HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNABEL MACE

21st March, 20??

Happy birthday, Annabel Mace.

Dear Dia,

It's my sweet sixteen birthday or should I say my bitter sixteen birthday. Somehow it feels like I should introduce myself even though we know each other. More correctly put, we used to know each other. It's been five years and I think an introduction should be in order.

I'm Annabel Mace, daughter of Taylor and Miranda Mace. I'm an Aries, obviously with aquamarine as my birthstone and jonquil as my birthflower. I love reading and writing. Romance and fantasy are my favorite genres. I also love reading poems especially short verses like those of Terres Michael, F S Yousaf and Raymond Carver. Their poems are usually short with powerful emotional lines that strike a cord each time I read them. When I lost mom, I felt particularly at home with the poem “Loss" from Terres Michael's " Mementos of Michelangelo (Dark Emotions)” collection.

I turned sixteen today. As you know, Dia, I'm quite sensitive about my age so I don't write the year in the date section. You should remember why, it was in year 8 Dia. The year Collins, my stupid cousin came visiting with his family. Apparently he wasn't educated on privacy and boundaries even as we were the same age then. He didn't know this of course until that day I saw him reading my entries without my consent. He had gotten so mad that I have been deceiving him for years thinking that I was a year older that he pulled out the last two letters on your cover. On your leather cover was pinned “My Diary" in a metallic pin. He removed the "ry” and from that day you became Dia.

I still have not forgiven him for that but at least he introduced me to you, Dia and I'm grateful for that but don't tell him I said that. It was actually mom who convinced me that calling you “My Dia” gives me a more personalized relationship than others have with their diaries. After that experience, I had stopped writing the year of my entries since it could be traced back to my age and started calling you ‘Dia’.

Turning sixteen is supposed to be sweet. It's that age that one becomes a young adult and should be treated as one. You are probably saying ‘tell that to your dad and new mom’. Yeah I know, they don't see me as an adult but to hell with what they think, I'm going to do whatever I want, whichever way I want and whenever I want. There was only one person who cared what I did and she's no more, therefore I will try to make this bitter sixteen sweet for me.

I wasn't surprised when dad called on the 15th of this month to ask me what I wanted for my birthday with false hopes of landing the subtle blow that he won't be home for my birthday. He hardly ever comes home and I get that his busy trying to provide for us but can't he prioritize me. It was better when mom was here at least she knew how to drag him back home but since her demise he had kept his distance. I don't even know if he married Felicia, the clown downstairs who thinks she can replace mom, for love or for me. Felicia Burner is my father's supposed love who he married three years after mom died. Can you believe that, three years, it's like they were a thing even when mom was still alive and the fact that she was dad's secretary confirms my suspicions. She was a single divorcée mother who was looking for a new man to help take care of her and her stupid son, Henry. And my father just happened to be that man.

She is nothing like mom with her orange short curls, brown eyes and freckles. And she always smell like those cheap ass perfume sold in that local store down the street. Mom had been like a celebrity with her white-gold blond curls which I didn't inherit, her blue eyes which nature was kind enough to give me, her small pout red lips which I have, her radiating skin that I don't have and her perfect body which I have, thank goodness. She smelled of lilies, Madonna lilies to be exact as dad had told me once, sweet, heady, rich and intoxicating. I guess that was when he still loved her.

Dad marrying Felicia had been worse but having a brother through that wedlock, Henry was the worst. He is every inch his mom, same hair, freckles and that fake ass smile they think I'm buying. Thankfully I'm two years older and dad thinks I'm supposed to look after him like he's my little brother but Henry Burner doesn't need looking after. Our neighbors and some girls I have heard whispering in the halls, say he's cute and kind but I don't know how someone can be cute with baby curls orange hair and freckles. He has a lot of friends which isn't surprising since he was going to St. Nicholas High, before I was enrolled. I guess people fall for that his fake ass smile which I know is bull.

I was going to keep silent as those other years when dad asks me what I wanted for my birthday present but not this year. I just told him that I wanted to talk to Dia again and not surprisingly, you were delivered the morning before my birthday. In a pink and cream wrapped box containing you, a letter my mom had written for my sixteenth birthday, a small red box- a gift from mom, a black slim box- a gift from him and a note saying;

“Happy Birthday, Sweetheart,

I'm glad you want to talk to Dia again so I took time to get you that perfect sixteenth diary your mom always envisioned. A leather diary, made of pink calf leather and hot printed with floral and mandala engravings, personalised in gold with your initials ‘A.M’ on the cover. The interior is composed of a precious paper lined with a dusty pink color without lines; a space for the date of entry, the title if you want to and the liberty to write as much as you want in an entry with it's 600 pages capacity.

It's a gift from us but my personal gift to my precious jewel is in that black box, I hope you like it. I'm sorry that I won't be there but I'm sure Licia will throw you an amazing birthday bash. Thank God I remembered the red box and letter mom had given to me for your sixteenth birthday, it's in this box too and contrary to what you think, I love you, my precious jewel.

N/B: I might have a surprise for you.

Love,

Dad."

The pink leather diary became you, my year 16 Dia. I'm glad dad knows that I question his love for me and his surprise was more of an embarrassment, really!. I had been walking to class when my birthday party was announced, inviting everyone to come. I was still finding my way in this new school and the last thing I needed was to be thrown into the spotlight like that. After that I heard the whispers;

"Who is Annabel Mace? Does she even go to our school? Do you know her, she is said to be in tenth grade? Where does she live?

And the worst of them all, when Mia Hover and the Divas stopped dead in the tracks and she asked,

“Who the hell is Annabel Mace?"

Susan Sams, popularly known as Suzzy, a fellow Diva was the one who whispered in her ear and the whole school knew who I was in a matter of seconds when Mia screamed;

“That bitch who stepped on me on her first day, how come she gets to have her birthday party announced to the whole school!!!”

The fury was clear in her face when she added with a voice cold as ice;

"Get ready girls we are crashing that party”

Eyes turned to me then and I dashed to class. The story of me stepping on that low-life had trended for a while and the whole school knew about it since no one messed with the Divas and went scot free. Congrats, dad you just made my birthday a very memorable one.

I really have to go now, Dia. Licia as my dad called her, who is he even fooling? Can he love her that much? She wants me downstairs because the guests are arriving, amongst them will be the infamous Divas whose plan is to crash my party. Talk later, bye.