| So this is the way I'm spending my eighteenth birthday. Lovely. I get to stay at home and channel surf. Someone get me out of this hellhole. Now. Please. For starters, I live in the most boring town on the face of this big blue orb we're spinning around on. Someone gag me. This place is pretty much like every other Small Town in America - nothing goes on, everyone knows everyone and watching the local fire truck getting hosed down is the highlight of the day. Dear God, please give me enough balls to grab the keys and my puppy and drive off into the sunset. Turning eighteen has sucked so far. When I woke up this morning, my sister was heading out the door with my cousins and my mom was already at work. There was a note on the table beside the box of Honeycomb saying that she had a date that night, and that she probably wouldn't be back until the next day. My sister didn't say so much as five words to me. I'm such a loved individual. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Something good's gotta happen sooner or later. Well, it's already 3PM and nothing spectacular has happened. My day is shot. And not one of my friends told me happy birthday. And usually, they remember. And it's not like they'd forget about it on purpose, I've had a countdown going since March, six months ago. I didn't get a phone call, no e-mails, no instant messages. I'm beginning to think I'm trapped in some sort of a vortex where it's really tomorrow already. Until I hear a knock on the door. Groaning, thinking it's the paper boy or someone equally annoying, I rise to my feet, which are currently covered in fuzzy baby blue slippers. I'm wearing a WBHT Morning Crew t-shirt and boxers that once belonged to my cousin Mark; it's not like I'm going anywhere, see if I care that anyone sees me in this getup. If I had a pore strip on my nose and green gunk on the rest of my face, the look would be complete. When I open the door, not bothering to look to see who's behind it, I'm suddenly grabbed around my middle and picked up into the air. I realize I'm being slung over someone's shoulder and I'm panicking. I'm not liking being this far away from the ground, I'm a short person (about five foot three or so) and I must be at least five feet and maybe nine or ten inches away from the ground. "What the FUCK..." are the only words that fly out of my mouth before something is shoved into it. It tastes like some sort of tape... Oh my God, I'm being kidnapped. Someone sticks a rolled-up bandana over my eyes; I can't exactly resist because some jackass has grabbed my hands and I'm not happy about it. And all this in broad daylight. Before I realize what could happen to me, I'm thrown in the backseat of something that feels like an SUV or maybe a mini-van of some sort. Of course, I'm kicking and flailing my arms around and screaming as much as humanly possible, but it doesn't seem to help too much. The only thing I get out of all the kicking around is me falling on the floor. I hear a few snickers over the radio. Well, at least they put on a decent radio station - I'm hearing Sean Valentine, a DJ at WBHT, babble incessantly about loving all his fans and that they should vote for him for some magazine contest. I'd recognize that man's chipmunk-sounding voice anywhere. Okay, so he really doesn't sound like a chipmunk. But I always tease him about it - I have been since June. I just realized that Sean knows it's my birthday and he promised he'd call me... He's supposed to get out of work in about a half hour or so. God I wish that he'll realize something is up and come looking for me. Who am I kidding... Sean's a blonde. He's probably not gonna remember to call me, and even if he does and no one answers, he's gonna think I'm out partying. I swear I could kill that man sometimes. The SUV/mini-van screeched to a halt within a matter of minutes. Whoever these people were, they weren't taking me too far away from my house. Which only lead me to believe one of two things. One - whoever it was that was kidnapping me was obviously not the brightest crayon in the box. Or two... The door opened, the blindfold was pulled off my eyes. I blinked at the glare of the sun, trying to make my eyes adjust faster. Who I saw in front of my made my mouth fall open. My friends Lisa, Candy and Brad were standing in front of the open door to the... Tahoe? "Where did you get this car?" I asked, looking around. Then I looked at them. "And why the FUCK did you just do that to me? Are all of you on crack?" They laughed. I saw nothing funny about it. Lisa spoke up. "We borrowed it from your Aunt Joyce. We need to get around in style tonight." Lisa said the last sentence with a glint in her eye and an edge to her voice that scared the bejesus out of me. I narrowed my eyes at them. "What exactly are you talking about?" "We're going out tonight," Candy said, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the truck. I looked at her. "But you're only sixteen," I said, looking at Candy in confusion. "You guys can't..." I trailed off as they began to grin. "What exactly are you going to do to me?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and sighing. I knew they were going to put me through some sort of hell that night. I didn't expect them to say WHAT, but it was worth a shot. "Nah uh," Lisa said, taking my arm and leading me into her house, which was obviously where they had taken me. "The only thing you have to know right now is that we're fixing you." My eyes must have enlarged double their normal size. "FIXING me?" I asked, stopping my walking. "You're FIXING me?" The last time they "fixed" me, I ended up with makeup on my face, a dress on my body, shoes on my feet that were too small and a purse around my shoudler. By the end of that night, I was ready to turn the purse into a nuise. And they wanted to do it AGAIN? They were on crack. "Oh no," I protested, turning around to leave. "I'm not getting 'fixed,' I don't think so." Before I could get very far, Lisa grabbed my arm. "You're not going anywhere. Period. Now get in the house and let us fix you the easy way, or we could always do it the hard way." I cringed. I didn't wanna find out what the "hard way" was, although I suspect that it probably would have something to do with me on Aron's shoulder again, so I caved. I let them drag me in the house, but I didn't make it that easy for them to concentrate. I kept on whining the entire time Lisa and Candy were "fixing" me, Brad was sitting in the living room playing Solitare on the computer. Hey, I'm a tomboy, I have been since I was a kid - see if I was gonna put on makeup and dress up just because I was eighteen. When hell freezes over. But when I looked into the mirror when they were done... "Hell has frozen over," I muttered, staring at my reflection. I looked older, for one thing. I always looked so much younger than I really am - a lot of people mistake me for fifteen. I'm gonna love that I look younger when I'm in my thirties - but right now, I hated it. An eighteen year-old should not look like she's fifteen. It's just not right. But whatever they had done to my face and hair... They better remember what it was, because it looked like I was going to be wearing some makeup from now on. Whenever I was around A.J., anyway. I'll get into him later - but I'm not talking about A.J. McLean. I'll say that much. "What did you guys... DO to me?" I asked, still staring at the girl in the mirror. They laughed. "We fixed you," Candy said with a grin. I raised my eyebrows. "Well I'll be damned... I look like a human. A human female. An eighteen year-old human female." "Okay, now that you have makeup on, you have to get dressed," Lisa said, reaching for the door to her closet. I frowned. "There is no way on this earth that I'm letting you put me in one of those hoochie outfits we saw in Deb," I said, crossing my arms. Lisa yanked a hanger out of the closet that contained a blue and white stretchy tank top and sparkly black pants with laces up the sides near my hips. "This isn't that bad, now get dressed," she said, handing me the hangers. I suppose there really wasn't much I could do to argue - it was either go out in what they had picked out for me or my pj's. And the pajamas were starting to look really good as soon as I put on the tank top in the bathroom. "Umm, you guys, why can't I just wear my pajamas?" "Because we're going to a restaurant and you have to look good," Candy's voice yelled from the other side of the door. Lisa groaned. "Tell her everything, why don't you." "I didn't tell her where we were going!" "Don't you dare." "I'm not going to!" I rolled my eyes and walked out of the bathroom. "Hey, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber - how slutty do I look?" I asked, spinning around. They stopped arguing. And I think that Lisa had somewhat of a small heartattack. I could be wrong. Either way, I never thought that I had that kind of effect on people. Brad couldn't say a word - he just sat on the couch with his mouth hanging open. He shut it when I told him that he was attracting flies. I don't get it, guys are weird. ~*~*~ "Okay, you have to put this on," Lisa said as Brad slowed the Tahoe to a stop on the side of a road and handing me a bandana. "On my hair?" I decided to play dumb. Hey, my hair looked good for once and I didn't wanna ruin it already. "NO, not your hair, turn your head so I can tie this," she said, throwing it over my eyes. "Lise, I can't see anything." "That's the point, duh," she said as she got done tying the *blindfold* on my head. She then put her blinker on and pulled into traffic. We made a series of turns, so naturally, I lost track of where we were, and I soon had no idea where we were going. When we started, we were on the side of the road near the Market Street Bridge, but now we could be anywhere in Nepa. We stopped about ten minutes later. They still wouldn't let me take off the damn blindfold, so I was forced to stumble as we walked across a driveway or parking lot of some sort. I almost fell about eight times, but each time, someone grabbed my arm as I cursed under my breath. I got nothing but snickers in response. Someone held open a door for me, and it sounded like we were in a restaurant of some sort. I immediately felt like an idiot, walking through this restaurant with a blindfold on my eyes. Amazingly enough, I didn't hit anything or anyone when we were indoors. We walked through a hallway and doors were opened. Everyone was silent, "Guys, what in the hell..." I trailed off as I heard footsteps walking toward me on the tile floor. I swallowed hard as the footsteps stopped. Out of nowhere, the blondfold was yanked off my eyes and I was yelled "Surprise!" at. I blinked at the sudden intrusion of light on ony eyes and the noise... My mouth dropped when I looked around. Standing around the room were most of my friends, plus people that I didn't speak to since I was in middle school and people that I didn't even know existed. I don't think I knew half of the people in that room. Hell if I cared though. But that wasn't what made my mouth drop. Standing in front of me, holding a white rose and smiling, was the guy that I had had a crush on for the past year and seven months, A.J. Out of instinct alone, I took a step backward - but I didn't get anywhere, Brad was standing behind me and he hissed in my ear, "Get in there and give the man with the rose a hug before he thinks he did something wrong." I smiled nervously at A.J. - it was the only smile I could remember to make at that point - and I turned to Brad. "I can't be that close to him without jumping his bones, it is not humanly possible," I hissed in her ear. He snickered and shook his head, turning me around by the shoulders without saying a word. Remind me to smack that boy later... "Happy birthday," A.J. said, taking a step closer to me and handing me the rose. "Thank you," I said in reply, wondering why I couldn't talk above a whisper. He leaned over for a hug and as I put my arms around his neck, I saw that Sean was standing behind him. I'm amazed that I didn't notice Sean before; he's taller than A.J. by about three inches, not including his hair. When I let go of A.J. - yes, I let go of him LoL - he stepped to the side and Sean walked up. "Happy birthday Babydoll," he said, not bothering to give me time to breath before he threw his arms around me and squeezed. I made a noise from lack of air and croaked out, "Sean... I can't... breath... very well... You're... squeezing..." "Oh," he said, letting go. "Sorry. Happy birthday," he said, handing me another white rose; his was different than A.J.'s, his has pink tips on it. "Thank you," I said, then looked toward the crowd of people. "You know what? I don't even know half of these people." Sean and A.J. laughed. "Well they all brought you cards, so..." A.J. shrugged "The more the merrier," I said, walking toward a random table. ~*~*~ "Whose brilliant idea was it to invite A.J. and Sean to my birthday party?" I asked, walking up to the table where Lisa, Candy and Brad sat after greeting people I didn't know. "It doesn't bother me that I don't know half these people, not at all. But why the FUCK did you invite them, of all people?" I asked, glancing toward where A.J. and Sean were talking to my cousin Mark and my friend Jason. "Because I know you wanted them to be here," Lisa shrugged. "And if we hadn't done this, you'd be sitting at home, listening to A.J. broadcast live from the Woodlands." I opened my mouth to say something smart, but nothing came out as soon as I realized that what Lisa said was true. Damn. I had no life. "Okay, so I would've been sitting at home, listening to the radio. But you saved me from that, and thank you, by the way. Nonetheless, the guy that I've had a crush on - no, wait, the twenty-four year-old guy that I've had a crush on for one year... six months and, uh..." I paused to do the math in my head, "twenty-four days and four hours, is standing right over there, taking to my cousin about Lord-knows-what. And I suddenly have no idea what to do with my hands," I said, dropping to the seat next to Lisa and putting my head in my hands. "There's an idea, use them as a resting spot for your head," Candy said sarcastically. I didn't even look up at her, I simply removed one hand from under the left side of my face and flipped her the finger. So much emotion can be conveyed by just one little movement... "Yeah, same to you," Candy muttered, pushing her chair back and standing up. "I'm gonna go dance, come on guys." Within a few seconds, I was alone at the table. I looked up and around the room, everyone was crowded in the middle of the dance floor and was dancing and having a great time. Soon enough, a slow song came on the sound system. I groaned as I noticed the first few bars of This I Promise You. I used to love that song, hell, I still do love that song. But not when I'm sitting on a chair by myself while everyone else is dancing. Until some moron taps me on the shoulder. I honestly don't want to be bothered at this point, whenever this song comes on, I get depressed and I usually babble about my lack of a boyfriend. The last boyfriend I had was before I turned seventeen... Damn, that was a year and a half ago. I turned around with my mouth open, ready to say some smartass comment to whoever is bothering me. I suddenly forgot what to say when I looked into A.J.'s eyes. "Hi," is the only word that comes out of my mouth. He smiles. "Hi. I see you're not dancing with anyone... Wanna dance?" he asks, holding out his hand. I blinked. I realized he was talking to ME, asking ME to dance with HIM... After yelling at myself to say yes, you moron, I shake my head yes and take his hand. Someone up there must like me. I guess heaven can be a place on earth, after all. |
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