Never in a Month of Sundays

003: The Uninvited Guest

It was very unusual. The house was dark and not even a single light was gleaming.

It was when I had gotten out of Gene's car that I noticed that the whole house was engulfed by darkness and not a single light was up to illuminate the place. Was there a power outage? Impossible! The house next to us was bright with light bulbs open. Were we behind our bills? That too was impossible from happening.

"Mom!! Manang Cecil!!" I cried. I panicked almost immediately when I thought that there might be something bad that was happening inside the house. I didn't want to think negatively but in times like this, I couldn't help myself.

"Gene, let's hurry!" I didn't wait for her respond. Feeling like a cat on hot bricks, I hurried my way to the main door. I dialed my mother's number, but to no avail. My mother's phone was always active and only turned off in rare occasions; if battery was drain was one of the few. Panic seized me and it grew more as I got closer to the door.

I gently turned the doorknob when I finally made it and to my surprise, it wasn't locked. Cautiously, I slid my body to the slightly open door.

All the lights flickered on as soon as I had myself entered inside. Everyone in there, including Gene, was yelling "SURPRISE" and confetti from everywhere flew in the air.

I had no sign of health problems but I nearly had a heart attack. I turned my head to see Gene. I saw a huge grin glued on her face as she scratched the back of her head. I guess, everyone in this house was part of this orchestrated plan to surprise me and they got me. I was totally surprised.

I should have gotten the idea of this after noticing couple of unfamiliar cars parked on the driveway. I was distracted by the negative thought of earlier and hadn't paid much attention about it.

I looked at my mom's direction. She was approaching me with her arms wide open. "Welcome back, honey!"

I thought I made myself clear when I said that I didn't need party at all. Obviously, they didn't listen to my request and still pushed with their great plans even without my consent. But truthfully, I wasn't upset. I was rather ecstatic. I hugged my mother tenderly and dug my head in the crook of her neck.

We only had few visitors but quite enough to stuff the whole house.

Most of my relatives were there to welcome me. They knew about my transformation but seeing me in person simply left them speechless. Words of praises were all I heard and I couldn't thank them enough for appreciating me.

Madel invited few of her classmates and friends. They took a lot of pictures and even asked for my autograph. I never imagined me as a celebrity but that was far from what it seemed. This event turned out to be a meet and greet and these people were too excited to see me up close.

I could see on everyone's face that they were all excited to see me and I found it amusing to realize that there were people who were happy seeing me again.

The party went well and I didn't expect that I would enjoy this party that much. When it was almost midnight, there were only few visitors left in the house. Madel's classmates had left and Gene had to leave since she had important matters to deal with the next morning.

"Finley, can you join us?" Nate invited. The party was for me so I had to accommodate the request.

I trailed behind him as he led the way. They were at the table near pool. He had five invited guests and I recognized them shortly since we lived in the same village and happened to be my childhood friends. Except for one. The guy who was steadily gazing at me that made me frantic.

"This is Jake, Mike, Dan and Abby." Nate introduced when we reached them.

"You know them since we live in the same neighbor. And this is Brix, you haven't gotten a chance to meet him since you'd left when they moved here."