Laugh Until You Cry

5 Birthday Parties

It wasn't the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is a lot longer than it originally seemed. I went to the party store on Wednesday with Sienna, Mason and Brian and I actually had hope for me and Andrew that we'd stop fighting. However, on Thursday and Friday, we were back to normal, fighting every time that we even said hello to each other. It's exhausting.

Today is Mary's party though, so I'm confident that today will be a good day. Even if Andrew wants to be whiney and complain about everything like he's been doing lately, I'm going to be surrounded by my friends and we're going to celebrate Mary's eighteenth birthday and it will be fun.

On Saturday morning, I go with Mason to Mr. Vaughn's house, who is Sienna's uncle. At first, it was incredibly intimidating being around the guy a lot considering he's the head guy of our school. He can throw anybody out with just a flick of his wrist and that's that. Squashed like a bug. He owns all of the Vaughn schools (Dancing, Vocal Music, Fine Arts, Instrumental) so he's a pretty intimidating person. However, after I've spent some time with him, I realize that he's actually not a bad guy. If I was as powerful as him, I would definitely abuse my power way more than he is so more power to him.

Anyway, the party is going to be outside at the pool because it's a pool party so Mason and I take the time to decorate the sunroom with streamers and balloons and on some of the balloons, we write 'Happy Birthday, Mary!' on them. The sunroom is attached to the house and it's a large room with three walls made out of class and the fourth wall is the one that's attached to the house with a door that leads into the kitchen. There's another two doors that lead outside to the stone area around the in ground pool that comes with a diving board and a twelve foot deep end. We throw some balloons outside too but we keep all of the streamers in the sunroom. We even decorate the big table that, in a few hours, will showcase a huge birthday cake that Sienna and Penn will be picking up soon.

"So, this is going awesome. Sara just picked Mary up and they're going to the movies but Sara is pretending like she doesn't know that today is Mary's birthday," Mason informs me as she's reading a text that I assume is from Sara.

"Yeah, this is awesome," I agree with a nod. On the other side of the room, there are two long tables that are going to be full of platters of food and bowls of chips and candy and everything, which Andrew and Brian are in charge of, so they should be here soon with the food as well. "And Sienna texted me a little bit ago and told me that the DJ will be here at noon."

"And you and Andrew are going to be okay?" Mason wonders as we tape streamers around the room.

"Definitely," I nod. "I mean, we're not getting along or anything but if he wants to be a jerk then I just won't talk to him during the party and then we can just fight tonight. Like we always do. It'll be great."

"How can you two still be fighting? Like, what do you even fight about anymore?" She wonders incredulously.

"It's pretty much the same thing every time. He wants to play video games all of the time, I want him to actually act like a boyfriend some of the time. And now, as if things weren't awful enough right now, he's talking to Charlotte."

"The Bitch Twin?" Mason asks me with wide eyes.

I nod and purse my lips in disgust. "Yeah. Apparently, they have anatomy together and they're lab partners. And apparently, she's really nice and 'she's new. She needs people to help her out' and all of that crap. Whenever I even bring her up, he accuses me of being jealous which might be true but seriously, he talks to her more than he talks to me and I think I have a reason to be jealous. She's a bitch but she is really pretty and apparently, pretty manipulative."

"How can he be so blind?" She wonders incredulously. "Jeez, that's so hard to believe."

"I thought so too," I mumble. "But then if I continue to press the subject, he tells me that I'm suffocating him. I should give him some space. As if I spend any time with him at all. I barely even see him anymore so I'm about as suffocating as the moon suffocates the sun. I honestly don't know what's going on with him anymore. I honestly can't take too much more of this, Mase."