Hopeless Romantic

16. Sweet Sixteen

The New Year's Day was soon followed by a newly important day in Oscar's life, Rio's Birthday. It was also an important one for her as she would turn 16, which is the age teenagers are considered half-adults at.
The way Oscar explained to us what he had planned, it felt like he had been doing it for months.
It was a very elaborate plan and I really did not believe we could pull it off. He had assembled all our friends from the group to do so.
"Dude, we won't be able to get half the stuff you're asking for"
"And do you realize how long it will take us to go all the way there?" Nash and Yade argued with Oscar.
"We could try at least" Oscar tried to defend himself.
"You know she hates to be surprised right?" Isabella trying to put some sense in his head.
"She'll love this one, trust me."
"Ah, we're going to regret this"
"I know we won't"
The plan started at midnight, the dawn of her birthday, they all called her and wished her together, Oscar wanted all of us to crash her place. But we weren't comfortable with it so he dropped it thankfully.
We attended our classes regularly for the first half. Then in the lunch break Oscar had ordered a regular looking cake, Pineapple Vanilla.
"You shouldn't have" Rio told Oscar, and she meant it, you could feel her aura saying she didn't like it. But that was a part of the step plan, make the surprises go from small to large scale. He knew she wouldn't like the cake and also reduced her expectations simultaneously.

The second half of the day, Nash and Yade went missing. Oscar stayed so as to not arouse suspicion. They had gone to get a mystery item that no one knew about. Then one class before the day ended, Isabella and Lume, who was a close friend of Rio, met up with her.
"Hey do you want to go and chill somewhere?" Isabella initiated part 3 of the plan.
"Sure, I have to be home by 7, but where would we go?" Rio responded
"I was thinking at the beach somewhere" Lume said
"That will take us an hour to go to"
"It'll be worth it, besides we wanted to go for a long time and we finally found an excuse to do so."
"You know what, let's do that, it's the time to go crazy now"
"Perfect, we'll leave as soon as the last class is done?"
"Cool we'll meet outside the school"
They went their separate ways, to their respective classes.
By then Oscar had left too and had gone to get her the cake she loved. They were all going to meet at the rendezvous point at exactly 4pm.

Rio, Isabella and Lume reached first, they went and ordered drinks at one of the Drink shacks and viewed the golden beach, the bluish green waves and the tilted yellow sun in peace. It was a beautiful day to be at the beach.

"Ah this what I needed, cool drinks, a calm beach and good friends. We should've invited the boys as well."
"Wait for it" Isabella sipped on her drink.
"You asked them to come-"
Rio didn't have to finish her sentence. Oscar and the others walked toward them; their hands filled with various items.
Nash yelled, "Let's get the party started"
Oscar came over to the table they were seated at and placed a box on it.
"What's in the box?" Rio enquired.
"Something you wanted" Oscar gave her his goofy smile.
He cut the box open, it was a Caramel Chocolate cake. Both me and Rio were shocked. He had remembered that detail.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Yep"
"You shouldn't have." There was no sarcasm in that statement.
"There's more" Yade joined in and pulled out a bottle of champagne.
"Ah you guys managed to get it." Oscar said
"Obviously we did, the twins can get anything" Nash folded his arms and raised his eyebrows. "Ready?" Oscar asked Rio.
Rio took a large gulp, she processed all that was happening and replied enthusiastically, "Pop it off!"

Nash pulled the cork and sprayed all the foam that erupted from it all over us. We cheered and sang as Rio cut the cake. It was a joyous moment. A cool breeze-warm smiles, sweet cake-bitter champagne, susurrating of the sea-Rhythm and Blues on the speaker. If euphoric utopia existed, I'm sure this is how it would feel.
Oscar sheepishly removed small package from his bag and gave it to Rio. It was a pair of earphones.
"Why would you get me this, I already have one."
"One of your earpieces doesn't work as well as the other and you always used the one that didn't whenever you made me listen to songs on the bus. This way you can too."
"Wow, I will then."
"Mhm"
"Thanks"
"No problem" Oscar flashed his goofy smile again.
"Come on guys let's get cleaned up, we're all sticky thanks to Nash here." Luna got up from her chair.
"Where though, they don't have a shower or anything?"
"Why do you need a shower when there's a whole body of water right here" Nash suggested.
"Makes sense" Isabella agreed. Thus, we all dove into the sea waves. Not literally, only our arms and legs.
We all splashed water on each other taking photos from Oscar's phone. Nash and Isabella ran around for no apparent reason, the others joined in too. It was a fun game of run and splash.
Pretty soon we all collapsed on the sand, feeling it's grains and letting the warmth relieve our aching muscles.
"You run like an idiot"
"At least I run faster"
"Speed won't matter if you trip on your own leg"
"Which he did"
"That was because a rock came up"
"There are literally no rocks over here"
"You guys didn't see it because I threw it after I fell"
"Aw you didn't want us to fall"
"Yes, wait no- I"
"We get it"
The sky above us got darker and made a beautiful shade of Russian violet. On the clean canvas there were soon speckles of white. That was an indication for us that we had to head back to our homes.
All of us got into buses that took us to our areas directly. Oscar and Rio went together in the same bus.
Rio opened the earphone box and got her new earphones out, plugged it in her ipod and put one in her left ear and gave one to Oscar, who put it in his right ear. She played her list of favorite songs. Halfway through Rio asked Oscar, "You know I don't like surprises, right?"
"Yea"
"Still, I liked it"
"I hoped you would"
"I did"
"Don't do this again, though"
"We'll see"
Rio reached home and found her childhood friends were waiting for her. She went out with them and had the time of her life that night.
Oscar walked back home as the bus didn't go directly to his house. He contemplated on the experience. He was glad he pushed the others to do so. Moreover, he was a part of her joy, even if it was for a small part, it was still
something that warmed his heart. He opened and reviewed the photos they had taken. Her beauteous smile was the center of all the pictures. That's all he wanted to see now. It was all new to him, he always played around but this was a strange experience all together.