Heartless by Casey Kelleher

been ransacked and the house was getting trashed. Tommy had spent half the night cleaning up puke.
    His parents had told him that they would be home at eleven-thirty, and it was almost eleven now.
    Fetching another bucket, Tommy was thoroughly pissed off. The whole point of tonight had been to impress Sophia but she had been upstairs, passed out, for most of the evening.
    “Here, bro; let me help,” Jonathan offered, as he tried to grab the cloth from Tommy’s hand and almost fell over.
    “No, don’t worry, Jonathan. I’ll do it all,” Tommy said sarcastically, as he snatched the cloth back before stomping over to a puddle of vomit on the carpet.
    Tommy tried not to retch himself as he cleaned. Even if he managed to get most of it up, he was still going to be in big trouble when his parents got home. Hearing his brother over the other side of the room shouting and jeering as he encouraged some of the younger kids to down their beers, Tommy stood up and watched as a boy choked on the frothy head of lager as it bubbled up his nose. Coughing, the boy spat out a mouthful onto the floor as Jonathan roared with laughter.
    Tommy shook his head, feeling defeated. Jonathan looked like he didn’t have a care in the world: it was clear he was enjoying wrecking the place. He was doing everything that their mother had made them promise not to do, and encouraging everyone else to join in. The worse thing, in Tommy’s view, was that he had managed to get Sophia so drunk that she missed her own party. Tommy suspected that had been his plan. He should have known that Jonathan being helpful earlier was just an act.
    And who was left to pick up the pieces? Tommy: the sensible twin. Tonight had been a disaster and Tommy just wanted it to be over.
    Just as he thought things couldn’t get any worse, there was a scream and Tommy looked up to see what was happening. One of the boys in the group dancing around Megan, who had been doing an impersonation of Michael Jackson, had swung an arm out wildly and managed to knock down the large green urn that had been sitting in the middle of the mantelpiece.
    “Tell me that this is not what I think it is,” Megan said, looking like she was about to break down in tears as she stood deadly still in the middle of the floor, holding her hands out accusingly, praying that she was wrong as everyone around stared at her. But she could already tell from Tommy’s horrified expression that her worst fears were true.
    The large ceramic urn had flown through the air and hit Megan, covering her completely with Tommy’s grandmother’s ashes. Tommy placed his head in his hands. His mother would crucify him for this.
    “Oh my God, Tommy, this is so disgusting. Get that stuff off me,” Megan cried frantically as she spotted small bone fragments amongst the pile of dust at her feet. Then, tasting the dry powder on her lips, Megan freaked out. She jumped up and down like a lunatic, flapping her arms as she tried to brush off the ash that clung to her dress, which had been purple and was now grey. She couldn’t get it off her. Unzipping her dress, Megan stepped out of it and threw it on the floor sending another cloud of dust rising up.
    Tommy stood rooted to the spot. The group of boys who had been dancing were laughing their heads off at the sight of Megan jumping about and shouting in her underwear. Then something snapped inside Tommy.
    “Right, that’s it, people.” Tommy went over to where the stereo was placed on the Welsh dresser, and yanked the plug out of the wall. “The party’s over.”
    ***
    Waking from a very peculiar dream, Sophia opened her eyes. The room was dark, and as her vision adjusted she smiled as she saw Tommy standing above her.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
    “I don’t know. Not too good,” Sophia muttered. The room was spinning and it was difficult to focus on him. “How long have I been up here?”
    “About an hour, I guess. You were in a bad way earlier,”