Melanie Parks had it all. An amazing childhood best friend Lauren Porter, they're attending one of the best colleges in the country together, a great family, and a longtime boyfriend, Jamie Sanders, she loves and who loves her back.
Or so she thoug...
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"Happy birthday!" my best friend shouts, jumping on my bed that I'm currently burrowed in.
"Mm, thank you," I mumble while she snuggles up with me in bed.
Lauren is more of a morning person between the two of us, but our birthdays have always been different since we're only children who basically grew up as sisters so we strive to make the day extra special.
I roll over and hide my face in my pillow, the white pajamas with little allover blue heart long sleeve top poking out from underneath my bedding. "What time is it?"
We rang in my birthday at midnight like we always do for each other's birthdays, but this one was extra special because one of our favorite artists, Kelsea Ballernin dropped a bombshell on her fans at midnight.
Kelsea Ballerini went through a public and nasty divorce from her now ex-husband of five years after they announced their split in August before reaching a settlement in the middle of November.
Now, two months later, she's released a six song EP and short film called, Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, that is all about her marriage and divorce. We listened to the EP once - which was spent gasping at the lyrics filled with honesty, grief and heartbreak over the end of her marriage, then we watched the short film before listening to the EP three more times to learn all the lines before calling it a night.
"It's not that early, but I did bring you this." She shifts again, leaning over my side and the aroma of coffee hits my nose.
"I hate how well you know me."
She laughs as she climbs off of me. "No, you don't."
"We've been friends for too long," I groan. I roll back over and find my best friend sitting up, holding two cups of coffee from the campus Starbucks.
"Only my best friend would be cursed with a holiday as a birthday, but still manage to have her favorite seasonal flavor in," she chuckles. Her left hand holds out the grande iced pistachio latte with pistachio foam for me to take, leaving her with her ridiculous and sweet tooth order she has to have all the time.
"It was just meant to be," I smile as I take a big sip of the drink. "Thank you for this."
"Tradition, duh," she giggles. She's wearing a matching gray set of a cropped henley pullover and sweatpants, her hair in a knot on top of her head.
Every birthday for the last few years since we could drive, we would grab each other's favorite coffee orders and some pastries from Starbucks and head over to their house so we could wake them up by jumping into their bed.
"I don't know how you can drink that," I scrunch my nose at her, watching her take a chug of her own coffee, if you can even call it that.
She shrugs her shoulders with a smile behind the lid. "It has extra shots to help counteract the sweetness."
