Not My Weekend

Birthdays In the Dark

You want me to what?"

I was patiently waiting for my new friends Andy and Liz to come get me after school. They had told me that they wanted to drive me home because I was their first "popular" friend.

I mean, I was happy to accept a free ride without my brother. It's not like Jason was planning on taking me home anyways. Still, when they came I was not expecting them to bring a plan.

"Andy is having a party. He isn't exactly unpopular. He just has friends in places away from school." Liz takes my hand and grips it painfully hard. "We want you to do us a favor. Invite Jake and Tyler."

"No! They would never say yes." I shake my head vigorously to prove my point.

"Look," Andy says, "How are you going to know if you don't even try?"

"Yeah!" Liz cheers.

"Oh my god you are freaking evil!" I hiss. "I don't even want them to come. Besides, why would they even come anyways? It's not like their friends are going to be there."

"Well, if you invite them, they might invite their friends, right?" Liz smiles.

There was no getting out of it so I accepted. And so when Andy dropped me off at my home,  I pretended to forget all about it. I did my homework, finished it in an hour, and then sprawled out on the couch, bored.

That's when I decided to check Facebook, and I nearly fell of couch when I saw the notification I had.

Tyler Wellings has added you as a friend.

I gasped and jumped around a little bit. They know I exist! Well, I guess it's pretty obvious that they should know I exist, but I still find it amazing.

I hit the accept button and look at his wall. There were a bunch of pictures of him with the girl that I saw today at school.

Looking at the comment below one of the pictures, I cringed at what was written. "Lainey, had fun at the beach today. We should go again <3"

It was written by Tyler. So I guess that answers my question. That girl who was sitting at the table during lunch, the one who looked so pretty.

She was his girlfriend.

I sighed and closed the computer screen. It's not that I cared, I mean he was bound to have one right? After all he was cute, and funny, and sweet...

I felt my face heat up and tears started forming in my eyes. Why? I don't know. Considering it was already nine, I decided to lay in my bed and try to fall asleep.

He had a girlfriend. Unfortunate.

***

Ria knocks on my door in the middle of the night. I groan and click on the side lamp atop of my dresser. I look over at the clock and frown.

"Why are you waking me up at 3 in the morning?" I ask. My voice sounded croaky.

"Someone threw a rock at my window. He said his name was Jake and that he had something to tell you." She says, rubbing her eyes. As she leaves she throws a "Tell yourself stupid friends to never wake me up again."

I grunt and get out of my bed. I open my windows and see a figure standing outside. "What do you want?" I sigh.

"You. Down here." He points to the ground beneath him.

I consider ignoring him and going back to sleep considering it was freezing outside in Carmel during the night. I grab my jacket and decide to go out in my sweats and tank top.

"This better be good." I say once I shut the front door.

Jake pulls out a flashlight and gestures for me to follow him. I follow him to his backyard and that's when I hear it. Music.

"What is going on?" I ask. I see a light flicker in front of my eyes.

"You'll see."

When we get to the fence which blocks of the yard from the street, he tells me to put on some blindfolds. I do as told and when I have them on, he guides me inside. The music isn't loud, in fact it's just barely audible.

"Okay," I hear Tyler say, "You can take them off in three... Two... One..."

They slide off, probably pulled from one of the boys.

"Happy birthday!"

Oh yeah... Today was my birthday.

I gasp at the surprise. "What? This is for me?" I ask on the verge of tears.

My family doesn't celebrate birthdays considering we have so many siblings. Apparently they were always too lazy to do them all so after we all turned 5, we stopped.

The two boys smile at me and hand me the knife to cut the cake before my eyes.

"We saw on your Facebook wall it was your birthday, and considering we couldn't talk much yesterday at school, we thought we would do something a little special. Honestly, we think your really great and want you to be our friend. " Jake smiles and takes a selfie with me Tyler and the cake.

I smile and a tear falls from my eye. "Why would you guys do this for me? I mean I'm just some girl who moved on your street two weeks ago." I try to wipe away the tears.

"Because we really like you." Tyler says wiping away a tear that almost fell.

"Thank you. So. Much." I choke on my words.

"Anyways, let's eat!" Shouts Jake and I cut the cake into small pieces.

"Where did you get this thing anyways?" I asked while handing each of the boys a piece.

"Tyler made it." I gasp.

"You are this good at cooking?" I ask, completely in awe. I thought they bought this somewhere. It looked so good.

"Yeah..." Tyler says scratching the back of his head. "I did."

I smiled and felt so happy to be alive at that moment.

"Oh, by the way, do you guys know Andy?" I ask, almost forgetting.

"You mean Andrew Roches? Yeah, why?" Jake cocked his head to the side and I giggle.

"He is having a party, and he wanted me to invite you guys." I reply.

"Oh sure. We would love to go! You think we can take our friends as well?" Jake grins.

"Yeah, I wouldn't see why not." I say. The plan worked. Woah.

The rest of the party went by in an instant. In no time at all it was already five. I told the boys that I wanted to sleep a little more before going to school so I said my goodbyes and went back home. When I entered my room, I opened up Facebook and saw that I had 3 notifications.

The first two were some people saying happy birthday. I was pretty surprised that there were even people up at this time.

The second was from Jake. He had posted a picture and I was tagged in it. It was the one that we took at the party.
"It's too dark to see, but who cares? I hope you enjoyed your B-day present Seira!"

I smiled reading the comment, and then closed my computer. I walked back to my bed feeling incredibly happy.

I think this was going to be a really fun school year.