Eleven Conversations

Chapter 3: A Birthday Dinner

When I got home, my mom and I swung by the store to pick up a birthday card for my dad. I picked a card that read "Happy Birthday to the best dad in the universe!" on the front and when I got home I filled out the inside.

At 6:00, my dad walked into the house as he had just gotten finished with work.

"Happy birthday Dad!" I said excitedly as he gave me a bear hug.

"Thanks, sweetie." He said, kissing the top of my head.

After that, we headed out to Red Robin, my dad's favorite burger place, for dinner. After the waiter seated us, we ordered our drinks. I got a Diet Coke and so did both of my parents. We were laughing and talking until a too familiar voice was coming from behind me.

"Oh, Kellie, hi!" Tori Rose exclaimed.

"hey, Tori." I mumbled in reply.

"This must be your parents! Hi, I'm Tori Rose, nice to meet you." She said reaching across the table to shake their hands. As she did this, however, she knocked over my Diet Coke glass and the cold drink spilled all over me. Ice and Coke spilled all into my lap.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Tori said, definitely not sorry for what she had just done.

"I'm going to go to the restroom." I said angrily as I pushed my chair backwards. As soon as I stood up ice came toppling out of my lap and down my legs.

"Let me come with you! I'm just so sorry." Tori said following me to the bathroom.

As soon as we got to the bathroom, Tori slammed the door behind us.

"Stay away from Walker." She said blandly.

I stopped pumping out paper towels and turned towards her, "Excuse me?"

"Stay away from him. He's mine, he obviously likes me and not you, so stay away from him."

This made no sense.
1. They had literally known each other for 6 hours, I doubt they had developed feelings for each other already.
2. We were only friends, nothing more.
3. Was Tori Rose seriously seeing me as competition?!

"Um, he's my friend, so no." I replied to her, glaring.

"Well, that's your own choice, but let's just say you do not want to get in my bad side. Stay away from Walker, that's my final warning."

"Well I guess I'll just have to be on your bad side then, he is my friend and I'm not giving that up because you're jealous." I honestly couldn't believe I had the strength to say that to the most popular girl at school and to be honest I was quite proud.

Tori gasped. "Fine then. But when he ditches you for me, you'll wish you would've just given up on him earlier."

She smiled down at her phone screen as it vibrated. "Oh, that's Walker right now. I have got to go, toodles." She said as she waved her obnoxious little wave.

Oh, how I hated Tori Rose.
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After almost ten minutes of trying to scrub the Diet Coke out of my clothes, I finally accepted defeat and went back out to sit with my parents.

"Are you ok, hon?" My mom asked me, with a look of concern on her face.

I nodded, even though I really wasn't. I know I hadn't even known Walker for that long, but it wasn't fair that Tori could just take him away from me like that.

A few minutes later, our waiter came and gave us our food. I hungrily dug into my cheeseburger with fries while my parents ate soup with salads. We didn't talk much while we ate, but my mom and dad discussed what was happening at work. My dad worked five days a week as an engineer for an environmental facility and my mom worked three days a week as a preschool teacher during the school year and during the summer she worked the same days at a day care.
As you can imagine, there are always a few interesting stories to be told during dinner about their work lives. Tonight, though, I didn't really pay attention to their stories. I was thinking about Tori and Walker. Trust me, I didn't have a crush on Walker or anything, but I really hated the idea of Tori liking him.
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After dinner, my parents and I went to our favorite ice cream place, Scoops, and we all ordered peanut butter chocolate ice cream cones in honor of my dad's birthday.

"Happy birthday, Joe." My mom said as she kissed him on the cheek.

"Yeah, happy birthday dad." I added, taking a huge bite out of my ice cream, which resulted in a large brain freeze.

"Thank you, ladies." He replied giving us both a large smile.
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We got home around 9:30 and as soon as I walked into the house I went upstairs and changed into my purple polka dot pajamas. I brushed my teeth and my face and decided to read for a while before I went to bed. I picked up Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban and picked up where I left off. I had read about half of it before I showed Walker around the neighborhood and i thought I would finish it before I went to sleep.

About 100 pages later, I was feeling tired so I decided to stop reading about the adventures of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I shut the thick book and put it on my night stand. I plugged up my iPhone and put it on top of my book before lying down and falling asleep.