gold rush ♬ {𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐮𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲}

vi. sweet sixteen

Is life sweet? I don't think so. Life ain't life without its bitterness. That's exactly why I say life's bittersweet. It's not an original or innovative phrase, it was just a thought I had stuck between my braincells. 

The twin's birthday is this Friday. They're turning sixteen. Emma and Rory were so excited about it, they had a plan: dinner at the grandparents on Friday and a town party at their house on Saturday. I repeat, they had a plan.

"Hey." Tristan was leaning against Emma's lockers.

"What, Tristan?"

"I just wanted to say 'Happy Birthday'."

"It's not my birthday." She was very confused.

"No, but it will be." The confusion worsened when Tristan pulled a white shiny paper out of his pocket. He starts reading the meticulously written words. "On Friday, at 4:03 in the morning, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore and Emma Ro-"

She interrupted his reading and took the paper out of his hand.

"What is that?" She looked at in disbelief. It was an invite to her and her sister's birthday party, a party she didn't know she was having. "Who else got this?"

"I don't know. Everyone in our class, I think."

"I have to go." She closed her locker.

Emma was too deep into distress, she was too focused on finding Rory. Coincidently, Rory was looking for her. Paris approached her with a similar birthday joke.

The twins saw each other's pale faces and immediately ran to each other. Rory was about to say something, a confirmation that their panic came from the same deep dark well, but some girl's voice got their attention:

"That's them." It was Summer.

"My parents are making me go." It was one of Summer's wannabes called Clarissa.

"Another obligation party?!" Another one whined.

"It's so sad. They didn't have enough friends for a party and their grandparents had to come for the rescue." Summer laughed at her own joke. "Thankfully, my parents aren't forcing me to go. But have fun, girls!"

The twins' faces got even paler. It was an actual nightmare.

Summer walked away and bumped into Emma's shoulder on purpose. Emma was about to say something when she saw Summer's destination: Tristan. She hugged him from the back and he didn't seem surprise, he didn't flinch, he didn't move at all. Summer whispered something into his ear, then he moved, but the movement wasn't the one Summer expected. Tristan muttered something in a emotionless sense and walked the other way, Emma's way. Summer's lips pouted angrily.

"I'll see you Friday, birthday girl!"

He completed ignored the fact that it was Rory's birthday too. Oh well.

✯✯✯

It's 7pm. The girls arrived at their grandparents an hour before. They were already dressed in their dresses painted in different shades of blue. The guests entered the front door and the boring party full of the classmates they barely talked to was starting.

Emma excused herself out of a dull conversation with some family friends she just met and passed through the front door. Tristan walked in.

"Coming to greet me?"

"Hello, Tristan." She pronounced the words curtly.

"So, where's my birthday kiss?" He always had that half smirk half smile on his face that infuriated her.

"It's my birthday."