Me and my bestie: Shenanigans

We staggered up the front steps, clinging to each other and snorting with laughter. Barb missed the top stair and collapsed into me, sending us sprawling against the door.

'Shhh!' she whispered loudly, finger to her lips. 'Stealth, mode Frankie. Stealth.'

I fumbled the key into the lock. It wouldn’t turn. Typical bloody landlord, I thought fuzzily. Barb leaned her whole body against the door, and with a hefty shove, it swung open.

We stumbled inside.

The place was flooded with golden evening light. Everything looked cleaner, neater. The furniture was newer. I squinted but shrugged it off. Too much brandy. Too much wine. Too many cigarettes.

'Home sweet home!' Barb announced grandly, throwing herself onto a cushy armchair. I collapsed onto the opposite one, my legs dangling, my head lolling. The room spun gently around me.

'I bloody love you, Barb,' I slurred.

She grinned, blowing me a dramatic kiss. 'And I you, my darling Frankie. More than chips and brown sauce.'

I giggled helplessly. We were a right pair. Two lost lassies, two accidental survivors. Somehow, out of all the people in this messy world, we’d found each other.

The warmth of brandy and belonging cocooned me. My eyes slid shut.

I didn’t hear the door open.

A rough shove jolted me awake. Looming over me was a man I didn’t recognize—hulking, furious, fists clenching and unclenching.

'What the bloody hell are you doing in my flat?'

Barb stirred, blinking blearily. 'S’our flat,' she muttered indignantly, her head lolling against the chair.

The man’s nostrils flared. 'You’ve got five seconds to get out before I call the police.'

The room snapped into horrifying focus: wrong sofa, wrong chairs, wrong bloody everything.

'Oh, God,' I breathed.

Barb sat up, squinting around. 'Shit,' she said, suddenly very awake.

I scrambled upright, wobbling on unsteady legs. 'Terribly sorry,' I said in my poshest accent. 'Awfully sorry. Wrong flat.'

Barb clutched my sleeve. 'Easy mistake,' she chimed in brightly, bobbing in an unsteady curtsy.

The man’s glare didn’t soften.

'We’ll just, uh, exit stage left,' Barb said, pulling me towards the door.

Outside, the cool air slapped us sober. We stumbled down the stairs, half-laughing, half-sobbing.

'Oh my God,' Barb wheezed, once we hit the pavement. 'Did you see his face? Like a bulldog chewing a wasp!'

I tried to speak but only managed a hiccup. I slid down the wall, laughing so hard my stomach hurt. Barb followed, landing next to me in an ungainly heap.

'I thought you said 304!' I gasped.

'No, *you* said 304. I said 204!' Barb squealed, thumping my arm.

We sat in the dust and cigarette butts, laughing until the stars blurred above us.

'You trying to sweet-talk him like the bloody Queen!' Barb howled. 'Terribly sorry, old chap, awfully good brandy!'

'And you—doing your little drunk curtsey!' I wheezed.

We leaned against each other, gasping for breath.

Around us, the night buzzed with quiet life: distant laughter, the occasional roar of a motorbike, the sharp scent of petrol and summer grass. The town didn’t care that two half-drunk girls had broken into a stranger’s flat. It spun on, indifferent and enormous.

Barb rested her head on my shoulder. 'Biggest twats in Cheltenham.'

'Probably Gloucestershire,' I agreed.

The words drifted into silence, but it wasn’t empty. It was full of something warm and fierce and unspoken. Barb’s hair tickled my cheek, and her breath was slow and steady.

This was what family should feel like, I thought. Not walking on eggshells. Not bracing for explosions. Not pretending to be someone you weren’t just to survive.

Here, under the stars and dust, I could be stupid and messy and wrong — and still loved.

'Wouldn’t want to be lost with anyone else,' Barb murmured.

I closed my eyes, feeling the truth of it settle deep in my chest. It didn’t matter that the world saw us as fuckups. It didn’t matter that we lived in a falling-down flat with too many empty milk bottles and not enough money.

We had each other. We had laughter. We had nights like this, stitched into memory with the thick golden thread of belonging.

I grinned into the dark.

'Come on,' Barb said, nudging me. 'Before the bloke calls the bloody Army on us.'

We hauled each other up, giggling, and tottered down the street toward home. The right home this time.

As we rounded the corner, the streetlights caught the scuffed toes of our boots, the ridiculous way we leaned into each other for balance, two lassies who didn’t have much but somehow had everything that mattered.

I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

But for tonight, I was exactly where I belonged.