-15-

Today is my birthday, it's my first one without Baba so I'm a little down in spirit but what makes me feel better is all the people I'll be celebrating with. I'm headed to Irish'sh so she can fix me up for today. I do want to see what it feels to wear something more fitting.

She might also braid my hair, I'm afraid I might like it neat and fixed and would start to waste a lot of time combing it.

The moment I got to the wooden door it was open and on the house was a huge banner saying "Happy Birthday Bliss" and suddenly I decided to get over myself and was energetic. I went inside straight to Irish'sh room and she was waiting for me.

"We'll officially start in about 3 hours" Irish said, "that's when everyone else will show up."

"Where's your custom?" I asked.

"It's ready, I'll wear it once I'm done with you" she sat me on a chair in front of her dresser, "won't take long, you're already pretty love."

Irish told me I wouldn't need a lot of make-up, only eyeliner, mascara and some red lipstick and I trusted her with whatever she's doing. She always looked lovely; so I was in good hands.

For my hair she only put some serum to tone it down and I thought I should've used that earlier in my life. She straightened my hair then parted it in the middle and turned each side into braids that met somewhere at the back of my head then let the rest of my hair down.

The dressing part was the longest. She picked out 5 outfits for me to pick from and I had to put them all on because I didn't know which one would look best on me. We settled on a casual yellow dress… I did want to look good but I didn't want to stray from my casual style. I appreciated Irish getting the most dress I liked in my favorite color.

During the whole process I frequently bothered Irish with wanting to smell better than I looked so she picked this weird bottle of something that looked oily. She said it's called Oud, her dad brought it from one of his travels. I was a bit skeptical at first but she put a couple drops of it on the tips of both her index fingers and spread that behind my ears into my neck.

Then she picked a Chanel perfume and sprayed me with it. The mix of smells was incredible, I smell nice and expensive, I could die smelling like this!

"Ok, get up" Irish said looking at me, I got up. "Babyyy! You look so pretty!!!" She said looking at me like a proud mother would and it warmed my heart, then she hugged me, "and you smell so good!!!" She yelled into my ears then went to put her custom on.

I went downstairs and found my girls who squeaked at the sight of me and told me I looked tiny and pretty. They hugged me and told me I smelled nice, I turned shy at that part ha-ha.

Blue and Juicy both dressed in a Harry Potter related customs. Blue as professor Sybil Trelawney and Juicy as Sirius Black. Danielle on the other hand dyed her hair black and was the best Edward Scissors Hands I've ever seen.

When Irish went down the stairs we all got up. She was dressed as Mary Poppins, the same character she dressed as when her mom told her she didn't want to see her anymore.

"I thought I'd move on" Irish said, "nothing could ruin Mary Poppins for me."

Irish has come a long way. She used to come wearing face masks or massive sunglasses whenever she visited my part of town. She was constantly hiding behind something fearing her mom would see her or approach her, or worse, see her and walk away again.

Now Irish would visit regularly not hiding behind anything. She would come through the bus and hang around the parking building checking people's balconies. At first she was admiring how that referred to having families and dwelled… but then she moved on into choosing which house had the best dressed families.

"I asked Juice to pick up the outfit for me because I had to study" Blue said, "I told her I wanted to be Nanny McPhee to almost twin up with Iris but she brought me that Trelawney person custom."

"What?" Juicy said, "same actress."

As they were talking I noticed the cake was already out on the table and wondered if it was brought early because Jack's not coming. Last time I saw him, he looked tired and dull eyed and this worries me.

"We have a surprise for you later" Irish nudged me.

"Oh, I have something for you all now" I said and went upstairs to get 4 wrapped boxes from my back bag.

I gave Irish the box with the green ribbon, the orange ribbon for Blue, the Blue ribbon for Dani and the red ribbon for Juice and asked them to open the boxes.

"What is it?" Juicy said shaking her box.

"Remember my initiation?" I said excitedly, "each of you gave me something that you all shared with each other at some point. Here I am giving you my equivalent for Dani's banana, Irish'sh notebook, Blue's donut and Juicy's Harry Potter everything"

"It's a light bulb keychain" Irish said.

"Stating the obvious like always Iris" Dani teased.

"Hey!" Blue looked suspicious, "this is wooden! I knew the barrier looked different!!! You chopped it off didn't you?" She looked surprijed and utterly impressed with her assumption, which she should be because it's true.

"Well, a carpenter did the chopping" I said smirking.

"Oh my god" Juicy said as I saw them sticking it to their keychain and I felt loved and grateful, "this is awesome! A barrier brought us together" Juicy added, "life is awesome you guys" she hugged me and told me she loved it.

As we were having cake we got interrupted by knocks on the door, Irish got up excitedly and the girls helped me get up.

"It's here!" Juicy said, "the surprise!"

We had to take a few steps to get a clear view on who's standing by the door but I saw the surprije. It was a vague version of Charlie.

"You have no idea how much we looked for a Charlie Chapwin but we found him" Irish said and I stared at him not knowing what to do.

He pulled out a folded A4 paper and wrote: "Happy Birthday Bliss" which is weird because that was never my name when Charlie came into my life.

"Hi" I said not knowing what to say and he waved with a hand.

The girls were around me expressing how excited they were about this and I didn't want to look like I didn't appreciate the effort.

"That's it?" Dani said, "he never talks?"

This Charlie looked different. There's the same demeanor but everything is not how I remember it. His hat looks different, he lost the suspenders, the jacket is black, the pants are short and the shoes are a converse! Not to mention, he forgot the red nose. I can finally see his bare face and he looks like a complete stranger.

He probably outgrew everything, I mean it was years ago and the last time I saw him, the suit was starting to fit him but this is way different.

Charlie pulled out a wrapped little box from his inside pocket that looked a lot like the wrapped orange juice box he once gave me. He gave it to me as he took a seat while he girls kept staring at us in absolute silence.

"Are you really Charlie?" I asked and he gave a grin.

"Open the gift!" Juicy said.

After looking at Charlie and at the gift not believing it's actually him, I unwrapped it. It's an apple juice with a little note:

"Remember when I made you settle for orange? Now I get to make that up."

"So you're really Charlie!" I said staring at him.

He does look different but this juice box proves he's Charlie Chapwin. I always thought I'd throw some punches at him if I saw him again for ditching me but he's just sitting in silence and all I feel is complete nothingness.

I cut him a piece of cake when I noticed how awkward I must've made him feel just staring at him. I do appreciate this but I feel like he was forced to be here, just like he was when Baba invited him.

"No offence Charlie" Dani broke the silence, "but we have a back-up surprise in case she got over you and you sucked!"

Charlie chuckled weirdly out loud and wrote: "none taken."

"He's freaking me out" Juicy said and Charlie put up the "none taken" card again.

"Classic Charlie" Blue said casually with a rigid face and a mouthful of cake.

The laughter that burst out of us all, including Charlie after Blue's said that is indescribable. She was so shocked at our reaction that for the first time ever, we were all laughing harder than Blue who just looked utterly confused.

"Blue said something funny!" Juicy said hugging Blue aggressively.

That's when Blue realijed that we were laughing at something she said. Poor thing started laughing and we did too… that until she repeated the joke again as we went back to being her favorite tough crowd.

That's when Charlie scribbled something so fast and clapped his hands trying to get our attention, he wrote:

"Classic Blue!"

"Now it's funny again!" Dani said as we all went back to laughing.

It was one of those moments when you forget about everything and just live. I was grateful for Charlie even though I kept asking him if he's really the one I knew while he kept smiling.

"So, the second surprise!" Irish said.

Dani gave me a box that was heavier than it looked, of course at this point we got used to Charlie that we have him huddled with us.

"I told my dad about your Baba" Irish explained before I opened it, "the scar rang a bell… turns out your Baba worked in multiple placed owned by my dad!"

"There were surveillance cameras" Blue said still with a mouthful of cake casually, "where your Baba worked"

"We spent days basically video stalking your dad at work" Juicy said, "he was often driving trucks so it was mostly us eating movie snacks watching an office filled with people and a receptionist who fought with her boyfriend, that part we should watch again with you later" then Juicy started talking about a significant moment in the fight that made Blue laugh and sprayed us all with cake bits.

"Great!" Irish said sarcastically, "now my water's filled with your cake crumbs and mine! I can't drink this!"

Charlie put up his "Classic Blue" card again and Blue was the only one who thought it was funny.

"I think we just found Blue's soulmate!" Dani said as they both were laughing.

"Here take mine" I damped a napkin with some water from my bottle and wiped frosting off Irish'sh shirt then gave her the rest of it to drink.

"Your dad did come around and hit the bathroom a lot," Danielle said redirecting us to their story, "I felt a connection there" she joked then asked me excitedly to open the box already.

It was a photo album! One that is filled with pictures they got from Baba's work hours. The title written on it was "Bliss's Family". I looked at it then flipped it open and saw it was made of photos the girls collected of Baba laughing, smiling or simply looking handsome and also from all the times he took me to work with him.

Some pictures weren't perfect but they felt like it. I flipped through and saw the date and time of every picture written underneath them. Some were taken before Baba and I made amends but in all pictures, he looked like he cared…

"This kid visited often" Irish pointed at a picture of a young curly haired boy talking to Baba looking all serious while Baba was laughing. I think it might be Jade but I'm not really sure of anything at this point.

My eyes were suddenly fixed on the wall as if I could see through it all the way to our part, to where Jade told me it was him in that custom. It bothered me how cold I was; perhaps I shouldn't have dismissed him like he was nothing but the worst thing I'd opened my eyes to.

I tried not to think about it; I didn't want to look anything but happy about this album. And I am genuinely happy with it. My soul turned fujjier at every page I flipped. Each page had a single photograph and each photograph made my heart grow bigger.

"Man you were the cutest little kid!" Danielle said pointing at a photo of me, "I was cute too"

"Still are!" I said but was interrupted with smug looking Juicy…

"Oh really?" She looked smart, "then what happened?" She made a face at Dani.

"I learned I was a middle child!" Danielle joked and we went quiet realijing she was the only one here with enough siblings to know what that means.

When I reached the last page it hit me that there were more to my family than I ever wished or imagined. It was a random snap near the parking building, egjactly at the meter by meter garden. It was of green haired Danielle offering Juicy a bite of her banana with Irish standing talking to me while I was on the ground and had Blue sleeping on my shoulder.

Blue captioned this one:

"I bet if the sprinklers went off, it wouldn't have ruined how perfect this is."

"I'm weirdly bursting with emotions right now!!!" I said laughing through my full eyes.

"If all these emotions are egjactly how you feel right now then they're not too much, they're egjactly the right amount" Juicy teased me and hugged me, "remember when you said that?"

"Yeah, the egjact moment" I made a face at her.

"Can I say something?" Suddenly everyone's eyes were fixed on Charlie who spoke, "I can't write this but, I can speak!"

"Okay?" I said as we concentrated on Charlie's voice.

"Why didn't you talk when we met with you?" Irish asked, "kept nodding and shaking your head… are you even Charlie Chapwin?"

"Was just paying tribute to the character… listen, I was Charlie," he paused, "but only once"

"How do you mean?" Juicy asked as I was completely lost, I just don't want this to be another revelation that would disappoint.

"Your friend," he pointed at me, "was too sick to visit you on one birthday and he paid me to cover for him."

"So you're not Charlie!" I said, I knew it.

"How do we know for sure all the Charlies weren't different?" Blue asked and I nodded, that's a good question.

"No, I knew him from our school's football team. He's your guy; he asked me to keep it a secret… but when the girls were looking for Charlie Chapwin I thought it would be easy money since I technically was Charlie, once."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"I forget, but his mom owns the slushy and prawn chips shops. She was a proud mom, whenever we won a game she'd give the whole team coupons"

"Mrs. Malika?" Irish said, "she has a son?"

"Yes, her only." Charlie said and swiftly faced Blue and stretched his hand in front of her, "I heard you're Blue, I'm Zaki"

"Hi" Blue said and her features softened.

"Jaki" I repeated, "why are all the guys' names in this town have to start with a Z?"

"You don't know?" Jaki said, "when the first local newspaper was established, the headline was 'Zee Missing Letter' turns out at that time, not a single male had a name starting with the letter Z around the whole town. Basically all the parents wanted to be original and crack that until came another headline that reads 'Cut Zee Crap' and people realized how everyone's suddenly called a Z name that was meant to be original but ended up weird"

"Hmm" we all went realijing there was actually a reason!

"Hey you wanna stay and catch a movie with us?" I asked him because I kind of ruined his moment with Blue.

We took the cake upstairs with us to the screening room and watched some movie nobody paid enough attention to.

Blue and Jaki headed it off and she was too excited to fall asleep. The girls started discussing with me whether it was a good idea to randomly visit Mrs. Malika and ask her if she had a curly haired son who once went by the name Charlie Chapwin.

The credits started rolling; I was drawn into the movie at some point when I realijed Charlie's never reached for me, then why should I?

Also the girls have fallen asleep and Jaki excused himself and refused to take the amount of money they agreed on. Blue fell asleep on me shortly after.

I looked around and what's left of the cake was left uncovered. I thought I'd cut it nicely and save it for Jack to have a reason to check on him.

As I was covering Jack's cake I saw him driving in through the wooden gate. He left the car and walked towards me when he noticed me inside.

"How was the cake?" He asked still looking tired.

"Better than usual" I smiled, "it wasn't intentional, but I saved you a piece."

"Still cake" he smiled, "hey, do you need a ride?" He asked.

"No, I can manage" I said.

"No, I'll drive you" he said insisting and walked to his car and opened the door for me, "can you help me with something?"

The sun isn't out for at least an hour but I felt really sleepy. I went to my room and unconsciously turned on the dim light and it hit me once more that it broke.

Not knowing what else to do than wait for sunlight, I sat on the armchair Jade sat on last and looked at the window wondering if he's back home or with his nana.

I opened my eyes that were looking directly at the window, which was bright. The sun was out and the day seemed like another hot but lovely day.

Wait!

After all these years, did I finally sleep in the dark?