Seaglass Promises in the Midnight Sky

Birthday

Lorraine couldn't help but feel a little anxious when Belly's birthday came around. Because of the timing and the Conklin's seasonal trip, she had never actually celebrated Belly's birthday. She always handed over her gift on the first day of school. Belly never really talked about all the other stuff she got, so Lorraine had no idea how everything was going to go here.

Her only solace was that Taylor was in the same position, she had returned home before August hit the previous summer. It was no small comfort, as long as Taylor was by her side, Lorraine was confident she could do anything.

"When's your birthday?" Conrad asked as they all waited for Taylor to drag Belly out of bed.

"March twenty-fifth."

"You're not gonna ask when mine is?" He questioned, peering at her with suspision. Jeremiah made a noise, likely a laugh, but she ignored him instead picking at the tissue paper on Taylor's present for Belly. Her friend would be mad if she caught sight of the foul play but she wasn't currently here to object.

"September fourth. When are you going to realize I know everything about you?" She joked, loving the advantage she had over him in that respect. She got to play the role of the mysterious new girl and he was practically an open book, at least with the more concrete stuff. There were so many things Belly had never known about the older Fisher boy that Lorraine was just begining to find out about.

"When it stops being creepy and starts being sweet."

"Rude! I'm not creepy!" Lorraine protested. She was about to continue when footsteps sounded on the stairs and the whole room fell silent in wait. Conrad smirked at the prospect of getting the last word, which sent her seething.

Susannah lit the sparklers on the cake while Laurel turned down the lights.

Taylor quickly slid into the room followed by Belly. A chorus of "Happy Birthday!" rang out from everyone.

Belly was smiling wildly as she took in the decorations.

"Make a wish."

Then came the presents. Taylor demanded to go first, handing Belly her bag with a rueful smile. It took Belly nearly three minutes to deal with the card alone, which sent her into a laughing fit and then near tears. The actual gift turned out to be a pair of red rimed heart sunglasses, a matching lipstick, and a small stuffed dolphin. All of which Belly loved, obviously, though Lorraine doubted she would be wearing the red lipstick in public anytime soon. She perfered light lipgloss if anything.

She was estatic to find out Susannah had given her some pearls, apparently it was tradition. At this point Lorraine had given up on understanding the intricacies of the Conklin-Fisher history.

Conrad had gotten her a necklace but after the fourth of July fiasco he changed tactics to ensure she couldn't draw the wrong conclusions. He ended up giving her a family size bag of sour patch kids. Belly didn't seem to know what to make of it.

She loved Jeremiah's gift though, racing upstairs and back to put the key on her charm bracelet.

Lorraine had gotten Belly a few colors of nail polish she knew the other girl had been missing from her collection as well as two boxes of fruit roll ups. Belly gave a more enthusiastic response to the candy but Lorraine wasn't surprised, she was just happy it wasn't a total fail.

Cake was doled out after everyone had given Belly their presents and seperate conversations started up. 

"I'm not creepy." Lorraine reassurted.

"Of course you aren't, I wouldn't be dating you if you were." The room grew quiet. Lorraine looked around the group to figure out why when her eyes landed on Belly, who was looking between Conrad and her like they had just announced... like they had just announced they were dating. Oh. She had been working on how to tell the younger girl.

"You guys are dating?" Belly asked, her tone ambiguous and her face giving away no hint of how she's feeling.

"Yeah." Conrad answered, looking over at Lorraine like he wasn't sure if he should be talking at all.

"I'm going to go put these in my room." Belly grabbed her presents and headed for the door leaving stilted silence in her wake.