Middle Child

Birthday

After the awkwardness and pain of going to school for another week, I wake up Monday morning and realize it's my birthday. 'Great' I think to myself. I walk into the living room and I vaguely hear shouting.

"I'm in 8th grade, I don't need a baby-sitter!" I heard my brother yell.

"I don't care how old you are, you're still incredibly immature, you can hardly take care of yourself for 10 minutes, let alone 3 hours!" I heard my mom yell back.

My brother stomped past me, pushing me into the wall. Trying to wrap my head around what happened, I walk into the kitchen to get breakfast. "Hi mom." I murmur. She doesn't even look up from her phone as I walk past her.

I took out a bowl of lucky charms and start to eat my breakfast. "Mom?" I say. She looks up at me noticing that I was in the room, "Y-Yes sweetie." she mumbles. "What were you and Danny fighting about?" I ask, she looks at me surprised that I had heard their fight, "I just have a business conference tonight and I'm getting you guys a babysitter." she says. I was a little sad that she had forgot my birthday and all I could manage to say was "Oh."

I finish up my breakfast and get ready for school. "Time to leave!" I hear my mom yell. I quickly grab my bag and head out the door. Danny was already in the front seat, probably brooding about not getting enough likes on his instagram story or something like that.

We arrive at school and Danny and I hope out of the car and head to our first period. I walk up to Mr. Lerangis' class and I go on my phone waiting for class to start. "Amber." I hear someone mumble. I look up and see Drew holding a card. "Yeah" I reply, "This is for you" he says while handing me the card. The bell rings and we head inside, I open up the card and I see in big bubble letters 'Happy Birthday'. I look up and see Drew smiling at me. I was about to ask him how he knew, when Mr. Lerangis started his lecture.

I tried to focus, but for the rest of the class I kept eyeing Drew, maybe he wasn't such a jerk after all. still, I didn't understand how he knew it was my birthday or why he cared. He was known by everyone in the school and I was the school looser. Occasionally Drew would catch me staring, and I always blushed and looked away nervously.

When the bell rang, I packed my stuff and said "How did you know it was my birthday?". He looked at me with a smirk on his face and said "London told me in 5th grade". I was shocked that he still remembered. "I heard about your guys' fight, I thought you should know that I'm on your side" he said. "Why?" I replied, he looked at me and smiled "London never was who she appeared to be." and he left.

I go to the rest of my classes reminiscing on what Drew said. He couldn't be right, he was probably just messing with me. Still, he was the only one who remembered my birthday. Before I know it, it's time for lunch. I head into the cafeteria and sit in my usual spot. I eat my sandwich while looking at London, hoping that she would come sit next to me, apologize and that we could be friends again and laugh at how weird and dumb Drew was.

However, she caught me looking and looked at me  and for a couple seconds I thought she was going to come back and everything was going to go back to normal. She just turned away and kept talking to her friends. I felt my cheeks start to burn and my eyes start to swell up. I head to the bathroom to try and save myself from total humiliation. As I'm walking back to my seat, I see London and a couple kore popular kids all snickering and looking at me. I just wanted to eat my lunch in peace, I sit down *Squish* I felt something cold under me. I get up to see that I had sat on a Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The last thing I remember before running out of the cafeteria was London and her friends laughing at me.