“Happy release day to you,” everyone sang in unison, “happy release day, to you! Happy release day, dear, Gabriel. Happy release day to you!” Everyone began to cheer and clap, and Gabes was grinning gleefully, looking over the bright pink cake, Henry and I had slaved over that morning.
“Come on, dude,” Henry urged, “blow them!” He looked down at me and winked, nudging me with his elbow and making me roll my eyes dramatically.
I looked back at Gabes and watched as something flicked through his eyes, a thought, a wish perhaps, before he bent over and, with one puff, extinguished the ten candles sticking out of the frosting. Everyone in the crowd around him erupted into more applause, whooping loudly. Leila slipped in and picked up the cake, taking it away to her kitchen to cut it up into little pieces.
“Gabes, can I see it?” Scott, from American History, asked, and Gabriel pulled up the hem of his fitted t-shirt, revealing his flat, toned stomach, and the scabbed wound where Harry had pushed the blade in. “Urgh, that’s gross, man!” Scott pushed some of his shaggy, red hair behind his ears and gawped in awe.
I decided to let Gabriel indulge in his newfound popularity, and ducked out of the crowd of people, leaving the dining room. I walked through the lounge, admiring the modern furniture and beautiful design, just as I did every time I came round. Two out of the four walls were made entirely of glass, surrounded by tall palm trees and lush vegetation, creating the illusion that we were sitting right in the middle of the rainforest. Every other wall in the house was painted a crisp white, and the floors were wooden. However, it had a clinical feeling to it, like if you were to touch anything, it would be like breaking some piece of precious art.
I made my way to the kitchen, where Leila and Remy, English Literature, were laying out piles of goodie bags. I snuck up behind them and wrapped my arms around Leila’s small waist, rocking her from side to side and preventing her from steadying the knife she was about to sink into the cake.
“Don’t make me do it!” Leila exclaimed, swiveling around and brandishing the kitchen knife menacingly. “You don’t want a pair, do you?” She threatened, but I just burst out laughing. I lent against the kitchen side top, next to Rem, and pushed myself up onto the smooth, grey marble, my heels nudging the kitchen cabinets.
“You have one too?” Remy let her jaw drop open, her pouty lips falling into a perfect ‘o’ shape. “Can I see?” She whispered eagerly, and I just lifted my worn Yankees shirt in response.
“Why not,” I shrugged, as Remy bent over and ran her index finger across the white ridge, just below my bottom, left rib, her long curls tickling my sensitive skin.
“Cool,” she admired, tucking a blonde lock behind one ear. It wasn’t cool. I stuffed the t-shirt back into the waistband of my turned up jeans, which were way baggier than they were meant to be and so hung off my hips as if I was wearing my boyfriend’s.
“Now that is cool,” Leila confessed, cutting the first piece of cake and putting it onto a piece of napkin, instructing me to wrap it up and hand to Remy to slip inside a party bag.
Yesterday afternoon, Henry and Leila had made a trip to Party World in Santa Barbara, picking up bright bouncy balls and multicolored balloons, along with hair pins and cheap, plastic jewelry, like the kind kids would wear to birthday parties. We were such children.
“You like it?” I asked, beaming at her and continuing to fold up pieces of cake.
“Wait,” Leila put the knife down on the work top, making a slice of a noise as the metal ground against marble. “You didn’t let Henry slip in his weed, did you?” She grimaced, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
“Do you have that little faith?” I giggled, and Remy threw a scrunched up iece of paper at me to get my attention, flashing a shot of a spliff she had slipped out of her jeans, nodding towards the cake sneakily.
“Don’t you dare, blondie,” Leila snapped, without even turning to face her.
“Oh,” Remy taunted, “someone’s not up for any fun,” she giggled, her lips curving into a perfect, modelesque smile.
She was small, about the same size as Leila, but she had more unique features; Leila was stunning, but Remy was more interesting. Her hair reached her waist, in ringlets of pale, ash blonde hair, bangs which caught in her lashes. She had pronounced eyebrows, arched over her round eyes and contrasting with her pale irises. She had a round face, full cheeks and ivory skin, so smooth she could pass as a porcelain doll. Her upper lip curved into a perfect cupid’s bow and her bottom lip was full. Remy, from the first moment I had seen her, had reminded me of a pre-Raphelite model, one that would have appeared in a Waterhouse painting, or Millais.
“Can I have a piece?” Rem asked, leaning across me and taking the next piece of cake, which Henry and I had dyed using yellow, red, blue and green food coloring. Remy bit into the cake and licked her lips, missing a speck of fuchsia pink icing which had smeared across her top lip. I pointed this out and she brushed it away, sucking it off the end of her finger.
“Gabes seems okay to you, doesn’t he?” I asked, frowning slightly as I passed another piece of wrapped up cake to Rem, watching as she tucked it inside another gift bag.
“Considering everything?” Leila replied. “He seems great, he seems,” she paused, sucking on her bottom lip thoughtfully, “he seems like Gabes. He’s a little withdrawn, which you’d expect, but apart from that, I think he’s just glad to be out of that hospital.”
I turned to the stereo stood on Leila’s kitchen counter and hit play, Grease immediately beginning to play, one of her younger sister’s CDs I assumed.
“Summer lovin’, had me a blast,” I began to sing, jumping off the marble side top and leaping over to Remy, bumping my hip against hers and prompting her to raise her hands up to her jaw, tipping her head from one side to the next.
“Summer lovin’, happened so fast,” Remy turned to me and sang, giggling simultaneously. I skipped over to Leila and lent over her, fighting the knife out of her reluctant hands.
“No,” she groaned, fidgeting beneath my touch.
“Come on, Lala!” I urged, “ I met a girl, crazy for me,” I sang into her ear, making her laugh.
“Met a boy, cute as can be,” Rem came over and took my hand, starting to dance me around the kitchen floor, sliding against the shiny wood. I put one hand on her hip and held her hand in the other, and we began to jump around excitedly.
“Come on Leila!” I begged, reaching out for her hand and dragging her towards me and Remy.
“You know I hate to dance,” she stamped her feet like a child who was not getting their way, but I grabbed her by the shoulders and hugged my arms around her, squeezing her tight. Meanwhile, Rem took hold of Leila’s hands and began to pull her arms in different directions, like a puppet.
“Summer days, driftin’ away, to uh-oh, those summer nights,” Rem and I sang loudly, quite possibly out of tune, but uncaring. I felt Leila giving in and I let go of her slightly, putting my hands on her hips and swaying with her, as if I was her boyfriend, slowly dancing at prom.
“Uh well a well a well a huh,” a deep voice came from behind us and we all jumped around, to see Gabriel, holding a whisk to his mouth and singing into it, lifting his upper lip like Elvis. Suddenly, Henry leapt into the room, shaking his arse and rolling his shoulders back.
“Tell me more, tell me more,” Henry took hold of Gabriel’s hips and started grinding against hem, pretending to slap his arse like you saw in those terribly music videos on MTV. We all stopped and stared at the two of them, dropping our arms to our sides.
“Henry, man, I love you to bits, but no white guy can rock that look,” I flinched, psychologically scarred by what I had just witnessed.
“Hello? No black guy can rock that loo,” Remy disagreed.
“Henry, you’re a fucking lunatic,” Leila said bluntly, and he pranced over to her then, picking her up in his arms and throwing her into a fireman’s lift, charging off somewhere else in the house.
“Christ, when are those two going to get it together?” Rem rolled her eyes. “Speaking of, I’m going to go find Sammy,” she blew us each a kiss before skipping off to find her boyfriend, Samuel, Social Studies, who I had seen earlier in the crowd in the dining room. I watched her curly head of hair bounce out of the room, before taking a few light steps towards Gabriel. I reached up and ran my fingers across his smooth, flawless skin, making him smile delightedly.
“How are you feeling?” I asked concernedly, going up on my tip toes and brushing my lips against his.
“Not bad,” he beamed, “a lot better after my little romp with Henry.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Gabriel?” I frowned, slapping his right bicep and watching him wince exaggeratedly.
“Stop! I’m an invalid!” He opened his eyes wide and pouted at me.
“Aw, the baby,” I cooed, messing up his hair only for him to smooth it back in place. “Have you had a nice day?”
“Uh, yeah! My friends are the cutest,” he growled, hustling against my neck and wrapping his arms around me, making me giggle like a child. “Shall I tell you what I have missed the most?” He whispered, kissing me softly.
“What?” I sucked on my bottom lip, finding it hard to contain how happy I felt at this moment in time.
“The sound of the ocean,” he chuckled, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.