Right Beside You | Stiles Stilinski | Two

36 - Birthday Baggage

It always smelled like bacon.

I rolled over in bed, taking a deep breath as the smell of breakfast wafted through the house. I could already hear Mom in the kitchen, the pan clinking on the stove, fat sizzling in the pan. My lips pulled up into a sleepy smile.

I took my time getting out of bed. There wasn't any point in getting dressed, but I decided to change into a more festive pair of pajamas than my oversized police tee. I brushed out my hair, assessing the girl that looked back at me in the mirror. It might have been wishful thinking, but my face finally seemed to be growing out of its awkward phase. My nose looked a bit smaller and my eyes looked a bit bigger. My eyebrows were growing back in after a disastrous attempt at thinning them out, but there were worse things in life. The plus side was that I was getting pretty good with an eyebrow pencil.

I grabbed my phone from my pillow and headed downstairs as I scrolled through my texts. It was too early for me to find the energy to reply to most of them. I just sent the essential responses back, finishing a message to Briana just as I made it to the kitchen.

"Ah! There she is!" Mom dropped her spatula on the stove. She hurried over to me, arms outstretched and a wide smile on her face. "Oh, come here. Happy Birthday, sweetheart!"

"Mm, thanks, Mom."

"Honey, you sound exhausted. Why don't you go back to bed?"

"And let you guys eat all the bacon? Fat chance."

Mom laughed and kissed me on the cheek. "There's the daughter I raised. Well, go ahead and sit down. I've got one plate of bacon done, and—what do you want to drink? Milk? Apple juice? Hot chocolate?"

"Hot chocolate sounds good."

She'd already flipped the switch on the water heater before I finished the sentence. She rummaged through the pantry for cocoa mix while I plopped down at the table. I tucked my legs up underneath me and pulled out my phone again, plucking a piece of bacon from the platter in front of me.

"So what's the plan for today?" Mom asked as she returned to the stove.

"I'm still waiting to hear back from Bri. She probably won't be up for a few hours, but I think we're just going to the movies with some other people."

"And are some other people coming to your birthday dinner?"

"Nope. Just Briana."

"Oh. Because, you know, if you wanted to invite some other people to your birthday dinner, then some other people would be more than welcome."

I narrowed my eyes at her back, popping the last of the bacon strip in my mouth. "Mom..."

"Ignore me! I'm just saying. You've been spending a lot of time with him lately, so if you wanted him to come out with us—"

"Mom, no."

"Why not?" she whined, dropping all pretense and abandoning the bacon. "If he's going to be your boyfriend, you should be able to bring him out to dinner with your parents."

"Mom, he's—just stop, okay? It's not like that."

"It's not like what?"

"It's not—I don't know what it is! I'm not inviting him, okay? End of story."

"I don't understand you," she huffed as she returned to the bacon. "You spend enough time with him out of the house, he seems to make you happy, you talk about him all the time. He seems like a nice kid!"

"I think he's a little punk who's trying to take my little girl away." Dad strolled into the kitchen, still stretching in his pajamas. "Sorry, pumpkin, he's not invited."