Rituals for Love ✔

Sixteen

Time has a funny way of moving on me, on the other hand, do not.

My birthday is tomorrow, and I'm still fuming about Satan. He has the good sense to stay away, I haven't seen any evidence of his intervening either. I hope it stays this way.

The only good thing that comes from this, is now every time I see David I laugh like a mad woman. Something about his face now strikes me funny, as mean as that sounds.  I no longer get gawked at school, either the cause went away or people got used to it.

Lucy's hair was still white, her mom hasn't said a word much to all our surprise. My parents aren't very fond of it either, but they are nice enough to wait till it just us and then lecture me about it.

Cause, you know it's my fault.

I snap back to the last bit of makeup school work I had. I was fortunate enough to talk all my teachers into giving me an extra credit project. I saved the worse for last.

A massive research paper on the different types of soil. Earth science has never really been an interest of mine. This was seriously one of the most boring topics ever. Making me want to bash my head against the keyboard of my laptop.

A door slamming shut somewhere in the house gave me, my first excuse to leave this researching behind. With a huff, I was up and out the door. I was halfway down the stairs when I first heard my mother humming. She was beyond excited to be throwing me a party. The memory of me bringing it up

*****
One Week Earlier.

My mom and I have both played hookey, a rare occurrence, something we both cherish. We are one with the couch, amongst bowls off chips, popcorn, and boxes of our favorite candies, binging one of our show.

I knew this was all because she was worried that I would go off the deep again. She had noticed Cole's absence.

She has nothing to worry about. I thought to myself add I flung a piece of popcorn in my mouth. To distract my thoughts I  blurted the first thing that came to mind.

"I think I want a birthday party." My mom started coughing. Of course, I would blurt that out while she's eating.
Once the candy inducing near-death experience was over, my mom stared at me. It wasn't difficult to see where I got most of my features from. We have the same hair color, she takes special measures to keep it that way. I have her slender nose and her eyes. Minus the red and puffing that's occur when choking. A real smile was spread across her face.

"I didn't think you would want to celebrate it, but I will gladly throw you a party. What were you thinking?" My chest tightened a little. My own mom thought I wouldn't want a party for my 18th birthday. Quickly coming up with a defense and an idea.

"Well Mom, everybody wants to party when they turn 18, but I think I want to give you full control. This is more for you than me anyway. I only have Lucy you can invite. So we could do like a family thing, with Lucy, of course." As I spoke I watched tears form in her eyes, this time not from choking.

She just smiled and nodded at me and we went back to our show.

*****

I almost regretted having said anything about a party. She has invited, not just the local family and friends but even some distance family.  I gave her too much time, too much notice. Now I was going to spend the day talking to people I hadn't seen in at least five years.

Wonderful.

At least I will have Lucy with me. Our mothers collaborated, first time for everything, I guess. I was almost worried, my mom was going to let Sabrina help with the decorations.