Technological Transformations

Chapter 40- RSVP

The remaining twenty-minutes or so of our final period still managed to drag on, despite having missed the whole first half of the class. Putting a math class at the end of the day was a dangerous combination, one which we all suffered for daily. Take that, and stick it on a Friday, with all that hopeful anxiety building up to our eventual freedom from the prison of learning with the appearance of the weekend, it only makes it that much worse to sit through.

Multiply that, by the especially exciting plans you have for the following day, and those twenty-minutes quietly sitting in a chair move at least twice as slow as any other day. And with my birthday celebration hours away, I was sitting right around the peak of desperation for this class to finish.

I hadn't really made much of any fuss about it being my birthday today, anyways. Years ago, I might've brought some cupcakes and pizza in, make the whole school day all about me and my survival of another year's time, but by now, it just seemed like a lot of unnecessary work. There were still plenty of highschoolers here who made a big show for their "special day", even if it was like a week in advance, which I just found pretty cringey and self-centered most of the time. It was always either the annoying, "I peaked in highschool" kids, or the ones whose parents still treated it like the biggest, most special day of the year- and expected everyone else to feel the same. Since like, middle school, I had shifted happily towards a nice, small gathering of the friends who actually gave a shit, instead of some extravagant, present-hungry event. And you were always forced to invite your entire class so nobody felt "left out", which just made kids more secretive with their "selective invitations". Turned a whole generation of kindergartners into world-class spies, inconspicuously slipping your friends their invite to avoid having to invite the "weird" kids to your party. Which like, they obviously found out that they were specifically not invited eventually, so really, what was even the point of the whole thing? Once you reach the age where all the cool kids have their own phones and could communicate freely, the whole thing pretty much falls apart. I mean, by middle school, all I ever really wanted anyways was just a sleepover with a few of my girls, or going out to the movies- something small, contained.

...Wait, that didn't make any sense, Charles wouldn't have memories of girls-only slumber parties back in middle school, would he? How would I be able to remember those kinds of things? I should only have his- I mean, my- memories, from before I would've gotten the watch, shouldn't I?

None of this was making any sense, but thankfully before I could have a complete breakdown of identity,,, again, seventh period came to its prophesied close, and I was freed from the shackles of my mind-ramble. As everyone around me hastily collected their things and made their way to leave the room, I re-collected my thoughts as I scanned the faces around me, spotting Faith shoving her things into her bag a few rows down from me. Although I had invited both her and Hayden to my mini-birthday mall trip, I had feeling that one's attendance would rely heavily on the other's- and considering the lack of time, I figured I should get a definite answer.

"Haaappy birthday, sexy!" Caitlyn unabashedly exclaims, earning a couple weird looks from those around us, as she hands me a small box wrapped in a plain, pink paper. "Just a little something for ya'."

"Aw, thank you, Caitlyn." I sincerely express my gratitude, taking the gift from her. "You really didn't have to-"

"Nope!" Caitlyn interrupts me, clamping my hand down as I went to unwrap the gift. "Might want to uh, wait on that one, till you're home."

"Ooookay.." I hesitantly concede, heeding her advice and stuffing the box into my backpack instead. "I wasn't originally worried, but I- oh, and there she goes."

"See ya tomorrow!" She yells back at me as she zips off, not even letting me finish my sentence. I looked around the room, most people having filed out already, but caught Faith mid-pause, listening in to our exchange. She returned to packing up her things as she noticed me noticing her, and I made my approach.