FORTY- EIGHT

Mark came home, silently shedding tears and went straight to his room.

I went to check up on him and knocked on his door. He didn't respond though I heard him sobbing.

"Mark."I called,"What happened?"

"Umm, Tommy, please can I have some alone time, I'll tell you later."

"Okay."

I went down the stairs to continue my lesson. At lunch, I went to the dining table and sat down and the chef served me.

I sat down and began eating. I wasn't there for long till I heard footsteps. I looked back to see Mark, his eyes were red and his face pale.

He took a seat and the chef served him.

After I was done, I asked,"So, how did it go?"

He didn't respond.

"Mark, what happened?"

He was still quiet then I realized.

"You still love her, don't you?"

"...yes."

"Then why did you tell her you didn't?"

"I told her I did."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I told her we couldn't be together."

"What? Why?"

"We're too different."

"But I thought differences made you stronger."

"Not these differences...it's complicated."

The only other time I had seen him like this was when he found out Ms Gonzalez had had a miscarriage and it made me feel terrible.

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?"

He chuckled and said,"The fact that you want me happy is enough."

He smiled but I knew the pain was still unbearable. I just allowed him to vent.

I went for my Equestrian lesson next.

I made the horse canter and followed my instructor's every word.

After I was done, I went to change for my next lesson.

I nailed my Physics test, while thinking about Mark. Then I realized something...the date! It was three days to my birthday!

I had totally forgotten!

I had to tell Mark!

But he needed to recover, and he couldn't do that while planning my birthday party.

Besides, I was used to small birthday parties where few to no people showed up.

My final lesson was Biology and the moment I was done, I looked for Mark.

I found him in the gym looking at something. I knew it was a picture of Ms Gonzalez as my dad also looked at a picture of my mom like that when they lived apart for a few months after going over a rough patch.

I called him and he was startled and quickly hid the picture then I said,"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you were just looking at a picture of Ms Gonzalez."

"Oh this? It's nothing."

"Okay, but you don't have to hide your feelings from me, I'm here for you."

He sighed and said,"It's just I am always getting into bad... toxic relationships, I might as well just give up."

"No don't say that, that's life, it's not some fairytale where you always meet the right person the first time, it takes tries."

He looked at me and smiled then said,"I think it's time I taught you the wall flip."

I smiled back.

Five days passed and I still didn't remind Mark of my birthday, I wanted to take care of him, not the other way round.

Mark took me to Ms Lucy's house to hang out with Lucille.

When it got late, Ms Lucy took me back home but home didn't look like home...

There were party flags, silk banners, colourful spotlights, balloon arches, balloons, etc.

I slowly walked into the house and everyone in there yelled,"Happy Birthday Tommy!!!"

All my friends were, including Pedro!

I walked to Mark, jaw dropped and said,"I thought you forgot!"

"Of course not, we had been planning this for two weeks. We decided to postpone it to Saturday when all your friends weren't busy."

I was touched, there was everything; food, drinks, a petting zoo, cake, ice cream, cotton candy, a pinata, Celebrities (apart from The Lucy Stone), a live band, a mountain of presents and more!

The party was awesome! Sadly, the festivities only went on till I fell asleep, at 5am the next morning!

I was surprised Mark and Ms Lucy put aside their differences to organize this for me!

Though they still bickered from time to time.

During the party, I blew out the candles on my large cake then I felt something on my cheek and my eyes widened as Olivia said,"Happy Birthday, cutie."

The whole crowd said awww and my lips turned into a rigid, robotic smile, right before I fainted.

I woke up a second later and everyone was looking at me, I slowly got up and yelled,"Y.O.L.O.!!!"

Everyone cheered as the party continued.

I woke up at 8 am the next day excited. I wanted to give that big little brother of mine a huge hug and I did, it was so huge we toppled over and fell, laughing!

The cleanup crew arrived and we helped to clean the place though we didn't need to.

Since the crew was made up of a lot of people, cleaning up didn't take long.