Preparations

My stomach grumbles, my drool pours out of my mouth as the gurgling jolts me awake. My eyelids are heavy but I no longer feel tired. What time is it? Did I sleep in again? Not like it matters as much today since it's my birthday but still. Wait. Did I sleep through my entire birthday?

Immediately reaching for my phone, the brightness blinds me and my tears water as I try to rub my vision back into existence. My eyes eventually adjust and I read the screen. Three new messages, none of which seem good enough to respond to right now, and it's five in the morning. My stomach must've woken me up before my alarm could. My eyes tiredly wander across the screen and read the date, it's our birthday. Good, I didn't sleep through it all. That would've fucking sucked, especially since both Knox and I are sixteen as of today. Well, I'm too awake now to go back to sleep so I might as well do something until everyone else wakes up.

Setting my phone back down onto the bedside table, I jump up to my feet and glance around the room, contemplating on what I can do for about two or three hours. I could try working out till I'm tired and pass out. But I don't want to be all sweaty for the birthday party and I don't feel like taking another shower.

"Actually," I whisper to myself, heading over to one of my shelves and grabbing my hairbrush. "I should probably brush out the knots from last night's shower." I wince as the hairbrush pretty much pulls at my skull, and stop for a moment, doing my best to not break into tears from the pain. "I'm just on my period. I have no reason to be so weak and emotional. Fuck period hormones." The tears start to flow and my head slowly turns towards my phone. "Oh, maybe I should put on some music."

I'm back to brushing my hair as some hype music that I usually listen to on my workouts plays in the background. Carefully, I brush through the hellish amount of knots, doing my best to keep my agony silent. The music seems to be helping with keeping the pain under control a lot, though it's still a nightmare.

My phone buzzes just as I finish beating out the last strand. The screen lights up, revealing Keita's name and contact picture. It's one of him wearing one of my hats and face covered in ice cream. I remember that day almost like it was just yesterday. Keita has a love-hate relationship with that picture, but whenever I see it, I can't help but smile.

'Goodmorning, birthday girl,' I don't get why I smile from that message, it's literally no different than the three others I've received so far.

'What the hell are you doing up so early?' I respond, stopping the music and hopping back onto my bed, ignoring the movement in the hall. Judging by the footsteps, it must be dad. I probably accidentally woke him up or something. Oh well.

'Afia woke me up for some reason and still hasn't told me why,' He responds after about five minutes. Is he getting ready for something? Why the hell is Afia up so early? Actually that's not a surprise, she's awake by five in the morning everyday, but why is she waking Keita up as well?

'Are you going somewhere or something like that?' I ask, perfectly expecting it to take him a while to respond.

'Oh I fucked up,' He replies about ten minutes later. 'Forget about everything I told you, okay?'

'Why? What's up?' I ask again, now a little concerned that something might have happened.

'Just act like I never told you anything, alright?' He instantly responds at a record speed.

'You didn't though…'

'Perfect, good girl,' He replies.

"Good girl?" I mumble to myself, a little bit weirded out but now even more curious than before. Perhaps he's just fucking with me.

'Fuck, I never said that, got it!' He messages again, quickly noticing his error.

'Got it…' I answer, not really knowing how to respond.

'See you in a few hours,' He messages me again after a few more minutes.

Instead of replying I decide to just put the phone down and save him from fucking up again somehow. It's probably because it's so early and he's tired. Yeah, that's the only reason. I highly doubt that he'd ever call me good girl if he was in his right mind. Fuck maybe I'm just imagining it all since I'm so fucking tired, who knows. I should just go back to sleep, or else I might end up hearing things differently again.

"Sh, don't wake him up," Afia's voice is a soft whisper as both heavy and light footsteps make their way up and down the staircase. Light shines in from the hall and into my room, but I choose to keep my eyes shut in hopes that I'll just pass out.

"Say that to yourself," Keita mocks her with a weary tone.

"Why the hell did you turn the lights on?" Afia's voice raises slightly. "You'll just end up waking up. How fucking stupid are you?"

"Why are we doing this anyway?" Keita asks, his voice raising as he stubs his toe. "You interrupted my conversation with Alina."

"Alina this, Alina that," Afia sounds annoyed as she struggles to hold something up. "You really need to find someone different, she has like seven different guys chasing after her and is clueless to every single one of them."

"But I'm different," He growls, breathing heavily as he still continues to sit on the ground and hold his stubbed toe. "I'm nothing like Knox, Jackson, or even Nate." There's a shift that makes the floor squeak and Afia's struggled breaths come to an end. "Fuck you're weak."

"Shut up and get your head out of the clouds," She snaps back and the steps are both heavy as they walk up the steps again. "Best to get this all done before that idiot wakes up."

"Why are we doing this again?" Keita whispers with slightly less annoyance in his tone.

"Would you rather your girlfriend have a boring birthday party?" Afia fires back, adding a mockery to the word 'girlfriend.'

Keita is silent for a moment, but there's more embarrassment in his tone instead of anger as he replies with, "She's not my girlfriend." It's difficult to understand but there's a bit of mumbling that sounds like, "Sadly."