April came, and with it, the twenty second anniversary of my birth. All the thrill I had for it slowly dissipated with the passing of the last month, and my enthusiasm was replaced with a bad feeling.

"It's going to be amazing, we'll drink wine and sing Taylor Swift all night. All that, plus the awesome cake we'll make for you" Leela said while we enjoyed a break from class. We were left alone as some of the boys went to the toilet and some others went to grab snacks.

"We will spend at least three days at your house," Darcy warned, "so get used to that idea."

"Yeah, it'll be great. We can have a sleepover the night before, just the girls" I offered, in urge to get myself excited for the days to come.

My relationship with Luke was as weird as ever, but I felt scared of the future, specifically, of my birthday, because I knew he wouldn't do half the things I did for his because he didn't care half as much as I did. I was frightened by the imminent shock of disappointment already breathing in my neck.

Every year, I get moody around the day of my birthday. Annually, I get that feeling that people don't really want to be there, that they don't love me as much as they claim to do on that special occasion, they just feel entitled to do so, and I get more annoying than ever. I become the worst person to be around. I know what people might think, they're probably like 'girl, just take the fucking compliment and go', and yes, they're right. I'm a total ass, I know, but I promise it's over as soon as the next day so, bear with me for a little.

"I want to go to the bathroom, you guys want to go?" Leela asked, wrapping her arms around herself.

"No, I'm good" I said.

"I'll go" Darcy responded and they walked away.

I was standing there in the middle of the hallway, waiting for someone to come, when Luke appeared. He shyly walked up to where I was and sat next to me with a little distance between us. It was one of those days when I did not know what to say. What was there to say even? He still hadn't mentioned his girlfriend in front of me, but I knew her name was Mia. We talked a lot lately, but it was like we both knew there was a topic we were purposefully omitting.

He approached me like one would approach a butterfly. He didn't know exactly how to move or act, even less what to say, so he opted to successfully drive the conversation as far away from her as he could. I could say he was trying not to hurt me, but it's more likely that he was trying to avoid an uncomfortable situation.

Me on the other hand, I was starting to feel delusional. Something inside my heart told me that it wasn't over yet, and I convinced myself it was my gut, when it was most likely my desire. I wanted to believe that our story had a second part, one when his story with her would be transitory and, eventually, he would return to me. I needed to hold on to the idea that, one day, I would get to finish what I started. I even started seeing someone, this guy Mark that I mentioned before, but even after talking almost every day and having a few dates, I knew I just wanted Luke to see that I could move on too. I wanted him to see how I could also replace him, that I wasn't alone, like him. I hated the idea of being the one left empty-handed, the loser.

I went out with that guy and quickly realized he was the most boring man I had ever met, and he was also quite stupid. He never understood any of my jokes and I always had to explain them to him. Mark was the kind of guy you run from but, in my case, it was rather him or nothing, and nothing wasn't an option in this competition of who could be happier without the other, which Luke was currently winning.

As if being dumb, slow and boring wasn't enough, he was also a crypto guy. Yes, you got every right to judge me, I wasn't in my senses.

Days passed and I noticed a pattern of behavior in Luke that I had only seen in myself before; he was struggling to keep himself from touching me. Perhaps he wanted to express affections but he wasn't sure if it was appropriate. He found himself standing close enough for our arms to touch, or he started playing with my stuff in the table as if he did not know how to get my attention or what he wanted it for. More than once I noticed him playing with his own fingers like he was abstaining himself from reaching out to me, and, whenever we joked together, he would playfully smack me. One day he smacked my head with a plastic bottle like three times in a row, not hard enough to hurt but often enough to make me question what the fuck he wanted.

As the days went by I decided to make an effort to keep a positive attitude towards my birthday, though my feelings were the same and I communicated it to my friends. The plan was this; the girls and I would have a sleepover the night before my birthday so we could receive it together, then, on the day of my birthday, everybody would come home after school to have dinner with me and my family, and, the next day, we would go out. Gorgeous plan, actually, except for one thing.

"He's definitely not coming" I said.

"I don't think he will be that big of an asshole" Leela said while we walked to the grocers to buy some stuff for dinner, Charlie was making stew.

"Maybe he will go one day, just one. There's no way he will be a part of the whole plan," I said as we walked inside the market, "and, if he goes, he will leave after like one hour."

"Don't be so negative. Fuck him if he doesn't want to be with us" she spoke as she led the way, "It's your day, you should be thinking about having fun and getting drunk, not about what his ugly ass is going to do."

I chuckled as we came across Leela's mom, Mary, who worked at the market.

"There is my baby!" she exclaimed as she rushed to meet her daughter with the warmest of hugs.

I always found it very charming how much Leela's mom adored her and treated her like a precious thing. I mean, it's the only way one should treat her.

"Hello my queen!" the woman was now referring to me, I smiled and hugged her back. "You guys having dinner tonight?" she asked.

"Yeah, stew. The cold really calls for it" I joyfully replied.

"Mom, we're going to get the stuff that we need and I'll come say goodbye before we go" Leela informed.

We walked through the hallways, we got bread and soda. After we were done we walked back to Charlie's place and I found that Luke was there, surprisingly. But, to no one's shock, he left before dinner alleging that 'he had to do something', as always. I sat there on the table while I was waiting for food to be ready when a memory crawled back from the vault of my mind.

"I was looking at him," Alex said, "at Luke."

"When?" I asked.

"The other day when we were at Charlie's place sitting in the table. He was staring at you and smiling the whole time. I was so angry! I was like 'dude, do something!'" my friend said in between giggles. I smiled at the picture in my head.

I looked around and fixed my eyes on his now empty chair. 'It won't be', I thought. I looked now at the sofa, embracing another excruciating memory. I grabbed my phone and looked at the picture I took of Luke sleeping with my cat on the couch, and remembered how he smiled at me when he woke up and noticed me staring. 'It won't be no more', I repeated to myself. It was sad and strange, considering that these moments weren't so long ago, and yet they felt so far away.

That night we had dinner happily, his absence wasn't felt. My friends made me laugh like every day and I felt fine, but empty. One thing is missing something that you can't have in the moment but will eventually return, and one completely different is missing something that's long gone. I felt a hole in my chest, and the one thing that filled it, wasn't coming back any time soon.

While I was slowly decaying more and more, Darcy was starting to rise. She had returned to the gym and was spending a lot of time with Leela and I, which was a huge step considering she didn't leave her room for at least a couple of weeks.

When everything with Luke and Oliver happened, a chain of unfortunate events unleashed. She found out through me, who found out through Alex, but what cracked her the most was the fact that Charlie knew.

Charlie and Darcy were the closest of friends, I would dare say he knew her better than anyone, perhaps even better than me. But knowing something that would break her heart and not telling her was something Darcy didn't expect from him. Her heart broke three times more than when she learned about Oli seeing someone, so for several days she avoided Charlie because she felt dumb, more specifically Charlie made her feel dumb and she wasn't ready for that conversation yet, she wasn't ready to forgive. I had a similar fight with Alex because he said he didn't understand why I was so upset since Luke never gave me hope, and he was right, Luke never gave me hope, he did. He was the one who every day told me things like 'we talked about you' or 'he was looking at you', and now I was feeling stupid because I thought he saw me as stupid. That night we were breathing fire and we did stupid things like erasing all their stuff from the whiteboard, spread crumbs on top of papers and I threw Alex's keys under the bed. The next day after that I felt the worst piece of shit. Unexpectedly, Alex came home willing to hear why I got so angry and we both recognized being in the wrong, although I wasn't brave enough to admit the vandalism was my idea. Leela also played a huge part in fixing things between me and Alex, since she understood perfectly how I felt and she made sure he understood.

For obvious reasons, Darcy wasn't eating stew with us that night. After dinner, Oliver drove me home, we had grown closer over the last few days; we sent each other memes on Twitter every day and we felt comfortable to tell each other stuff on the car ride. I wasn't comfortable enough to tell him about the Luke situation because I felt like he didn't really want to know, but I kind of wanted to, to know his perspective would give me an insight on Luke's perspective and about how Oli himself felt about his own situation with Darcy. But every day we laughed so much and I got so distracted from all the misery I had been putting myself through, that getting into that topic with him didn't feel necessary.

After a couple of days, we talked about going to a university party together. Once we finally got the boys to say yes, the girls said no, and when the day came, I got extra pissed because we called it off, only for the girls to go with other people. I thought 'okay, none of you could ask me if I wanted to go' as my blood boiled seeing their pictures, because they obviously met there. I guess they needed a break from me, but it didn't matter. The boys decided that we all should head to Charlie's apartment and get drunk together there. They cheered me up and then forced me to watch Star Wars in return.

That night seemed like any other night, but it wasn't. Actually many things shifted that night.

At the party, Darcy met Elliot, a friend of Leela's. She looked at him and thought he was cute, but wasn't sure if he liked her at all so she returned to her group of friends. After getting dangerously drunk, she turned to her friend and said.

"I'll be right back, I have to kiss someone" and she rushed back to where Leela and her friends were. As soon as her eyes found Elliot's, she walked straight to him, they danced and, finally, they kissed. She felt like it was special, it wasn't just any other kiss. He was going to be special, that she was certain of, and she was right about it. She hadn't been thinking about Oliver for a while, but this was the final push that completely kicked him out of her head. Elliot asked for her number and he talked to her the next day to know when he could see her again.

Meanwhile, we were doing cocktails and talking about sex.

"What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you in bed?" Alex asked.

"I don't know, all my experiences have been pretty normal" I said.

"This one girl asked me to punch her" Oliver said. We all spat out our drinks as we started laughing hysterically. All we could say was 'what?!'

We joked with that for a while and then we continued the conversation, as a lightweight, I was already giggling and venting.

"Believe it or not, I have never done it from behind" Alex said as he took a sip of liquor.

I opened my eyes wide, surprised, "you haven't? I could've sworn you did it."

"I know, but I haven't."

Oli took a sip of the liquor and passed it to me. "I have. I think twice, but because they asked for it", he said.

I was playing with the glass as I pondered about the topic, "I haven't done it", I said, "and I don't know if I will. It's not something that calls my attention yet."

"Really?" Oli asked as he dramatically turned to me. He seemed... disappointed?

"You're surprised I don't want to do that, but you're completely okay with me being into bondage and knives?" I laughed. He saw my point and giggled when he realized.

That night I had weird ideas but I discredit them all by telling myself I was just drunk. Thought, for a moment it felt like we were measuring how many thing we had in common, and as a flicker in my head I thought that Oli and I could have a good time, if we wanted to.

Quickly I shook it off, thinking 'come on, it's Oli!'

"I don't like taking nudes, I don't know how to do it. I feel stupid" I was telling him between chuckles, Alex and Charlie were talking about something else. My friend laughed with me as we continued drinking.

"I don't know. It has its fun" he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

That night he drove me home too, we talked a lot; actually, he talked a lot and I drunkenly listened. After some minutes we arrived, I kissed his cheek and got into my house, where I quickly passed out.

On April 11th, the girls came home for a sleepover before my birthday. That morning I had a hair crisis and I didn't go to school, I dyed my hair lighter and I didn't like the way it looked. The girls managed to distract me, I did their makeup and we drank wine until we fell asleep.

The next day I managed to fix my hair a little and I went to school. I found Charlie on the way and he walked with me to the classroom. As I arrived, the rest of the boys were all outside. Oliver was the first to rush to hug me, then Alex and finally, Luke. He held me really tight as he caressed my back, and I breathed in his scent. Alex gave me chocolates and I shared them with them and other people I knew from our class. I left earlier to help my grandma and mom with the food until my phone rang, it was a text from Luke.

I chuckled while I read it, as I already knew what it was.

"I wanted to tell you that I can't make it today, I have to rush home to prepare a class for tomorrow. I'm really sorry, but I'll be there tomorrow to celebrate. Once again, I'm sorry."

I decided to ignore it for a while. I kept doing chores and getting ready until an hour passed and the bell rang. I rushed to open the door and all my friends were there.

"Wow", said Oli, "handsome." I smiled at the compliment. I dressed up nice and painted my lips red.

"You got all fancy today, pal" Alex joked.

The night went by nicely, we drank beer, ate pizza and laughed hard. I did my best to not think about Luke at all, I was happy with the people around me, the people I knew that loved me and showed it to me every day. That was enough.

We took pictures, one of them was just the boys and I, and they lifted me up. I was laughing in every photo. I could tell that my 22nd birthday was a very happy one, after all.

The next day was going to be the big celebration. After school, we all headed to Charlie's place. We all looked beautiful, wearing our best clothes to go out. Alex and Leela's relationship was a secret only to them, because we all knew, but we played along. Leela brought weed and Charlie made drinks. I was floating in the air, drunk and stoned. We were all having a good time except for Alex, who suddenly became a mom and wasn't letting me do anything.

"Can I show you my full outfit?" I asked them, they all yelled yes. I was wearing a red bustier top and a black mini skirt, so I rushed to the bedroom to put on my black thigh-high boots and my white fake fur coat. When I got out, everyone started cheering and whistling at me while I posed for them.

"What a woman!" Oli said.

"Can I take you to the bedroom again?" Darcy asked and we all broke down laughing. Alex silently stood up and walked me back to the bedroom.

"Sit there" he gently pushed me to the bed but, instead of sitting, I laid down. He started removing my boots.

"No!" I complained lazily.

"You're going to kill yourself" he reprimanded me. He was right, I was probably going to end up falling, but I was upset.

We walked back outside and I was barefoot again, Alex returned to his place next to Leela. Suddenly, I felt a wave of anger. Luke had been on his phone the entire night, he barely drank anything and now he was sleeping in the couch. I walked to him to observe him, but I stopped in my tracks and ended up removing my coat to cover him with it. After making sure he was warm and cozy, and leant down and placed a bright red kiss on his forehead. My drunk ass found that hilarious somehow so I took a picture and sent it to him.

I kept laughing and joking, eventually we just stayed there, we didn't go anywhere which also made me upset because I wanted us to do something different for once, and they all ignored my petition. When Luke woke up I was already moody, so all he had to do was exist for me to snap at him.

"You're a bad friend" I declared.

"Me?" he was confused as hell. I nodded, "why?"

"You're asleep the whole time when we hang out, and when you're awake you're on your phone. You're a bad friend!" I was furious. Darcy was caressing my back, trying to cool me down.

"But I'm tired!" he attempted to defend himself as he wiped off the kiss on his forehead with his hand.

"I know, but..." I was running out of words when Leela started backing me up.

"You do it every time, are you always tired?" she said.

As things were starting to heat up, Charlie's sister, Alice, walked into the room with a warning.

"The neighbor keeps texting me, complaining about the noise" she said with a tint of shame in her tone.

"Okay, that's it" Alex stood up, "let's go" he commanded and we all got up like little robots to grab our stuff and leave as we were high as fuck. Charlie, Oli and Luke went downstairs to wait for us while the girls and I gathered our things in our purses.

I put my boots back on and headed out, Alex was walking in front of me and I could tell he was fuming, but I couldn't understand why. I just joked and did not took him seriously, probably making him even angrier. I was almost the whole way down the first stairs when suddenly my feet failed me and I tripped down. I broke both my heels and I started to cry because those were my favorite boots.

"Fucking hell" Alex cursed as he went back to pick me up and take me back into the apartment to remove my boots and put on my sneakers with the help of the girls. "Please, stop crying" he said to me, about to lose it.

I calmed down and we left. We walked down the street and I started complaining to Charlie, I don't remember what I said, I just know I was talking shit about Luke and his 'bleach-hair' girlfriend. I also complained about Alex being my mom the whole night.

"Guys, I'm heading home" I heard Luke say behind me as we walked past a taxi stop. He approached me to kiss my cheek goodbye but I didn't move, I didn't respond. I immediately turned around and kept walking until I made it to a park, everyone came walking behind me. I got into a gazebo, the girls and Charlie came after me when, suddenly, I dropped down on the ground and started bawling my eyes out.

"He left" was the only sentence that I could make sense of, the rest was just gibberish. The girls and Charlie gathered around me quickly to shelter me, Alex and Oliver only sat down and observed at a considerable distance. At some point, for some reason, Alex got mad at Leela because he got on his bike and didn't offer to take her home, he left with Oli instead.

Leela was extremely bummed and confused by his actions, but she was more worried about me. I couldn't go back home like that, so she got me and Darcy on a cab with her and took us to her place.

I was still crying occasionally in the car, whenever I remembered Luke, I had my head on the window and tears streamed down, but I was seeing blurry. When we arrived, they helped me undress and laid me down as I was half asleep already, when they covered me, I passed out.

What a night, huh? This is twenty two, I guess.