Monsters And Us

Chapter 6: Birthday Wish

All of my family were finally at their assigned seats and I felt all eyes were on me, watching my every move, my anxiety slowly creeping up and I begin to feel self conscious about every move I made until I saw Oliver's stupid smile and all my fears slowly began to fade away.  A few minutes later my mom came out with a brown frosted cake with yellow and white flowers and butterflies. My eyes lit up like a child's eyes when they wake up Christmas morning and see all of their presents, it was a beautiful cake in my opinion and I started getting a warm feeling in my chest as my mom placed it in front of me and began lighting the candles which one candles read "Happy 17th birthday" and was surrounded by green, orange, yellow and purple candles, and the green candles had a green flame to it which lit my eyes up more. My dad turned the lights off in the kitchen and grabbed his phone as did my mom and everyone began singing Happy Birthday  to me. I sat there awkwardly as anyone would do during this time, my cheeks bright pink from embarrassment and just saw everyone smiling and singing well everyone except "Karen." Everyone finally stopped singing and I closed my eyes for a few seconds before blowing out the birthday candles and the scent of burnt candles filled my lungs and I coughed a little and smiled at my mum and dad who were taking the candles off and cutting the cake into pieces, my mom giving me a piece with a flower and part of my name "An" and put it on a pink floral plate, in my family we always had a tradition where the birthday person gets the first bite before anyone else as well as chooses the movie the family watches(a movie that everyone can watch including the little kids), which I already had in my head it was The Nightmare Before Christmas a classic Halloween/Christmas movie I was kind of obsessed with.  The inside of the cake was my favorite, vanilla chocolate marble cake, I've always liked that kind of cake even as a young girl because it reminded me of the times I would try to finger paint. I took the first bite and the flavors melted in my mouth, as everyone looks at me before starting to eat their slice, until Uncle Jerry realized where his seat was and stood up to go to my mom while Dani was seated behind Silas, fist bumping him and laughing at the image of a big and tall man sitting in a mini chair. My mom and Uncle Jerry were talking but from what I could see he was asking why he was seated at the kid's table and my mom was confused and told him he was seated behind Silas and I guess he figured out who actually switched the name tags. Dani and Silas were still talking and Uncle Jerry walked over and stood in front of Silas and looked at both of them.

"I think that's my seat Dani."

"Umm no it's not, my name tag was here so..." she said showing him the white name tag with her name in cursive on it, and smiling at him smugly like she has him beat or something.

"Well your Aunt Juliette says she put my name there and it is her house so get up and make it easier on yourself."

Dani was the type of person to never back down from a fight so she looked Uncle Jerry straight in his face and stuck her tongue out at him, mocking him in a way. Jerry looked around and when he saw no one was looking he grabbed her and struggled to put her back at the kids table and sat behind Silas and gave his shoulder and slight tap before being handed a piece of cake by my mom.  The party went on as normal with the "Karen" bitching about something such as the cake doesn't taste right yet she already ate it all, her son jack going under the table and bumping it spilling drinks and food everywhere, I could feel everyone in the room getting more and more irritated with aunt Crystal and her kids, at this point even her husband, Tyler was getting fed up with her and he's the definition of chill and it was hard to get him pissed off. He grabbed her arm gently and was talking to her likely about her children's behavior or whatever, I didn't really pay attention to them that much as Aunt Crystal wasn't the kind of person anyone liked. I looked around the room at everyone and at our new house, it was such a big change for me and even though I missed my old house I had a slight feeling inside me that made me feel like this was the final move for my family and a good one at that, I laid awake at nights wishing for a permanent place to call home. My parent's work caused us to move around a lot and I could spent maybe a month or two in one place before their work would transfer us somewhere else. My birthday went on until around 10:30pm, at this time people started leaving, until it was me, my parents, Silas, and Oliver and his parents. At this point Elliot had left around 8 saying his mom would kill him if he was home late. Silas was sprawled out on the couch in a food coma with our husky, Charlie curled up next to him, Oliver's parents were in the kitchen with my parents, his brothers were back at home and Oliver was sitting in the love seat watching a show on the TV while I sat on the stairs looking at my phone. Silas would occasionally talk in his sleep and made the awkward silence a little less awkward, I couldn't believe how much Oliver had changed since the last time I saw him, though we were 12-13 at the time. He looked like puberty hit him like a truck, even though he was a few month older than me he still looked better than most guys my age. He was tall around 6'4 and had sun kissed skin even though the sun was barely out around this area, and he had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. The TV blared almost like white noise in the background, if it weren't for our parents talking we would be in total silence which would make this moment even more awkward, even though we were childhood friends it was as if we were complete strangers and had to get to know each other all over again, we sat apart for some time just listening to the TV play.  The door opened and Oliver's mom stepped out and walked over to me with a warm smile on her face and hugged me tightly, her warmth radiating onto me in a motherly kind of warmth. She pulled away from me and whispered something in my ear in a language I didn't know.

"ā kōrua ai whāmere ko mātou"

But I could feel a sort of warmth from the words she spoke and that phrase seemed to get the attention of Oliver cause his head perked up as he heard his mother say it. His mother smiled and hugged me once more before going through the front door and into their truck, and soon after his dad came out and smiled at me and gave me a hug too almost lifting me up off the ground and saying another phrase

"whakamaru ona Ōriwa"

This phrase gave me a sort of protective feeling and before he set me down Oliver was right there next to him and smiling awkwardly at me while blushing for some unknown reason.

"Annabel, I've missed you so much. You are like a second daughter to me, and I know Oliver has missed you ever since your family moved but we are so glad you and your family are back" Oliver's dad said

"Dad, your embarrassing us please chill a little" Oliver replied blushing even more embarrassingly

"Oh hush Oliver you know it's true, you missed her just as much and maybe more than we do. Well anyways Annabel I have a special gift for you, which I'll send Oliver to give to you tomorrow cause it's kind of too big to put into a gift box." He laughed before bursting into laughter

"Dad please stop..." Oliver shakes his head before and facepalming and trying to push his dad out of our house but failing to even move him an inch he reluctantly gave up and stood by his father waiting for this whole experience to be over.

"Well we have to get going now since it's almost 11:30 and you both have school tomorrow, so I'll probably come by around 5-6 so Oliver should be there 4-5pm with your gift. So have a goodnight Annabel, bye for now."

He smiled and began walking towards the door with Oliver right behind him and soon they were gone, I stretched my arms out and yawned loudly before heading up to my bedroom which as soon as I opened the door got a brush of cold wind that made my spine shiver, and saw the window was opened yet I never opened the window, and grabbed a baseball bat my dad gave me in case of emergencies and I held it close as I inspected every nook and cranny that a person could fit in and found nothing, but noticed a small dream catcher attached to my the wall above my bed which I tried to remember whether or not I put that there though I couldn't for the life of me remember if I did or not because I unpacked so many items I could've put it up without remembering. I got ready for bed and by the time it was midnight I had already passed out and was dead asleep.