The Ring

Chapter 2

When you are a kid, whose birthday is coming up, how do you feel? Happy, exited, or thrilled? Are the corners of your mouth slowly moving upwards as your big day is getting closer? Or are you jumping up and down at the thought of your friends coming over to your house to celebrate your special day with you? Are you laughing and giggling in bed at night before your birthday? And when it's your birthday, are you on cloud nine? Is Cloud Nine even real? I remember my cousin Judy mentioning it to me on my brothers ninth birthday. Something about that cloud seemed unreal and childish. I thought clouds were uncountable, but it turns out they are. How is that possible? I guess we'll never know. It's three days until my birthday. Birthdays make me nervous. I'm scared what people are going to think about my gift for them or what theme my birthday party is going to be. I can't sleep during the night before my birthday. I'm scared. Of what? I couldn't tell. Of turning one year older? Of people making new expectations of me, because of how old I'm turning? Maybe unwanted pictures taken of me at my most embaressing moments of the day? Maybe. Possibly. I sit on my bed reading my newest book. Enjoying the last few minutes of quiet before my brother finishes playing video games on PlayStation and comes barging into my room, telling me all about it. I try enjoying the quiet, but each time, I either hear Luke screaming at the top of his lungs words or being reminded of what's in three days. My birthday. I dont want to think about it right now. I try focusing on reading the book, but it doesn't work. I plop the book down on my bed as i get up. I take a hair tie from my nightstand and leave my room. As I go downstairs, I put my hair up in a ponytail. I head to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. I open the top cabinet and pull out a glass, and go to the sink to fill it with water. As I take a sip of water I almost spill all over my clothes as Luke screams at the top of his lungs "FUCK". I roll my eyes as I continue drinking the water. I chug it in one row and place the glass on the counter. I go back upstairs just as Luke yells yet again. I enter my room and plop myself onto the bed. I decide to take a nap, to quite down the thoughts in my head about my birthday. 

I wake up feeling numb, exhausted and even more tired then before. My mouth is dry and my back is sweaty. I try getting up from the bed, but my muscles give up on me, leaving me to fall back onto the bed. I try reaching to grab my phone, but my arm is hard to move and I don't even know if the phone really is on the bed. Maybe its on the floor. I try getting up once more, this time it works, the only thing is that my legs feel wobbly, like I'm about to fall onto the floor, but I don't. Just then someone knocks on my bedroom door, I turn around to see who it is and I find Luke standing there. "Dinner is ready." Luke says as he looks behind me scanning my room. "What?" I ask as I look behind, to see what he's looking at. The bed is a complete mess. The blanket is on the floor, untucked from the bed, even though I was sleeping with the blanket under me. "Nothing, its just that, I have never seen your room this messy before." Luke says as he walks pass me into my room. "And I haven't seen your room clean before." I bite back at his comment. He smirks at me at leaves my room, leaving me standing there, not that I don't mind. Soon I follow him downstairs. "Good morning sleepy head" Dad says as he gets up from the dining table. On the table there is a open laptop with blue and red charts on it, a big stack of papers next to the laptop, a lot of pens and couple of folders on the floor. "Yeah good morning" I reply smiling . I walk up to the table and pick up a paper. I look closely trying to understand what its about. Only to realize - Its french. Dad recently got a job at a local University as Math teacher . The only problem for now is that, he doesn't speak french nor does he understand it. Its not that i can understand it either. That's why Mom decided that homeschooling us is the best option. Since we don't go to any  activity clubs, that's not a problem. Well except Aurora, who is a swimmer, so Mom figured to sign her up to a swim club. Lucky for Aurora, the swim instructer agreed to talk to her in English, so for now everything is great. Me and Luke don't have to learn french, because were learning at the comfort at our house. And also because mom doesn't want us to learn french, not yet. Mom is really the only one of us, who can almost speak french fluently, my Dad on the other hand - Can't.  And when he does speak french or at least he's trying, doesn't sound like french. "Dinner is ready!" Mom yells out as she takes a seat at the dining table and Dad clears up his spot and joins her. "Millie, Aurora!" Mom yells as she places some potatoes in her plate. Luke is already seated. "Coming!" Aurora yells from her room.  I'm already seated at the dinner table and waiting for Aurora to join us, so we can have a nice family dinner. "Aurora" Dad yells once more. "Yes, I hear you" Aurora says as she heads downstairs. "Hurry up, I'm hungry!" Luke whines as adds a spoon full of tomato salad. "I'm here, jeez" Aurora says as she takes a seat next to Dad. Just like in the car, I never change seats. I sometimes I sit next to Luke, sometimes to Mom.  But never Dad.  I guess he doesn't like changing the seating plan either. Tonight I'm sitting next Luke. "So how was everybody's day?" Mom asked as she ate her salad. "Oh god, are we doing the movie "How was your day" talk?" Luke says as he takes a bite of his potato. "Look, I'm trying to build a conversation here" She says as she glares at Luke. "Well my day was quite calm, except for when Luke was screaming curse words at the top of his lungs." I say as i take a sip of the lemon water. "Good thing our neighbors live far away from us." i continue as I giggle. "Indeed. Luke we talked about this, if you can play a video game without getting angry, don't play." Dad said as he was cutting his steak. "Sorry." Luke spat out. "Well Mrs. Albert says that in a few weeks there we be a international swimming contest in Switzerland" Aurora starts.  "I wanted to know if i can go" She continues as she looks at Dad. "Do we have to pay for anything?" Dad asks as he looks back at his daughter. "Well were staying at a hotel with food included in the payment." Aurora says as she cuts her potatoes in half. "What about transport?" Mom asks looking up from her plate. "Its already paid, were going to Switzerland by buss" Aurora replies look at Mom, who is now looking at her husband. By the look of their faces i can tell, that they are having the quiet opinion talk. They both shake their heads in agreement and look over to Aurora, who is waiting for their opinion. "You can!" They both say as they look at Aurora. Auroras eyes light up and both corners of her mouth move upwards. "Thank you!" She exclaims as she goes back to eating. "And how long are you going to be gone for?" I ask as I take a spoon full of the salad. "About a week." She awnseres as she look back at her parents, thinking they might be against this. But they just give a heartfelt smile and go back to eating. 

My Phone reads "11:03" Usually by this time I'm past out sleeping. But tonight i feel wired and I cant sleep. I tried closing my eyes and pretending I'm sleeping, hoping that would work, but no. Suddenly I hear someone talking in the hallway. I quietly get out of bed and head towards my door. I open my door just enough for my head to poke trough. I see mom talking on the phone. "No, don't give it to her yet. She's not ready." She whispers. Im confused, what not to give? and to who? "Her birthday is in three days." She continues. My eyes go wide. What is going on? Who is she talking to? What am I not ready for? "She wont know what to do with it. She won't understand." She states. "No, no" She whispers as she turns around. "I'll call you back, okay?" She says as she spots me looking at her. "Can't sleep?" She ask as she crosses her arms "Who you were talking to?" I ask cutting right to the chase. "Grandma Ruth, she sends her hi's to all of us." Mom says as she leads me back to my room. "That's great!" I say as I climb into my bed. "But what were you talking about?" I say as tuck myself under the blanket. "About things you dont have to worry about." She said as she left my room,closing the door behind herself. I felt my heart pounding inside my chest.  I thought at any moment its going to jump out of my mouth. I felt scared. Anxious. For the next hour, I tossed and turned in my bed. I leaned over to my phone on the nightstand. I turned it on and checked the time. It was 00:12. It's officially two days until my birthday.