Communicating Vessels [COMPLETED]

Chapter 22

"So, what are we doing for your birthday?" Sigrid asked me while we were having takeaway at her place. Cedric was there too.

"We can use the frat house and have a party there," Cedric offered.

"Nah, I want a change of decor, I've been spending too much time at the frat house. I'm thinking we could go to a bar, and then to a club? I really want to dance, it's been a while."

"Sounds good. Dress code?"

I snorted. "Fancy dress, obviously."

I was born on October thirty-first, aka Halloween. Every single one of the birthdays I had celebrated had required that the guests wear costumes. My twenty-sixth would follow this tradition.

"Guest list?" Sigrid asked, taking notes on her phone. She was like my personal secretary for my birthday. Always had been. And I always did the same for her. That act of service was worth so much more than any present we could think of.

"Well, you two, and Spencer. Sig, do you want to invite Jeremy?"

It had been a few weeks since she had slept with Jeremy. They were more or less together now, although it wasn't too serious. The boy was cute and treated her well, the plan was for them to see where it went.

"Sure, I'll tell him to join us."

Once upon a time, I had to have a waitlist for my birthday parties. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but when I was in college, my Halloween birthday party was the event of the semester. I had tons of friends back then, from my cohort, from my student house, from the cheerleading squad, from the Math Club, from Josh's own social circle. The hardest part about the party was always picking who got to be invited, and who would unfortunately not receive an invitation, due to the limited space.

It was depressing to now live in a time where I had to invite Sigrid's pseudo-boyfriend so that our pathetic party of four looked a bit less pathetic.

"Do you reckon I should extend the invitation to the whole frat house?" I asked. The frat boys weren't all necessarily my friends, but I was friendly enough with most of them.

Sigrid and Cedric looked at each other, then at me. Apparently, I was missing something obvious.

"Abs," Sig volunteered to explain to me what they were both thinking. "You should invite Arthur."

"Why would I do that?" That was not a rhetorical question. What would Arthur do at my birthday party? He knew none of the people who would come, would not want to dress up, and would hate every single second of the time we would spend at the nightclub. Inviting him was the most ridiculous idea.

Like one person again, Sigrid and Cedric both sighed heavily, exasperated.

"Will you stop doing that?" Cedric asked.

"Doing what?"

"Being so oblivious of people's feelings for you, and your own feelings for other people. Of course you need to invite your redhead to your birthday. You've been dating this guy for weeks, now, you have to. Otherwise, he's going to be upset. I don't know, Abs, that's just... common sense!"

"But we're not dating, though."

Again, that was true. Since our first, and only, date at his place a few weeks earlier, our relationship had been purely platonic, if you could even call that a relationship. We had had coffee a couple times during our respective lunch breaks, and we had gone to the monthly dinner party with his college friends again, except this time Toni and Cali had been the ones hosting. Val was there too. The first minutes of that party had been an awkward torture for Arthur, and me by extension. I wasn't ashamed of the amazing night I had had with Val, quite the opposite, and if I had been alone, seeing Val again wouldn't have been a problem. But making Arthur go through the ordeal of hanging out with both me and one of my ex-lovers, who happened to be his best friend, had made me feel second-hand embarrassment. I was also convinced that everyone knew about what had happened, which hadn't helped my feeling sorry for Arthur. Thankfully, alcohol and a long private chat between Val and Arthur had been enough to appease all tensions and we had had a great night overall.