• Chapter 4


    Their Birthday


    “HOLY CRAP I CAN’T DO THIS DAMMIT!!!” Lance shouts as he and Scarlet battle on the “Dance Dance Revolution” game at the local Pizzeria.

    “Lance shut up! There’s a little kid having his 7th birthday party right there!” I scold as Scarlet snickers while she gracefully hops from spot to spot and Lance crazily stumbles around his board, desperately trying to keep up.

    “Hey, I learned to cuss when I was that age.” Lance replies. Then he stands there for a second and then tries to catch up as he continues, “Hell, I actually learned when I was in kindergarten.”

    “Yeah!? Well you’re a sad b*****d, Lance!”

    “Hey, now you’re doing it!” Scarlet points out accusingly as she turns her head back for a few seconds and then continues with the game.

    “Come on, guys. The table’s ready.” Kellan says as he jabs his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of our spot.

    “Let us go eat!” Keaton announces as he launches towards the left side of the restaurant, the total opposite of where Kellan pointed.

    “Other way, Keaton.” I call out. He dramatically stops as he points to the other side and runs that way. We all laugh as we follow him, Scarlet leaps off of the board and Lance falls backwards and onto his face.

    “You fail.” The cool female voice in the game speaks smoothly to Lance.

    He stands up and pounds ferociously on the game as he yells, “SHUT UP YOU-” I can’t hear his voice over the roar of the giant semi-truck driving by outside, but I can tell that people on the other side heard it because the little kids and parents from the birthday party look over, and Lance just embarrassingly chuckles and waves before he turns and dashes for our table.

    “Do we want to know?” Kellan asks as he looks up over his menu at Lance as he struggles to fix his messed up hair and shirt.

    “Nahh.” He replies as he takes a sip of his water and steals Scarlet’s menu to look at.

    “Damn you.” She mutters as she leans to the left from her seat at one end of the half-circle booth table to look at my menu.

    You see, today is Keaton’s 19th birthday, and he wanted it to be celebrated here. And before you ask, no, he was not held back a year. He was just sent to school a year late.

    While we eat our pizza, I watch tons of different kinds of food being carried around by the waiters and waitresses. I point out a particular dish and ask, “Why are they serving snail at a pizzeria?”

    “I dunno, it’s a weird place.” Keaton replies as he chuckles and shakes his head. Kyle leans back and grabs a menu from a waitress walking by and stares down at it.


    “Speaking of weird, look at all these peppers that they sell.” Then his eyes turn mischievous as he turns to Lance who is in the middle of innocently eating his pepperoni pizza slice the size of his head.

    “Ayy?” He mutters tentatively as he freezes in the middle of tearing some of the pizza off with his perfectly even and pearly white teeth.

    “Hey, Lance.” Kyle smirks and Lance’s eyes turn to slits as he removes the pizza from his mouth. “Dare ya to eat the Bhut Jolokia pepper.”

    Lance raises his eyebrows as he considers this.

    “Lance, don’t do it, man. That thing is freakin’ hot.” Keaton tries to convince Lance but, of course, the pepper is already being placed in front of him on a small, clear plate made out of crystal.

    “That’s an awfully fancy plate for a pizzeria.” I mutter under my breath as the others shake their heads at Lance while he tucks his napkin into his shirt like a bib.

    “Damn him and his retarded daredevil side.” Kellan growls as Scarlet puts her face in her hands and mutters,

    “I can’t watch this.”

    Lance takes a bite off of the end of the pepper and then it’s like you can see his eyes literally catching on fire.

    “HHHHHHOOOOOLLLLLLYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Lance screeches as his face turns brick red. “WATER!! WWWAAATTEEERR!!!”

    “Now you just can’t help laughing at a person going crazy because his mouth is on fire.” Keaton manages to muffle through his laughter.

    “True, true.” I admit through my own out-of-control laughter.

    Lance desperately grabs his glass and holds it upside down over his mouth, but not a drop comes out. He stands up with both hands gripping his throat and then stumbles around desperately, looking for some water.

    Then his feet drive him right into a waitress carrying spaghetti and she falls face first into a table which bends down, taking her down with it. And the food smashes right into a teenage couple’s faces.

    “Oooooooo…..” Kyle, Kellan, Scarlet, Keaton and I instantly stop laughing as we say this in chorus. Then Keaton and I exchange a glance.

    Then the both of us scream in unison, “FOOD FIGHT!!!!!!!”

    Food of many kinds fly across the restaurant, and Lance is grabbed by the collar of his shirt by the manager of the restaurant and is thrown face forward into the giant birthday cake being carried out to the little boy’s birthday party.

    “MY CAKE!!!” The boy appears and screams in disbelief above the roar of people yelling and running and throwing food.

    “GET HIM!!!!!!” His group of friends--all 31 of them--scream as they launch towards Lance and beat him and shove food all over him.

    “THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!” Keaton yells from underneath the table we were both hiding under. I laugh as we smile at each other and then he leans forward and plants a soft kiss on my blood-red colored lips.

    A mom pours ice cubes down Lance’s back and he screams and dances around wildly as the mom yells, “AND THAT’S FOR CUSSING IN FRONT OF MY DAUGHTER!!”

    Keaton and I break apart, laughing, and then Kyle is standing a few feet away and he yells, “KEATON HATHAWAY, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A FOOD-OFF!!”

    “A food off?” Keaton asks as he stands up from under the table. Kyle crosses his arms and nods. “What the hell is that supposed to mean!?”

    I stand up some distance behind Keaton and laugh, but in the middle of that laughter a Boston Cream Pie flies through the air at the speed of light towards Keaton’s face, and he dodges and misses it by a millisecond.

    And then the pie hits me.

    But it was thrown by Kyle, and he used some sort of strength and speed power on it and the contact of it on my face causes extreme pain. I scream as I pry it off of my face and stumble backwards, knocking into people who throw me towards the ground, and then my forehead makes contact with a turned over table. A cut runs down my head and blood gushes out.

    People turn and stare at my screams but can’t see me because of the tables and chairs that have fallen over and covered me up--and cut me off from air.

    “Charlotte?!” I hear Keaton call. Then he starts frantically yelling my name over and over as he runs around the pizzeria, and I struggle to get out of the closure I’m in.

    I can feel my head start to spin from the lack of air and I get weak and can’t move. But right when I start to black out, the items are thrown off of me and a hand grips onto my shoulder and shoves me in a sitting position against a wall.

    “Are you okay?” A smooth and unfamiliar voice asks me. A rough and ice cold hand wipes the blood away from my forehead and I can feel that hand start to tremble as my vision smears and stirs.

    “Hello?” The voice asks after a period of time which I guess they wiped their hand off during.

    Two hands are placed on my shoulders and the voice continues, “Charlotte, can you hear me?”

    “Wh-what?” I manage to stutter. My vision clears and I can see I’m sitting in a dark cutoff hallway. Then I see a figure sitting before me but I can’t make it out because it presses an ice pack against my forehead, and part of it falls down before my eyes and blocks my vision.

    He chuckles, and I know it’s a he from his deep and dark voice. “Yup, you are a delicate one, aren’t you?”

    I shove the hand away from my forehead and ignore the odd feeling I get when I touch it and demand, “Who are yo-

    My voice cuts off as I see all of Keaton’s features and then blood red eyes.

    “Ka….Kaden Hathaway?” I stutter in non-belief. Kaden nods grimly and I feel myself start to shake out of control as his oddly colored eyes meet mine.

    “Nice to meet you, Charlotte. Of course, you have met me in your dreams, haven’t you?”

    All I can do is sit there, shaking and shocked, and whisper, “Happy birthday.”