six."

"Oh..."

"Yeah."

Michelle groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Shit," she mumbled under her breath.

"So... are you an actual literal kitten and need to sleep twenty hours a day, because...?" he trailed off, pointing at her and the fact that she was just asleep.

Michelle's eyes snapped over to Brody's at the irritation in his tone. But when she saw his expression, she registered it as more hurt or disappointed than angry or mad. She sat up against her headboard, grabbed his hand and gave him a soft look. "I'm sorry, Brody," she said quietly, giving his hand a squeeze.

Any hurt or indignation Brody felt melted when Michelle touched him. "It's okay," he said, sitting down her bed. He put a hand on her thigh and started rubbing it. "Penny told me you had a bad couple days-"

"You talked to Penny?" Michelle interrupted.

"She let me in. She's... serious."

Michelle smiled in fondness. "She's the most serious teenager I've ever met. She was always like that. Even as a baby. She didn't smile a lot, but she never cried."

"I liked her. Your siblings are great. I'm jealous."

"Aww. They are, though. And Penny's such an old soul. Whenever Jude and I are goofing around too much, she gives us this indulgent look like 'oh, you kids,' you know? It's cute. She can also make my dad shut up with just a look. It's amazing."

Brody smiled at the affection in Michelle's voice and turned his body towards her. "Seriously, though, you had a bad couple days?

Michelle looked a little uncomfortable and shrugged. "I guess, but you don't want to hear about that, Brody."

Brody frowned. "What do you mean? Of course I do."

"Of course you fucking do," Michelle corrected quietly.

Brody held eye contact with her and amended, "Of course I fucking do."

Michelle took in a deep breath and sighed. "Okay. I just... Remember that Paint & Wine thing I went to with Stephanie?" He nodded. "Well, we drank too much wine. Jude had to pick us up, actually."

"I would have picked you up," Brody said sounding perturbed that he wasn't first choice on the list of designated drivers.

"I'm sure you would have, but Jude lived close by. I mean, does it really matter now? It was two days ago."

"I guess not," he said back unconvincingly.

"Anyway, I was exhausted and drunk, so when I got home, I fell asleep almost immediately. I forgot to set my alarm, and..."

"Your paper."

"Yeah, but I didn't even have it finished. I still needed to write four more pages. I don't know what I was thinking..." she trailed off, looking upset with herself.

"You work too hard."

"No, I don't. And then I showed up to class basically three hours late, but, because it was the last day, class ended early and no one was there. Luckily my professor was in her office. I lied to her and told her I was really sick, and that's why I hadn't been there that morning or why it wasn't finished." She then got quiet, shook her head, and then looked down at her hands that were now clutching each other. "I hate lying."

Brody moved his arm and cupped his hand over both of hers and squeezed. "I lie to professors all the time, if that makes you feel better."

Michelle looked up at him giving him a skeptical stare. The look on her face indicated that it did not make her feel better. "It worked, though. Lying. She gave me a twenty-four hour extension. But I still had to go to work, so I went to work. Then I came home and finished it. I got four-and-a-half hours of sleep, then went to work again today. I was supposed to be there until five, but they let me go early. I got home around four, and... I must've fallen asleep."

"That really sucks, Michelle."

"Yeah..." she said, biting her lip, her eyes looked like they might be welling up with tears. Brody stroked her cheek with his fingers and lifted her chin up to meet his eyes. "What is it?"

"That's not even the bad part," she said gloomily. "The bad part is that the paper, because it was late, will automatically be marked down ten points. So even if it's a perfect paper, which it isn't, the highest grade I can get on it is a 90%. But it was honestly a B paper, which means it will be a C paper, and... it was worth so much of my grade that there's a chance I could get a C in the class, and I get this scholarship through the school and one of the requirements is that you maintain a 3.7 GPA, and if I get a C there's a good chance that I'll drop below and not qualify for it anymore. It's not a lot, but it helps." It all rushed out of her like a dam bursting. She felt a tear drop out of one of her eyes and she quickly wiped it away. "How was I so stupid? Why did I let that happen?" she said quietly to herself, her hands moving up to cover her face as a few more tears fell from her eyes.

Suddenly she felt a pair of arms wrap around her and pull her into a hug. "I'm sorry, Michelle. This is my fault."

"How?"

"When you told me you couldn't hang out on Monday, I should have just let it go. You could have had your paper finished before Wednesday, and this never would have happened."

"Brody, I could have said no on Monday."

"I wouldn't have let you. I mean, I basically didn't let you."

"But Wednesday you didn't make me drink too much. It's not your fault."

Brody then sighed. "I'm sorry. I should be comforting you right now. Not using you to assuage my guilt about Monday." Michelle giggled. "I wish you would have called me. I would have done all I could to help you."

"What could you have done?"

"Nothing, I guess. I could have tried to hug away your problems."

"You're doing a pretty good job of that right now," she said burying her face in his neck. He could feel the tears that were on her face against his skin and his heart broke a little. Seeing her cry was devastating. He stroked her back sweetly for a couple minutes, before pulling away and looking at her face. He took his hands and wiped away the few remaining tears that were left on her cheeks.