“Happy birthday, Mawce.” Ida held her arms open, and I ran into them. God I had missed her.
“It’s your birthday too! And how did you get here?” I asked, incredulous.
“I’m a little bit magical, if you must know,” she winked.
I laughed, and Ida promised she’d actually tell me later. Right now it was “all about us.”
It wasn’t an actual party- aside from Ida, my dad, Angel, and his foster family, I din’t exactly have any friends. Did my family even count as ‘friends’? Whatever. It was nice to see them again after such a long time. Part of why my dad was never able to take me along with Ida was because he didn’t have enough money to support two kids. So, he had to make a choice. I don’t blame him for picking Ida, our mom was a lot harsher to her than me, but sometimes I still thought about what it would’ve been like, living with him.
Money in my family had always been tight, at best, so to be honest, I didn’t know what I was going to do after I graduated. I’d applied to several schools and scholarships but hadn’t gotten responses back. I feel like that’s a bit unprofessional of them. I had four months left of Senior year, and they still couldn’t tell me if I even had a shot at a future?
I shouldn’t be thinking about that on my birthday, but I’m sure you know by now that my thoughts never go as planned. I was sitting in the corner of the living room, brooding, when Angel interrupted. “Care to dance?” He offered his hand, and I took it, nodding my head.
Apocalypse was playing, and we swayed gently to the rhythm. It wasn’t anything fancy: I can’t dance for shit, but it was nice. Everything he’d done for me kept proving that he cared. I wasn’t really used to that. Ida was watching us from the couch, and I could tell she had something to say about it. I was hoping it’d be nice. It probably would be, I was just worried. The last couple of weeks had been pretty hard for me.
The song ended, and Ida walked over. “Mind if I steal Mawce away?” She didn’t even wait for a response before pulling me off to the side. “Okay, I’m going in bullet points. One: You look so smitten, it’s adorable. Two: you didn’t tell me he was hot, and Three: I wanted to wait to tell you, but I’m too excited. You know how I applied to Stanford?”
“Yeah…”
“I got in.”
“NO FUCKING WAY!! Ida, this is amazing! I’m so happy for you!”
We kept talking about what college would look like for her, and our lives, but I honestly don’t remember any of it. I just knew that I was really fucking happy for Ida, and I was really glad that I had Angel in my life. He had made everything so much easier, even after only a month or two of knowing him.
Eventually, Ida and dad had to go, but they said they’d be here all week, just in a hotel. When they left, I turned to Angel. “How did you do this?”
“I know how much she means to you, and so I talked with Lana and Claire about it. I’m still not really sure how they did it, but it happened, so thank God for them.”
After hearing that, I almost started crying. Almost. Angel and I went to thank Claire and Lana but they just waved it off. “As long as you’re happy.”
The rest of the day, Angel and I sat in my room, looking out at the snow falling softly. It was nice, not needing to talk to enjoy each other’s presence. When it got too dark to see outside, I sat back against the bed. Angel was still looking out the window, but I knew he could hear me.
“... Will you go on a date with me?”
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