The ride to work doubled as a ride down memory lane.

With the bus engine gently humming below me, I closed my eyes and drifted away.

Back to when I was five years old, with my arms tightly wrapped around my father’s leg. The fabric of his jeans crumpled in my tiny fists.

“I don’t want you to go! Mom said it was dangerous!”

He patted my head, before gently peeling my arms and fingers off of him and kneeling down. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.

“Don’t worry, Hidde. Remember?” He patted the medallion around his neck. “I have a guardian spirit. Nothing can happen.”

He stood and pressed a kiss to Mom’s lips. Then he exited through the door, waving at us.  

“I will be home before you know it!” he reassured me.

That was the last time I ever saw my father. He died a few hours later in the back of an ambulance on a snowy road near the A16 highway. With him died my belief in all his ghost stories, especially those about a guardian spirit that would never have let this happen.

The bus came to a jerking halt on the corner and my eyes shot open. I’d reached my stop and got off the bus.

I entered the supermarket through the glass sliding doors and my boss greeted me with his usual unibrow frown.

“Hidde, take the cash register,” he barked.

Geez, hello to you too Mr. Boswel.

“On it,” I said, saluting him.

He didn’t even see the gesture. The balding back of his head, which he poorly tried to cover up by combing whatever hair was left over the hairless spot, was already turned towards me. My mouth twitched. It was a petty thing to laugh at, but I had to take pleasure in the small things in life.

Unfortunately, I looked equally ridiculous in the work uniform they made us wear. The color scheme consisted out of the most hideous shades of orange and purple, with a finishing touch of stripe patterns.

It clashed horribly with the warm, earthy brown tones of my complexion, and I’d seriously contemplated quitting just so I wouldn’t have to look stupid if a cute guy passed by the grocery store.

How on earth was I supposed to attract anyone while dressed like I belonged in a bad children’s show commercial in this carrot and beetroot salad of a shirt?

Whatever, even if I looked my best, even when I tried to act overtly gay just so they knew I was available, I didn’t estimate the chance of an attractive guy spontaneously leaving me his digits very high. No, that sort of stuff only happened in movies and to hot girls.

Girls like gorgeous Colette Andersen from school.

As if she could hear me thinking about her, my phone started buzzing. A quick glance at my screen showed me Colette’s winking and heavily filtered picture, which she had chosen for herself and put in my phone without asking.

I should answer.

She’d be pissed if I didn’t, and I shouldn’t piss her off. That’s just the way our friendship worked.  

I glanced around the store, finding a few customers but not Mr. Boswel. He was somewhere in the back, probably bickering with a truck driver about the deliveries.

I felt the muscles of my face tightening as I swiped to answer the call.

“Happy eighteenth birthday!” Colette’s high-pitched voice yelled in my ear. I could also make out Gabrielle’s and Luna’s voices somewhere in the chorus.

“Put it on speaker! Put it on speaker!” Luna demanded in the background.

“Hey, thanks,” I replied much quieter, discreetly scanning the store to check if anyone noticed I was calling. I wasn’t exactly supposed to do that at work.

“Guess what, Heidi?” Gabrielle asked, making me cringe.

I hated that nickname. My friends had adopted it after some English exchange kid butchered the pronunciation and somehow managed to turn Hid-deh into Hei-di. A year after said exchange people still sometimes used it. Thanks a lot, Tom from London.

“What?” I asked.

“We felt so bad that you had to work tonight…” Luna said.

The grocery store doors slid open.

Colette stepped through first, her phone still in her flawlessly manicured hands. Then she raised both arms into the air and tilted her hips to the side in a party pose.

“That we are bringing the party to you! Whoohoo!”

Luna Ruys and Gabrielle Serano followed very shortly after Colette. They all smiled widely at me, and Gabrielle was holding something behind her back.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” I called out nervously. I glanced to the back of the store again. “Really.”

My boss would not be amused at Colette, Gabrielle and Luna throwing a ‘party’ and making a lot of noise in his store. He’d just glare at them quietly from a distance since they were customers, but I would be getting the blame for the party later.

All three of them were really dressed up like they were about to go to a party, too. Luna was sporting a cute flowery dress and very natural makeup which complimented her long blond and wavy hair. Collette and Gabrielle had both opted for smokey eyes. Colette wore a green blouse that complimented her tan, while Gabrielle went for a skin-tight lace top that showed off a bit more of her tawny skin.  

“We brought you a gift!” Gabrielle revealed what she was hiding behind her back with a wide grin: a box wrapped in grotesque, glittery, and very pink paper.

“Ta-da! For you!”

“Oh... thanks.” I reluctantly accepted the supposed gift from Gabrielle.

The three girls beamed.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Luna asked when I tried to place the pink abomination underneath my chair for the time being.

I gritted my teeth, placing the package on my lap. I’d be sparkling like a Hollywood vampire all evening with the glitter that was now sticking to my skin and pants. The only satisfying part was ripping the awful glittery pink paper to pieces revealing… more glitter and pink.

I held up the hot pink shirt which read ‘FABULOUS’ in glittery letters. It was at least two sizes too small for me.

Colette grinned. “Gabrielle and I saw this in the store and we immediately thought of you! We just had to get it for your birthday.”

“Glittery and pink,” I said, mustering a smile and biting back an acid remark on how this was not exactly the way to be an LGBT+ ally. “Classic for a gay guy, huh?”

Luna was the only one who seemed to catch on to my tone. Her smile fell slightly. “Come on, it’s only a joke.”

“Well, we have some more gifts for you tonight. But you probably want to wait until you’re home with those,” Gabrielle snickered.

I couldn’t wait. Luckily, the trash truck was scheduled to come by tomorrow. Or maybe Jasmine wanted it as a sleeping shirt.  

“Ooh,” Luna suddenly exclaimed. She reached out, wrapping her slim fingers around my medallion. “That’s pretty. Fits your shirt with the floral patterns. What is it?”