The Bad Boy Next Door Stole My Diary | Completed

Chapter 21: Birthday and Memories

    Shouldn't you be excited the week of your birthday? Knowing that you're growing one year older? Knowing that you're going to get gifts? Why can't I ever be excited the week of my birthday? Well, that's an easy answer. This is the week of my parents death. Three weeks ago was Diana's death. Yes, I'm growing one year older, closer to death. But, who cares. Ever since that day I've never been excited to get a cake with my name written on it or birthday presents.
    I roll out of bed and go to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up for school. During this week I wear dark colors. Why? I'm depressed during this week. I don't show that I'm depressed through my emotions. I still attempt to smile. I just wear dark clothing. In my freshmen year I dressed up in all black during that week and the emo/goth kids tried to get me to join their 'cult' as they called it. They had the wrong idea and I probably looked like a terrified freshmen now that I think back to that day.
    I throw on black, ripped skinny jeans, a white v-neck shirt, and a black flannel with my black converse. I now change in the bathroom ever since Duke saw me changing that day where I was examine my body in the mirror. Creep. I braid my hair into a French braid and walk back into my room to apply some make up on so that I don't look scary. I grab my backpack and head downstairs to see Gramma making breakfast. She looks up at me with a sad smile. She hates seeing me in this state but she understands what I'm going through so she doesn't bother me about it anymore. Gramma places a plate of her homemade french toast and my pills on the table. I sit down and take my pills first and then start eating. "Are you excited for this week?" Gramma asked me referring to my birthday.
    I looked up at her with a small smile. "I guess," I answered. "Are you going to the cemetery on Friday?" I asked. My grandparents go to the cemetery to visit my parents graves. I go to the cemetery by myself after school. This Friday is a half of day so I'll get to go earlier.
    "Yes, yes I am," Gramma answers softly. "Can I treat you and your friends to lunch on Friday for your birthday?" Gramma asked. "I'll pay for you guys. You can come back here and order pizza or something," Gramma said. I haven't celebrated my birthday with anybody except for Nicky and my grandparents. The four of us normally go out to the diner for dinner. I feel like it would be different if I changed my birthday tradition with Gramma and Gramps. Maybe they think it's for the best?
    I'll probably have them over since it's 'anime Friday' according to Duke. Every Friday I've been having them come over to watch anime on Friday. It's sort of our thing now with the six of us. "Yeah, but maybe for dinner though. I'm going to the cemetery after school," I said. I guess I'll talk to the guys about that.
    I head outside to see Duke leaving his house, too. "G'morning, chica!" Duke greets me.
    "Hey, Duke!" I greet back.
    Duke stares at the attire I have on. "What are you? Emo now?" Duke asked trying to make fun of me.
    I shook my head in response to no. "It's my birthday week but it's the week of my parents death. So, I wear dark colors," I answered.
    "Weirdo," Duke said insulting me.
    I give him a side eye. Jerk. I shrugged and walked over to my car. I reached into my pocket to grab my keys. They weren't in there though. I check my other pockets. Nothing. "I'll be right back," I tell Duke as I walk back to the bakery.
    Duke let out an exasperated sigh. "I'll drive you to school," Duke said tossing me a helmet. He's already on his motorcycle starting the engine up. I roll my eyes at his attitude, shrug, and throw the helmet on my head. I walk over to the motorcycle and get on, wrapping my arms around Duke's waist. I felt his abs through his shirt. Gorgeous six pack. VALENTINA SHUT UP! I snapped out of my thoughts when I saw Duke looking over his shoulder at me, smirking. "You know, we could have some fun later and you can see the real thing instead of touching them," Duke said still smirking.
My face grew red and hot from embarrassment. I slapped his back in annoyance. "Just drive you perverted monkey!" I said turning my face to the side so he couldn't see my red cheeks. He let out a laugh and without warning he took off speeding. I let out a tiny squeal. "Hey! Next time warn me when you're going to take off like that," I complained to him as we drove.
Duke groaned. "Do you ever stop complaining?" Duke asked in annoyance.
"I like complaining to you," I said chuckling a little.
"Weirdo," Duke name called me through the wind whipping through my hair as we drove on the road.
"Perverted monkey," I shouted back.
We got to school and sat through the most boring five periods of my life. Next period was lunch and I was starving more than usual even though I had a big breakfast. When the bell went off Matt and Alex looked at each other with excitement written all over their faces. "Quesadilla Tuesday!" Matt and Alex shouted as they ran out of the room for the quesadilla's in the lunch room. They pushed through all of the students and shoved right past Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia attempted to yell after them but he just sighed and smiled at them.
Nicky and I laughed at how stupid they just looked. Duke and Drake sighed. "Is there anything those two can think about besides their stomachs?" Drake asked laughing a little.
"Dirty things," Duke said smirking. Drake smirked back and they laughed. Perverted monkeys. That may be my new nickname for them along with the nickname I gave them when I first met them, morons.
Nicky rolled her eyes. "Move it you two. I want to get lunch!" Nicky said as she shoved them out of the classroom. We sat at our usual table watching Alex and Matt shoving their quesadillas in their mouths. I took a bite of my chicken wrap and put it down to see Nicky staring at me. I gave her a puzzling look. "So what are we doing to celebrate your glorious seventeenth birthday?" Nicky asked with a big smile.
"When's your birthday?" Matt asked with a grin.
    "This Friday," Duke answered immediately eating a french fri.
    Drake and I gave him a concerning look. "Now you're stalking the girl and her life?" Drake asked a little creeped out.
    Duke rolled his eyes and threw one of his fries at Drake. "She told me this morning, retard," Duke answered with annoyance and a bit of a smirk. I wouldn't be surprised if Duke started stalking me. He's just that creepy.
    I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Um, Gramma and Gramps said to have you guys over and they would order pizza for us," I answered Nicky's question.
Alex slammed his hands on the table making me jump. "No, no, no!" Alex said with excitement. "Don't make your grandparents pay for us. We'll treat you out to dinner!" Alex said excitedly.
I gave him a confused and scared expression. Confused because he's saying they're going to treat me out to dinner. Scared because he slammed his hands hard on the table making me jump ten feet up out of my chair. "Why would I let you guys do that?" I asked. They already do enough for me.
Duke smirked at me. "Because we want to," is all Duke said. I looked at them to see them all staring at me with smiles. "So, what does Ms. Chica want to do for her birthday?" Duke said wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
I stared at his arm that was slung around my shoulder. "Um, I don't know. Get sushi?" I suggested. I haven't had sushi in such a long time.
"Alright, then it's settled," Drake said with a smile. "Sushi on Friday for lunch right after school," Drake said. Nicky and I looked at each other with small smiles. The boys looked at each other in confusion. "Are you having second thoughts on sushi? We can get something else to eat," Drake said.
"No it's not that," I said. They gave me puzzling looks wanting more information. "My birthday is the same day as my parents death. So after school I was planning on going to the cemetery to visit my parents graves," I explained. The boys all looked down at their food. "But, we can get sushi for dinner," I said trying to change their expressions. They looked up at me and had on slight smiles.
    "Okay," Alex said. "What ever makes your birthday the best!" Alex said with a grin. I looked at Duke who had a smirk on his face. These morons really have changed me in some weird way.
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    "So, what do you want for your birthday, Val?" Matt asked me as he, Duke, Drake, and I sat on the floor of the hallway by my locker. I was on my laptop not really listening. It was Wednesday and as today's dark outfit I wore black, skinny ripped jeans, a gray sweater, and white converse. Not too dark but not too light.
    "Hello, Earth to Val," Duke said as he waved his hand in front of my face. I ignored Matt and Duke. Why was I ignoring them? I woke up in a mood and I just wanted to be left alone. I was sitting here by myself, on my laptop looking at college applications and then three out of the four morons come and they have to sit right next to me.
    Drake groaned and shut my laptop down. "Hey, I was doing something important on their!" I yelled at him, placing my laptop in my bag giving up on life already. I don't even know why I'm in a mood all of a sudden. Wait, yes I do. I'm on a new medicine and the symptoms that I would most likely get were mood swings, hunger, hyper, depressed, itchy, cold, you name it. It really sucks having to take medicine everyday.
    "What do you want for your birthday?" Duke asked growing frustrated because I ignored them the first couple of times.
    I let out a breath of air. "I don't know," I said not really caring. "My diary," I said answering their questions with an innocent smile. Now he has to give that back to me.
    "Ha! Nice try but not happening," Duke said as he opened his phone. "Something more reasonable," Duke said. "If you don't tell me what you want I'm buying you whatever my little heart desires," Duke said with an evil grin. Yeah I don't trust that face.
    Okay maybe I should think of something for Duke to get me. If I leave it up to him to figure out what I want for my birthday I know my gift isn't going to be pleasant. He'll most likely get me...things. Just thinking about it makes me want to crawl into a garbage pale and pretend I don't know him. "The new Seventeen album I guess," I said giving them an answer.
    "You're crazy if you think we're flying to Korea to get you your Korean crap," Matt said giving me a weird look.
    I pulled out a book and started reading it. "It's called Amazon Prime. Stuff will come in like two to three days," I explained growing tired of them already.
    "I have Amazon Prime!" Drake said excitedly.
    Duke snapped his fingers. "Then we'll leave it up to you to get K-Pop stuff from the group Thirteen," Duke said messing up the name.
    "Seventeen," I corrected Duke. He shot me a look. "The groups name is Seventeen. Not Thirteen," I said trying to make it clearer for him.
    "But there's only thirteen members. So, shouldn't they be called Thirteen?" Duke asked still confused.
    Growing tired of him I put my book down and stared him dead in the eyes. He looked a little terrified of me. "When they formed the group they had seventeen members. Four of them left before they debuted and they didn't want to change their name to Thirteen. So, the leader of the group, S.Coups, said that the way the they identify themselves as Seventeen is that they are one group, thirteen members, and three units: the hip hop team, the performance team, and the vocals team." I put my book in my book bag and stood up, putting my bag on. "That is why they are called Seventeen and not thirteen. Thirteen plus three plus one equals seventeen. Do the math."
    "Well, I'm sorry that I didn't know the logic behind this magical boy band group," Duke said really not caring.
    "Well, now you do," I said. "Your welcome!"
    Duke shot me a look and I stared at him with a smirk. Drake and Matt looked at each other and started laughing. Duke rolled his eyes at us. "Shut up, you two," Duke said whacking Matt's arm as they continued to laugh.  Something about these four morons really did something to me. In a good way though. I never thought I was going to have this much enjoyment in my life anymore after my parent's death. But, it's like these guys are filling in the emptiness in me.
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"Good morning, Gramma and Gramps," I said as I sat down at the kitchen table. February 5th is today. The day of my birth and the day of my parents death. I actually didn't dress like I'm part of the goths or emos today. I had on maroon, skinny jeans, a white shirt, a denim flannel, white converse, and a couple of bracelets. I left my hair down, naturally straight with a little bit of a wave to it. Gramma and Gramps placed a plate of pancakes in front of me with whip cream, sprinkles, and a bowl of fruit. I stare at the food in front of me with wide eyes. This is my favorite breakfast Gramma makes for me every year on my birthday.
    "Happy Birthday, Valentina!" My grandparents say in unison. I giggle at their excitement. They're always so excite for my birthday that they make it seem like I'm still turning single digits. As we eat our breakfast Gramma puts her fork and knife down and gets up and walks into the living room. She comes back with a birthday bag. "Here's your gift, Val! Nicky helped with the idea," Gramma said.
    I look at them to see them smiling. It must be really good if Nicky helped them with the idea. I open the bag to find a shoe box from Nike. I take it out and when I open it I find a pair of running spikes. Awesome! I really needed a new pair to run on the indoor track. "There's more in the bag," Gramps said smiling.
    I look back at the bag and take out another box with the whole Your Lie in April manga collection. Okay, this was definitely Nicky's suggestion. I get up and hug my grandparents. "Thank you so much, guys!" I put everything back in the bag and get myself ready for school.
    Gramma and Gramps follow me downstairs to the bakery to get it set up. "Oh, Val," Gramma calls. I turn around to see a soft smile on her face. I give her my full attention. "I don't think you should go to the cemetery after school," Gramma said. I give her a questioning look. "It's suppose to be raining today and I'm nervous about having you out in the rain ever since that day," Gramma said referring to the roof incident.
    I stood there staring at Gramma who had on a frown now. I know she doesn't want to see me in the hospital again. And I don't want to stress her out. Gramma and Gramps have been doing an amazing job as playing the role of my parents. I nodded my head. "Okay, thats understandable. I'll just make time later today when it's not raining," I said grabbing the car keys. I walked outside to see Duke sitting by his motorcycle. I smiled at him and waved. "G'morning, moron," I said. See, since we're on 'okay' terms with each other we thought it would be fair to give each other nicknames. My nickname for him and the others is 'moron'. Duke's nickname for me is 'chica'. We're on the road to building a sort of good relationship.
"Happy birthday, chica," Duke said walking over to me. He had his hands behind his back. He pulled out a little pink bag. "Here is your gift," Duke said very princely.
I took it from his hands with a smile. "Thanks a lot, Duke," I said grinning from ear-to-ear. I was about to look in it until I felt a little slap on my hand. What the hell? I looked up at Duke with a puzzled face. He's interrupting me from opening my gift. Who does that to a girl? Then again maybe I shouldn't worry about not opening it because who knows what's in that bag. "What was that for?" I asked with a bit of attitude in my voice.
"Wow, you turn seventeen and we start of the day with attitude," Duke said teasing me. I rolled my eyes and smirked. "How about I give you a birthday ride on my motorcycle?" Duke suggested. Yippee! I was dancing around on the inside. I'm not sure but riding on Duke's motorcycle calms me. I just feel free with the wind blowing around me. Besides that it's really fun!
"Sure!" I said walking over to his motorcycle. We pulled into the parking lot, earning us looks from the other students. They were either giving me weird looks as to why I was riding on Duke's motorcycle, happy birthday looks, or 'I'm sorry that today is the day you lost your parents' look. "What's with all the weird looks?" I asked Duke as we walked onto campus.
"Not sure. They're probably jealous that it's your birthday," he said trying to tease them. Who would be jealous that it's someone's birthday? Everyone turns a year older so I don't see why they would be jealous. The dumb assumptions Duke makes.
As we made our way to my locker I got a lot of 'happy birthdays' from people roaming in the hallway. I got some high fives from the lacrosse, track, and football team. Yeah, I sort of have a name for myself now with the football team ever since I had that huge blow out with Duke in the parking lot. As we make our way to my locker I see Nicky and the three morons standing by my locker all talking. It's good to see Nicky talking to other people now. Alex has his arm around Nicky's shoulder. Scary thing is, she hasn't ripped his arm off yet. Woah, this is a different side of Nicky. Her tips are dyed orange. She has on black jeans, a salmon color shirt that says 'Nerd Alert' on it, her white converse, and her black, thick rimmed glasses. Duke has on black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a dark yellow button down shirt that was left opened.  Matt had on Adidas track pants and a black hoodie that had our school's name and mascot on it. Alex had on denim jeans, a white t-shirt and a red flannel. As for Drake he wore denim jeans, a gray t-shirt, and a black leather jacket.
Nicky turned her attention towards me and Duke and widened her eyes. "Val!" Nicky yelled as she ran over to me with open arms. I hugged her back and we spun around a little. "Happy birthday, dude!" Nicky said as she handed me my gift.
I hugged her when she gave me the gift. "Awe, thanks, Nic!" I said happy. She's like my sister! She's always been there for me and she's part of my family according to Gramma. And I have to agree with Gramma. I couldn't have asked for a better friend.
When I walked to my locker I was greeted by Drake, Alex, and Matt. "Happy birthday, Valentina!" The three of them sung in unison while they held out their gifts. I hugged each of them as they gave me my gifts.
"Awe, thanks, boys!" I said. I explained to them about the changes with me going to the cemetery. We decided that we would grab sushi for lunch and then go back to my house for 'anime Friday.' When school ended we sat outside by the stairs waiting a little while before we left for lunch. I opened everyone's gifts. Duke got me Seventeen's new album. Nicky made me a picture from that had a collage of pictures of me and her throughout the years along with the Black Butler manga series. Drake got me a gift card to Starbucks. Alex got me these socks that had Seventeen members, Vernon, Mingyu, The8, Joshua, and Jun, on them. And Matt got me a gift card to Barnes and Nobles. "Thanks for the gifts, guys!" I said grinning happier than ever.
"Happy birthday, skank," I heard a familiar whore's voice say. I looked to my right to see Madison and her clique walking past me with disgusted looks. At least she said happy birthday instead of something insulting.
"Thanks, Madison," I called out to her. I'm not looking to be friends with her. But I don't want it to be awkward forever.
She turned around with a shocked face. And then she changed that into a 'I don't care' face. "You know just because I said happy birthday to you doesn't mean I want to be friends with you," Madison said, scrunching up her nose in disgust.
I giggled. "I know. But, it's the polite thing to do right," I said smirking at her. Yes, she's going to torture me for the rest of my high school life. But, I can't hide from her for the rest of my life. She rolled her eyes and walked away. I'm pretty sure I saw her blush. Oh ho.
We went out for lunch to get sushi. Of course Matt and Alex had to make comments about the raw fish. And then they started having a sword fight with their chopsticks. Drake looked at them hopelessly while Duke, Nicky, and I laughed at their childish behaviors. We spent the day talking about my parents and watching Soul Eater. When they all left it was getting dark. I stood outside under the canopy of the bakery, folding my arms over my chest. It still hasn't stopped raining. I looked to see that Gramma and Gramps went out. I ran back inside to grab my car keys and rain jacket. I left them a note incase they come back to not see me.
I was not going to end this day without visiting my parents grave. I've been going every year on this day. I wasn't ending it today just because of some rain. I drove over to the cemetery and parked my car on the road right in front of their stone. I got out with my flowers I bring for them every year. I knelt down and place the flowers down. "Hey, guys..." I greeted with tears swelling in my eyes.