I was having a good dream. Why did I have to be woken up? That's a very good question. Why was I being woken up at twelve in the morning?
A knock at my bedroom door. No, not the one that normal people use. The French doors on my balcony. Now who would that be I wonder? Why I
didn't just leave that door unlocked permanently, is beyond my brain capacity.
I didn't bother switching the light on as I stumbled out of bed, fiddling with the lock on the door. In hind sight, light probably would have been helpful, but light bulb moments don't usually happen for me when it's still dark outside. I yawned as I finally heard that satisfying click sound, indicating that the door was unlocked. Ryan was standing outside in his boxers.
I rubbed my eyes. "What're you doing here?"
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. "I wanted to be the first person to wish you a happy birthday," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Cute," I commented, yawning again as I grabbed his hand, pulling him towards my bed.
He chuckled. "Eager are we?"
I smacked his bare shoulder. "Be nice to me, it's my birthday. Now cuddle me."
He laughed, pulling the covers over us. "So bossy."
I grunted, tucking my head under his chin. "Whatever."
I sighed against his skin. "You're a good birthday present." He probably didn't even hear that, I didn't mind either way.
~*~*~*~
I was woken up by a knock in the door. I frowned to myself. What is this? Deja vu? This person must've been normal because they were using the normal person door, not the balcony one.
"Hazel, wake up, its your birthday."
I smiled, my dad. Bless his heart. Then I realised something. There was a boy in my bed.
I shook his shoulders to try and wake him up, but that proved just as ineffective as the other times I'd tried that. There was only one other thing I could thing of that might get a reaction out of him.
"Hazel? Can we come in?"
We? Oh god, Jasmine's there too.
"Uh, just a minute," I called.
"This better work," I muttered to myself. I felt so mean for doing this to him, but it was a necessary course of action.
I reached my mouth as close to his ear as I could. "Spider!" I whisper shouted as loud as I could without dad hearing it.
His eyes immediately flew open, and he retracted his arms from around me. He was going to yell so I quickly covered his mouth with my hand. I couldn't believe that actually worked.
"My dad's outside the door," I whispered, filling him in.
"So there's no spider?"
"Uh no, sorry about that. But my dad will be scarier than a spider if you don't disappear."
My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw the door handle move. I shoved Ryan.
"Go, now!" I hissed.
He got the hint, running and diving for my closet. The closet door closed, just as the other door opened. Good save.
My dad looked at me suspiciously, then at the wrinkled sheets on the other side of the bed. I smiled sheepishly. Surely he hadn't put two and two together.
Jasmine rushed past him, pouncing on me. "Happy birthday!" She yelled in my ear.
"Thanks," I replied dryly, shielding my ears with my hands for a moment to let them recover from their recent trauma.
She grinned, thrusting a folded sheet of paper at me. Pink glitter spilled from it, landing on my sheets. My poor sheets. I took it tentatively, looking from her to the glitter filled paper, and then back at her again. How could I be sure that she hadn't rigged this thing to explode the whole house?
"Open it," She said impatiently.
I looked at dad, who just shrugged in response. I scowled at him. Way to help me out.
I sighed, unfolding the piece of dead tree in my hand. Rest in piece tree. More glitter fell onto my lap as I examined the masterpiece that Jasmine had created. It read, 'To my big sister, happy birthday. From Jasmine.' The interesting part wasn't that she'd spelt everything right, in fact she was probably better at spelling than me, what I found intriguing was the illustration that went with the words. She had drawn five figures on the page. One was undoubtedly her, with yellow pigtails and a glittery pink dress, dad was there too, wearing a pink shirt and green pants, I'm not too sure how he felt about that colour scheme. Next was Caleb, wearing dark green with a matching hat. Then there was me, I had brown pigtails and a yellow dress. I'm not sure with disturbed me more, the fact that I was wearing a dress, or the fact that it was yellow. Next to me was another figure. I know you're probably thinking that it was mom, which is a fair assumption. I mean, that's what you'd expect, but mom was absent from the picture. This person had short blonde hair, and wasn't wear a dress, so they clearly weren't a girl. I pointed to the person. "Who is this?"
She gave me a 'duh' look. "That's Ryan, dummy."
Below the picture it read 'My family'.
"But, he's not your family."
She rolled her eyes. "But he's your boyfriend, which makes him your family, and if he's your family, that makes him my family. See," she stabbed her finger at the picture, "that's why you're holding hands."
I looked more closely at the space between Ryan and I in the picture, and sure enough, my three fingered hand was connected with Ryan's four fingered hand. I shook my head. "But he's not my boyfriend."
She sighed exasperatedly. "You're not very sharp in the mornings are you? This is my future family, stupid. See, that's why Caleb doesn't have crutches, he can walk without them. And his arm brace is gone because his shoulder's better, you and Ryan are holding hands because he's your boyfriend."
"Oh...right." I didn't really know what to say to that. "Uh, thanks for the picture."
"You're welcome," she commented, jumping off my bed and sauntering out of my room.
I looked at dad who had been waiting patiently. In his hands he held a wooden box, it was a little larger than a shoe box with my name painted in cursive on the lid. He sat next to me on the bed, holding out the box to me.
I gently took it from him, studying it. It was handmade and beautifully crafted. It looked like a lot of time had gone into it. I looked at him questioningly. "It's beautiful, but what is it?"
"It's called a memory box. Open it."
I carefully flipped open the lid, revealing that the box was pretty full. I sifted through the various items, a smile finding its way onto my face.
"You kept all of this stuff?"
He smiled, nodding. "I've been collecting this stuff ever since I moved in here. I don't know why all kids think the tooth fairy is a girl," he said, picking up a small jar that contained what looked to be my baby teeth, "I'm the tooth fairy in this house."
I looked at the tiny pieces of bone. "That's amazing and gross at the same time."
I continued to look through the box. I could see why it was called a memory box. It was literally my life in a box.
My fingers connected with a piece of plastic and I pulled it out to examine it. It was a wristband with my name on it. "What's this?" I asked, holding it up for him to see.
"Ah, that's your hospital wristband from when you fell out of a tree. You were nine years old."
The rest of the stuff included photos of me when I was younger, pictures I'd drawn as a kid, stories I'd written, certificates, a trophy I was awarded in middle school for public speaking, a plastic ring that a wore when I was eight, and even newspaper clippings from years ago when my art was displayed in an elementary school art competition. I remember coming second to a painting of a clown.
"I still can't believe you kept all this stuff."
"Look, I know it's not much but-"
"Thank you," I said, wrapping my arms around him. "It's amazing."
"I've always dreaded the moment when I'd have to give this to you," he said, embracing me.
"Why?" I mumbled into his shoulder.
He sighed. "Because it was always the plan to give this to you on your eighteenth birthday, and I always knew that you'd be all grown up by then. I was right, you are grown up, but damn I'm proud. I always will be proud."
I pulled out of the hug.
"Even if I end up working at Taco Bell?"
"Only if I get a discount."
I grinned as he stood up. My dad was awesome. He went to walk out the door, but stopped.
"Oh, and you should tell that boy in your closet to wear more clothes when he climbs through your window, he'll scare the old lady across the street."
My mouth hung open. "How did you..?"
"I have eyes everywhere."
He left, closing the door behind him.
The closet door opened. "Your dad is awesome."
"Right?"
I closed the lid of the box, placing it my nightstand.
Ryan walked back to the bed and fell onto it. I laughed as he rolled over to face me.
"You're all glittery," I chuckled, pulling tiny dots of pink glitter from his hair.
"Do I look good?"
"You look fabulous."
"I always look fabulous," he said, reaching his hand under his pillow. He frowned, muttering under his breath. "Aha, here they are."
He retracted his arm, revealing two objects, one in a small box, decorated with a ribbon, and the other was larger, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string.
"Happy birthday," he smiled.
"You didn't have to get me anything," I protested.
"Yes I did," he replied. "Here, open this one first." He handed me the bigger object of the two. I accepted it, untying the string, and pulling off the paper. It was a book. A very pretty book with a royal blue cover and my name printed on the front in gold. I turned it over in my hands, opening the front cover. Written inside the front cover it said, 'happy birthday sunshine. From the bestest neighbour you've ever had'. I laughed flipping through the crisp, and blank, pages. It was a new sketchbook.
"I saw that you were running out of pages to draw on, so I got you a new book," he said, blushing lightly.
I grinned. "Thank you, I love it."
"You're welcome." He handed me the smaller box. "Here."
I untied the ribbon, removing the lid from the box. I gasped at the contents. It was beautiful. A delicate silver chain held a pendant. It was a sun with precious stones inset into the silver. I carefully removed it from the box, holding it out to him. "Help me put it on?"
He smiled as confirmation. I sat up, turning around and lifting my hair. He draped the chain around my neck, connecting the clasp at the back. The sun sat just below my collar bone as I ran my fingers over the smooth metal.
"It's beautiful," I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he replied. "It suits you."
I pulled away. "Seriously though, you didn't have to get me anything."
"I wanted to, plus, its not like you turn eighteen everyday."
I shrugged. "I guess not."
Silence kind of took over after that. We were both looking at each other. I mean, I was trying not to stare at him, averting my eyes and staring at everything and anything that wasn't his face. Hello lampshade, how's it going? Oh, that's a nice wall. Ryan was doing the opposite to me, he was just bluntly staring, he wasn't even trying to look away. A faint buzzing in the background broke his concentration, and he glanced away from me.
"You gonna get that?" I asked, knowing that it wasn't my phone. I never left my phone on at night because Tara tended to ring me in the early hours of the morning to tell me about a dream she'd just had, or about a show she'd just watched.
He sighed, reaching behind him to retrieve his phone which sat on my nightstand. He accepted the call, pressing the device to his ear.
"Hello? Yeah...why? I can be there in.." he looked at the clock on my wall. "Ten minutes. Grab Archie? What do you mean grab Archie? Jesus Christ Evan, you left him at home by himself? You thought I was home? Well I wasn't," he was silent for a moment, biting the thumbnail on his left hand. "Yeah, you're right," he said defeatedly. "But I will kick your ass if you ever do that again. Yeah, whatever, I'll be there in ten."
He disconnected the call, continuing to bite his thumbnail as he climbed off the bed again.
"You okay?" I asked.
He forced a smile. "Yeah, don't worry about me. Something just came up." I raised an eyebrow. "Family stuff," he added.
"So you're leaving?"
"Yeah, sorry."
"Don't worry about it. You gotta do what you gotta do right?"
"Right," he agreed, turning to face me. "I'll call you later. I promise." He left through my french doors.
I sighed, letting my head fall back onto my pillow.
Happy birthday to me.
~*~*~*~
"So let me get this straight," Tara said, holding up a finger. "He shows up and gives you this ridiculously pretty necklace, gets a phone call then up and leaves?"
"Sounds about right."
"Ugh, what a turn off," she complained.
I shrugged. "It seemed pretty serious, and he said it was family stuff so it was probably important."
"More important than your eighteenth birthday? I don't think so."
I heard a voice down the hallway. "Don't touch me lady, I swear one of you people spat in my soup yesterday."
I grinned as Caleb entered the room, a nurse by his side as he used his crutches to walk, a little uncoordinatedly, but still, walking.
I jumped off his bed. "Hey H, happy birthday."
"Oh, so you did remember."
"Of course. You have so little faith in your dearest brother."
"Well you aren't exactly gifted in the memory department," I said, giving him a pointed look.
"Ah, but I make up for it with bucket loads of personality," he replied, flashing me a smile. "Now hug me."
I did as I was told, cautiously wrapping my arms around him. I didn't want to hurt him.
"Happy birthday, H," he whispered in my ear. Their was a moment of silence as we just stood there. "Not to be a mood killer H, but if I don't sit down soon there is a high chance that my legs will give out and I'll crush you."
My eyes widened in alarm. "Oh right, sure," I mumbled, helping him to the bed, where he physically fell in Tara.
"Oh, hey Weasley," he greeted her with the nickname that matched her hair colour.
She pouted. "I thought we had agreed to never use that nickname again."
"Did we shake on it?"
"No..."
"Ha, then it doesn't count."
She stuck out he tongue, crossing her arms over her chest.
"So," I said, directing his attention to me. "How was physical therapy?"
"It makes me hate life, and crutches suck. If you ever get the choice between crutches or a wheelchair, pick the wheelchair. Wheelchairs are the shit."
"Right, let me file that in my brain with all the other useless crap that I'll never use in my life"
"Okay, you do that." he said, looking at the roof, like he was thinking. "My new nurse," he started, "I don't think she likes me."
"New nurse? What happened to the other one?"
"Oh, she quit."
"Is that the one you almost shut in the elevator door?"
"Yeah, her."
Tara let out a cackle of laughter. "Dude, you are my role model."
He grinned, high fiving her.
"So your new nurse, why do you think she doesn't like you?"
He laughed sheepishly. "Hospital beds are squeakier than they look."
I frowned. "What is that, code?"
"You remember Lila, right?" He asked.
"Yeah sure, Tom's sister."
"Well, Tom checked out a while ago, but left something here. She came back to get it. As I said, hospital beds are squeaky."
"You mean you...oh. That's disgusting."
"It really wasn't. But anyway, new nurse walks in on her first day to see bodily fluids being shared."
"I hate you for the mental image you just gave me."
"You're welcome."
~*~*~*~
Everyone keeps asking when I'm going to make them kiss. The answer? Not yet. It's my evil plan to keep you in suspense. How else am I supposed to keep you guys reading?
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