Essence

Chapter 17: Birthday Bliss

Syd's POV: Her birthday weekend

"I love you." I whispered as Eli kissed my neck.

"I love you too." He replied, moving back up to my lips.

We were finished having sex, for like the third time today. Ever since we got to this beach house, I've been super happy and relaxed.

"So, how happy are you right now?" Eli asked, pulling the blanket over us.

"I'm ecstatic. This whole thing, it's amazing." I beamed, tears filling my eyes.

"Babe, are you crying?" He gasped, flipping me on top of him.

"Yes, because I'm just so happy." I sniffled, putting my head on his chest.

"You're welcome." He chuckled, rubbing my back.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." I giggled, burying him in kisses.

He picked up my hands and intertwined his fingers with mine.

"When we're older, I'm marrying you. I don't see myself being with anyone else," He admitted.

I felt like my heart was gonna explode as more tears left my eyes.

"I've never been so happy." I sobbed.

"I didn't think it would be possible for you to cry this much, babe." He gushed, wiping my tears.

I let out a light giggle as I sniffled. I ended up falling asleep until it was around five in the afternoon. Eli was in the living room playing something on the TV.

"What's this?" I grinned, tying my robe.

"I made a slideshow with pictures and videos of you. You never like to look at yourself, but you gotta see this," He said, motioning for me to sit next to him.

I snuggled up against him as he played the slideshow. It was cute videos like when he'd try to do little vlogs of our dates, but I'd refuse to be in the videos because I was insecure about my appearance. I felt tears filling my eyes again and let out a little grumble. I fucking hate crying.

"It's okay to cry, Syd. You're human." Eli comforted, kissing my forehead.

I wiped my tears as I folded my arms. Uncle Kane, he convinced me I wasn't supposed to cry, not to show emotion, that no one wanted to see me cry, no one would care, so I forced myself to hide my emotions. When I started dating Eli, he noticed I never truly showed emotion, and he helped me with letting my feelings out.

"I feel... so lucky to have you in my life." I admitted, giving him a peck.

"Yay, you're speaking about your feelings. I feel lucky to have you in my life too, babe." He grinned.

"Sometimes I just wish I never met Kane. He practically ruined me." I sighed.

"Speaking of Kane..." He mumbled, pointing to my phone.

I looked and saw that he texted me.

"This is gonna be something so dumb... 'Hey, Sydney, I would say happy birthday, but first, I hope you remember that you have only a year left to figure out what you're gonna do with life, you can't just be a pothead forever. Make use of yourself for once. This day shouldn't be for celebrating since you have nothing to celebrate. You've accomplished nothing. Also, your cousins say happy birthday.'" I said.

I sighed as I put my phone down, then brought my knees to my chest.

"Why's he like this?" I whispered.

"I don't know, but don't listen to a word he says. It's okay to not know what you're gonna do yet. So many people go to college undecided, and it's not a bad thing. And you technically don't need to go to college right away. You have accomplished a lot of things, Syd. Remember freshman year? You were one of the top students in your class. Sophomore year, you got picked to speak publicly at the middle schools to inform them about what high school's about and all the opportunities there were. This year, you became one of the semi-finalists for the National Merit Scholarship after doing well on the PSATs. Okay, yeah, you didn't get that scholarship, but you qualified. That's an enormous achievement. You achieved a lot, babe, and I'm not gonna let your weird ass fuckhead of an uncle manipulate you into thinking that," Eli explained.