“Happy birthday!” was what I woke up to that Saturday morning. I opened my eyes, sitting up in bed quickly and shouting out in surprise.

When I was finally able to focus, I turned to see everyone who lived in the house with me in my room. I was so surprised to see them at first that I couldn’t even form words.

Ethan was standing in front of everyone, with his usual flat look on his face. I knew something was coming from him, and I was not looking forward to it in the slightest.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” he sang flatly, and I was afraid of what he was going to say next. “You look like an ogre, and you smell like one too.”

“Wow,” Zach laughed, clapping his hands together. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Up, up!” Brianna now laughed herself, grabbing me by my hands and pulling me up out of bed. “We need to get you ready! We want you to look really pretty on your birthday! Don’t we, Zach?”

He didn’t even look at me as he said, “Sure.”

I blinked at them now. “I’m really fine with just having a cool, laidback day. I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a birthday.”

“Just a birthday?” Brianna nearly squeaked. “It isn’t just a birthday, Maxynn! It’s your eighteenth birthday! You’re now officially an adult! You could move out of here if you wanted!”

I glanced over at Zach. “I can…?”

He sneered at me. “But you won’t.”

Okay, he was right, but it was fun to jerk him around a little bit. It wasn’t like I had a place to move into anyway, so he didn’t even have anything to worry about.

“Come on, I’ll help you get ready,” Elizabeth offered, taking my arm and leading me toward my door and to her room. “I’ll let you borrow anything of mine you want--”

But she was cut off by Zach grabbing my other arm, the one that had a long sleeved shirt covering my scars. He glared at Elizabeth, and she glared back at him, and it reminded me a lot of siblings fighting over toys.

“Actually, I’ll help her get ready,” he grinned, and the horrified look on my face made Ethan snort from beside us. “Anyway, I know what she looks best in.”

This was so embarrassing. He was saying this in front of his parents, and my dad as well! Not to mention the ten-year-old little demon that was now sitting on my bed…

My dad looked at Zach, and then to me. “You two aren’t… dating, are you?”

“No!” I shouted the same time Zach smirked, “Yes.”

This boy… was going to kill me! I swear, it was going to be either him or Ethan, I just knew it!

“We’re not dating,” I assured my father, hitting Zach in the stomach when he took a step closer to me. “I’m dating Johnny, a friend of his. You remember Johnny, don’t you? He was my partner in English last year.”

My father nodded now. “Oh, yeah. I remember.”

I let out a sigh of relief, biting the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t continue rambling on and on about unnecessary things that didn’t need to be said.

“Well, if you know what she looks best in, then I’ll leave it to you, fashion guru,” Elizabeth addressed her brother sarcastically, bowing to him before turning out of the room and back to hers. Brianna, Steve, and my dad followed her out, and now it just left Zach, Ethan, and me.

“Is it necessary you be here?” I couldn’t help but ask the little twerp.

He smiled at me, his head cocked to the side. “I can’t wish my sister-in-law a happy eighteenth birthday?”

“I’m not your sister-in-law!”

“You will be, someday.”

I turned away from the little monster, not able to deal with him right then. He was seriously pure evil. It was ridiculous. Someone that tiny could not be so smart and know so much about almost… everything.

“I’m about to get undressed,” I warned now, reaching for the bottom of my shirt. “So unless you want to see the ogre without any clothes on, I think it would be the best if you left.

“Ew,” Ethan scowled, hopping off my bed and hurrying toward the door. “I’ll leave this for my idiot of a brother.”

He shut the door behind him, which I wished he hadn’t had done. It just left me all alone in a room with Zach, which I knew for a fact wasn’t a good idea.

“So…” he started, inching his way toward me. I took a step back, but this caused me to run into my bed and fall back like an idiot. Zach smirked, leaning forward on top of me as he now said, “Well I see someone wants this just as much as I do.”

“Not now, Zach,” I sighed, pushing against his chest to try and get him off of me. “I’m not in the mood right now. Give me a break, it’s my birthday.”

“Exactly,” he smirked now, and the direction this was going is bad. “I need to give you your birthday present.”

I didn’t think I wanted this present. “What is it?”

“Birthday sex!”

I pushed him off of me now and sat up, shooting the most disgusted look I could muster at him. I was definitely not going to have sex with him. That was the last thing I’d ever do with him.

“I’m not going to have sex with you, Zach,” I informed him, getting up from my spot on my bed now and walking over to my closer in search for clothes. “I’m not going to have sex with anyone until I’m in love. So therefore, you and I are never going to have sex.”

“Oh. You’re one of those people.”

My eyebrows furrowed at him. “Those people?”

“People who wait until marriage,” he waved away as he fell back onto my bed, as if it was something stupid. “It’s ridiculous. Sex is too good to wait until marriage.”

I couldn’t help but look at him in disgust. “I didn’t say I was waiting until I was married. I just said I was waiting until I got in a relationship with someone I’m probably going to marry.”

He sat up now. “What if I ask you to marry me?”

“I’d say no.”

He smirked, getting up from his seat on my bed and making his way over to me. I took a step back, and was about to take another one until he slowly got down on one knee in front of me. All I could do was stare at him, knowing he was joking but still not believing he was doing something like this.

He took my hand, and I was too surprised to move it away from him. This was not something I was expecting from Zachary Deveraux.

“Will you marry me?”

Before I could reject him and pull my hand away, the door opened to reveal the last person I wanted to witness this. My father.

“Dad!” I cried out, yanking my hand out of Zach’s grasp as he quickly got up off of the ground. “I know what it looks like, but it’s… well, not. It’s not what it looks like. He was just messing around, that’s all.”

My dad merely blinked, as if he had no idea what he was supposed to say. I gulped, afraid of what he was thinking. I had told him that we weren’t dating, but now he walked in on this fake proposal…

“You should probably come downstairs soon,” my father now said, turning away now, as if he was still in complete shock. “Make sure to be quick.”

He left, shutting the door behind him as I now ran my fingers through my hair. This could not have gotten any worse.

I kicked Zach out of my room so I could get dressed, and it only took me a few minutes. After I was finished, I opened my door and stepped out into the hall, surprised when I saw that Zach was still there.

“You didn’t have to wait for me, you know,” I informed him with a roll of his eyes as I turned toward the bathroom. “I’m not that much of an idiot that I don’t know how to get downstairs by myself.”

“Are you sure?”

At the sound of this voice, I turned to see Ethan walking out of his room and toward the stairs. I made a face at him, but he merely waved his hand at me over his shoulder before heading down the stairs.

“That kid’s going to kill me one day.”

Zach shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

I sighed, now going into the bathroom and fixing my makeup as quickly as I could. My dad seemed like he really wanted me to get downstairs, whatever for, and I didn’t want to keep him waiting. It was probably important.

After I was finished, Zach was still out in the hall. I tried to ignore him, but it was kind of hard to after what had just happened between us and my dad. It was something that was just too awkward and weird to explain.

When I got downstairs, I noticed that all the lights were off and all the windows were closed, so no light was being let in. I didn’t know the house well enough to know where the light switch was in the dark, but Zach did, so he turned the lights on for me.

“Surprise!” voices suddenly shouted, and I nearly jumped ten feet in the air when I saw everyone. Kate was there, along with Logan, Johnny, and Todd. Even Aveline was there, but I wasn’t going to let that bother me. They had seriously thrown me a surprise birthday party. This was why they wanted me to look nice!

“Wow,” I smiled, not believing they would do all of this for me. “Guys… This is amazing! Thank you!”

“Happy birthday, Maxynn!” Kate squealed, wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug. With her body being so close to mine, I could feel the start of her baby bump. “You’re finally eighteen! This is great!”

I smiled at her, thanking her and then Logan as well when he wished me a happy birthday. Kate began talking to me about something, but I wasn’t listening because I was too busy looking around for Johnny. I saw him, but now he was gone. I would think that he’d come and see me right away since he was my boyfriend and everything…

So after a few minutes, I excused myself from Kate and walked around the party in search of my boyfriend. I had been avoiding him a little bit, and I knew it was time that I didn’t. Just because I didn’t love him back yet didn’t mean I couldn’t be around him.

Everything was so great, but I just didn’t feel that happy. Something was missing, and at first I had no idea what. But as I continued to circulate around the party, saying hi to everyone and thanking them for coming, I realized what was missing.

My mother.

She wasn’t here with me like I wanted her to be. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do to bring her back. There was no way she could have come to my party.

When I ran into someone, I jumped back in surprise. I turned to see Todd, who was now holding me by my arms since I nearly fell over after running into him.

“Hey,” I smiled at him, still looking around for Johnny now. “Sorry to running into you, but thanks for coming, Todd. It’s really great to see you.”

He smiled back at me. “It’s really great to see you, too. Happy birthday.”

I felt kind of bad for not spending so much time with him. After Kate, he was my best friend. We’d been best friends ever since my first day at Corvus, even before I had become friends with Johnny, or Logan, or even Zach, if you could call us friends. I had just been so busy and distracted lately that I barely had enough time for my really good friend.

I wanted to say more to him, but I then saw Johnny by the snack table talking to Elizabeth. I glanced at Todd, and then back at him, and then Todd seemed to notice where I was looking. When he saw that I obviously wanted to go see Johnny, he smiled at me.

“Go ahead.”

I smiled back at him, thanking him before hurrying away toward both Johnny and Elizabeth.

“Hey, happy birthday,” Johnny smiled at me once I got up to him, leaning in and pecking me on the lips. “Having fun?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, even though it was a lie as I forced a smile. “I’m having so much fun. I’m glad you guys threw this for me.”

All I could think about was my mother. She wasn’t there right then, to celebrate me finally becoming an adult. She wasn’t there to congratulate me or hug me or kiss me. She was gone and there was nothing I could do about it.

Johnny’s smile grew. “Well, it’s a special day today.”

That was what everyone had been saying, that it was a special day. But it didn’t feel special to me at all. Not without my mother. Nothing was the same without my mother. I hadn’t ever had a party without her before, and now she was just… gone.

After talking with Johnny for a few minutes, I excused myself to go talk to a few other people, but all I really did was just rush upstairs so no one would see me cry. I didn’t want anyone to know that something was wrong.

I burst into the bathroom upstairs in the hallway, shutting the door behind me. I wished that there was a lock, but there was nothing I could do about that as I started crying without even thinking. I rubbed at my eyes, which only screwed up my makeup, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.

The door opened after fifteen minutes of me crying, and I spun toward the door to see that it was Zach. I turned around and covered my face, not wanting him to see that I had been crying my eyes out and my cheeks were all black from my makeup.

“Are you okay?” Zach asked, taking a step closer to me and reaching out in case I was going to fall. “What’s wrong, Maxynn?”

“I just… feel sick,” I said, holding my stomach as I leaned against the counter. It wasn’t exactly untrue; I could have thrown up at any second. “Everyone here is here to celebrate my birth. And I just feel so unworthy.”

Zach’s eyebrows furrowed at me. “Unworthy? Why would you feel unworthy?”

I gulped as I finally looked over at him. I really had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. This guy would make fun of me on a daily basis, but then he could be really sweet when he wanted to be. I just didn’t understand him sometimes.

“I just… I don’t know,” I admitted, wiping at my eyes and just smearing my makeup all over my face now. “This is just… the first birthday I’m going to have without my mom being here, and it’s my eighteenth birthday… I’m officially an adult and I don’t have my mother here with me for it.”

“Hey,” Zach whispered quietly, cupping my cheeks with his hands and forcing me to look up at him. “Listen to me, okay? Everything’s fine. Your mom would want you to be happy today, Maxynn. She wouldn’t want you to be sad on your birthday.”

“I know that…” I sniffed, not believing I had just ruined my makeup by crying like that. “I just miss her a lot. I haven’t been thinking about her that much lately, what with so much going on, but… It just kicked in now. She’s really not coming back. There’s nothing I can do to bring her back. I’m never going to see her again.”

Zach didn’t let go of my face. “You’re going to see her again. I guarantee it.”

“Yeah, when I die,” I said flatly, and Zach gave me a sad smile. “The only time I’ll ever see her again is when I die. And who knows how long that’s going to be.”

“Hopefully a long time,” Zach breathed, now resting his forehead against mine. “Come on, you shouldn’t be upset. It’s your birthday, so be happy. Redo your makeup, go back outside, and show everyone how happy you are to be alive. Okay?”

I sniffed, wiping at my eyes now as he let go of me. “Okay.”

Before either of us could move, the bathroom door opened. I wanted to scream at whoever was there, since they didn’t know what was going on in that bathroom, but instead I nearly threw something because it was Ethan.

“I thought we agreed not to hire a clown,” Ethan blinked up at his brother when he saw me and my makeup stained face. “She’s going to scare all the guests away.”

“Ha-ha,” I replied sarcastically, turning away from the two brothers and back at the mirror. “You’re just so funny, Ethan. You slay me.”

He shrugged, obviously getting that I didn’t mean it, but not caring. “I try.”

Zach shrugged. “I think she looks beautiful just the way she is.”

“Whoa,” Ethan interrupted before I could even say anything. “Hold the phone here. Did my brother, Zachary James Deveraux, actually called a girl beautiful? Wow, I think Hell just froze over.”

“Shut it,” Zach snapped at his younger brother. “And stop making fun of her for a while, no matter how much fun it is. It’s her birthday.”

I didn’t know if I should have hit him or thanked him, so I just rolled my eyes and walked past him to the mirror.

“Oh, come on,” Ethan now sighed, jumping up and sitting on the counter now. “It’s your birthday. You’re eighteen. Be happy about something for once.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach and stared at my stained face in the mirror. “I know I should be happy. It’s just so hard to be sometimes.”

Ethan shrugged now. “Well, we’re going to cut your cake soon. It wouldn’t be that fun if the birthday girl isn’t there for it.”

I sighed. “I don’t even think I’ll be able to eat any cake. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“That would be quite a show.”

“Ethan!”

He grinned. “Ah, come on. Lighten up a little, will you?”

I didn’t feel like lightening up in the slightest. I just wanted to go to sleep and never come out of my room for the rest of my life. Overdramatic, but it worked.

“Why are there so many voices coming from the bathroom?” a new voice now cried, and the bathroom burst open to reveal Aveline, one of the last people I wanted to see. When she saw my face, her eyebrows furrowed. “Why does Maxynn’s face look worse than usual?”

Ethan finally looked excited, for once. “Someone finally gets it!”

I pushed him, my palm against his forehead, and he fell right into the sink. For the first time that day, I burst out laughing without even thinking. It wasn’t even that funny, but it was just what I needed. For some reason, it made me feel better.

Ethan glared at me before hopping out of the sink, scuffling out of the bathroom and back downstairs, leaving me with both Zach and Aveline.

“Oh, so you two are in here together,” Aveline started, scowling at us as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why am I not surprised? Does Johnny know that you two are in here, or are you hiding this little affair from him?”

I glared right back at her, wishing that I could have just pushed her down the stairs. She was so annoying and rude that it wasn’t even funny.

“We’re not having any kind of affair,” I informed her now, even though it wasn’t the truth. Zach and I hadn’t really done anything in the past couple of days, and even I didn’t understand why. But no matter what anyone said, there was nothing going on between Zach and I emotionally. I would say that forever if I had to.

“Uh-huh,” Aveline shrugged now, turning toward the door. “Whatever you say.”

She slammed the door behind her now, leaving both Zach and me alone. He hadn’t said anything at all, and it pissed me off. Couldn’t he just stick up for me for once?

“You know, you could have said something to back me up,” I snapped at him, turning back toward the mirror and beginning to wipe at my makeup stained cheeks. “Whatever I say isn’t going to make Aveline stop thinking that we’re together, which we’re not and never will be. Just because I’m in this stupid game with you doesn’t mean we’re really together or anything. I mean--”

I wasn’t able to finish though, because he was suddenly grabbing onto my arm and pulling me toward him. I wasn’t even able to wash off the makeup before he crashed his lips against mine.

I tried to push him away at first, but stopped after a few seconds. For some reason, I just couldn’t resist him now, even when my boyfriend was right downstairs with everyone else.

When the door opened again, Zach didn’t pull away from me no matter how hard I pushed again him. When he heard a familiar throat clear, he finally let go of me and looked over to see that it was only his little, devil of a brother about to speak.

“If you make up another rhyme, I’ll strangle you,” I warned him, and this immediately caused his mouth to shut.

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Man, this is a day late! School's only been going on for three days and I've already messed up on updating this story! :/ This is not good...

I put Ethan in the funnest character category! So when the time comes, please vote for him! :)

This is for the Watty Awards! Please COMMENT, VOTE, and SHARE! <3