Her Artificial Hair [editing]

03 // the smart tina.

I don't know about you, Mr. Feigner, but when someone starts a fight with me for no obvious reason, I get pissed – real pissed. There are those people who would tell you, 'to be the older one' or 'to leave him or her alone' or 'if you didn't do anything, you have no reason to be mad' but me, Mr. Feigner; I get angry – real angry.

The reason I am telling you this precious piece of information is because of the three words Ethan Beckham had had the nerve to say. I swear to god that if it was anyone else who had told me 'Happy Birthday, Alice' I would smile politely and thank them – because what else would you say other than thank you: 'happy birthday to you too'?

But however, if it was to be someone who I clearly just told to leave me the fuck alone, I would flip my shit.

First of all, the main reason would be that he won't know my birthday unless he's stalking me – whether it was in real life or online – and shamelessly admitting it without an ounce of regret. And if you were me, Mr. Feigner, would you want to get stalked by someone you barely know? Doubt that.

The second reason was, he had just seen me embarrass myself in front of a bus full of teenage students – ages ranging from fourteen to seventeen years old – who all looked afraid that I might kill them in their sleep because he wanted to give me a cookie. A fucking cookie.

But did my outburst stop him from saying that particular greeting or whatever (could it even be called greeting?) that he knew would anger me even more than I already was? Did Ethan ever think that maybe he should just shut the fuck up and stop talking to me?

Let me answer all of those three questions for you:

1. No.
2. I guess it's called a greeting, but I'm going to call it statement, for now.
3. Not in my wildest dreams.

Nonetheless, there was a moment that I felt terribly sorry for him. I didn't know why but it had something to do with the fact that I started a fight with him for a somewhat non-existent reason (at least, according to him but according to me? Oh, I had my reasons alright).

That, after taking a few calming breaths, had made me realize that maybe I didn't need anger management after all, because I turned to look at him, chuckled and said – as any normal person would –

"Thank you very much."

And at that moment, perhaps I felt prouder and calmer than I had ever been, but, of course, something had to come up to make me hate Ethan even more and possibly rethink the whole anger management idea. While I was once again shoving the cookie into my mouth due to my will of being more polite and try to, at least, compensate for my screaming fit earlier, he started to open his backpack.

At first, I thought it was going to be another cookie and tried to calm myself because who would say no to a free cookie? After a while, I even convinced myself that maybe it had nothing to do with me. Maybe he thought he forgot something and was making sure it was there.

However, my thoughts were quickly fading because he started taking out a box from his backpack and what did he decide to do with that wrapped box, Mr. Feigner? He decided to give it to me, repeating the previous statement – or greeting, but we've already established that – of 'Happy Birthday, Alice'.

I, as usual, got pissed.

I got pissed because it was not everyday (or in this case, every year) that an attractive stalking stranger gave you a birthday gift. I didn't know what bit angered me more. The fact that he didn't seem to care about my outburst that stated, clearly, that I didn't want to befriend him or the fact that he was smiling while handing me the gift.