A Birthday Scramble

Birthdays are in my opinion a very vain event. A party is thrown to celebrate your existence once a year for every year that you allow or perpetuate it. Some people love birthdays and spend their parties amongst the people that love them. You eat cake, people buy you gifts, and everyone in that room is there to see you. That’s how a birthday would go for most everyone but me. I am beyond positive that I am birthday cursed. Hurricanes, fights, family disasters, nearly being struck by lightening, salmonella poisoning, finding out the hotel booked for you and six friends in Winter Park is actually in the ghetto and only has one bed, being harassed by the homeless, and that time my mom thought it was a good and interactive idea to let everyone open my gifts for me as I watched teary eyed; this is just a sample of the awful things that seem to happened to me on my birthday. But each year I forget the troubles of the years past and hopefully counted down the days until August 26 rolled around. My family was going out of town and told me I could throw a birthday party at the house, and that I was to act responsibly. Well I did act responsibly but I may have been the only one. At first everything was going unusually well. So many people showed up and everyone was having an awesome time. All of my friends as different as some groups are were mixing unbelievably well. I along with 90% of the party was completely wasted. People played beer bong in my dinning room and I danced and sang to the Format at the top of my lungs in the living room. PC was invited and did show up but for some reason we hadn’t seen each other much of the night. He was too busy trying to drunkenly grill in the dark. More lighter fluid is NEVER the safe answer. I was too drunk to notice M.E.S.S. shooting PC mean looks all night. If I had noticed I wouldn’t have understood why until much later. Then the night reached it’s wild peak. You know that part of the night where the volume of everyone’s speech is turned to its highest? Where girls are taking body shots off of everyone and making out with each other for attention? I remember opening a door to go downstairs and seeing M.E.S.S. straddling a boy on a chair making out with him in the dark. I was ready to escape. I kept talking to myself. Yelling “what do you all think you’re doing? Do you know who I am? Why are you all being so cheap and gross at my birthday party? No I don’t want to make out with her! ” I went to sit in my parents room with a friend to talk but a few minutes later PC and two girls (one being someone I worked with who formerly proclaimed her hatred for him) stumbled into the room and jumped on the bed acting completely oblivious to mine and my friends presence. Then I did what I do best while drinking. I wandered off into my room to listen to Billy Joel records by myself and wait for someone to notice that I’m missing and come find me. I sat in the room by myself for over and hour and nobody came. So I decided I was over it. I got into my pjs and tried and go to sleep. I couldn’t have cared less at that moment if everyone else in my house spontaneously combusted. The one day a year that I was suppose to matter everyone forgot about me, and I wanted to forget about them. I didn’t get to sleep because the volume got turned up again, and this time they were yelling about PC. I got out of bed to see what was going on. I was stopped in the hallway and told not to go into my parents room. Of course this warning prompted me to swing the door open to find PC and my work friend making out in my parents bed. “Fucking Great.” I stormed off to my room to find a normally prudent and reserved friend making out with some boy that M.E.S.S. had invited. I decided to confront PC about what I had just seen, but when I went to open the door again found that it had been locked. So I did what any rational demure drunk girl would do…I banged on the door and swore and screamed and demanded that “you son of a bitch, worthless two faced fuck of a man better open the goddamn door before I go grab a tool kit and unhinge it off it’s frame and kill you! You liar. You. You. You. Why are you always doing this?” Eventually the door opened and I could tell from the look on his face that he was immediate tuning me out. I told him to get out. I told him to never look at me again. To never speak to me again. I told him he was nothing and that I had used all the strength I had to help him but I had nothing left. And then I walked away. I walked out of my house to sit by myself in my car. On the way out I told a group of boys to make sure that PC didn’t drive himself home. That he could walk, crawl, catch a ride with a stranger for all I cared, but to not let him drive drunk. I didn’t need him wrapping his car around a telephone pole. I don’t know how long I sat in my car for. My concept of time was very off and I was unnecessarily intoxicated. I had been walking around all evening finishing random drinks that people left out. (I know this entire story is told in several confusing and choppy stages, but in my defense it happened over a year ago while I was drunk.) M.E.S.S. came to the window of my car and told me she was going to beat up the girl PC had kissed. She said “How could she do that to you on your birthday? That slut. That traitor. I never liked her but you said give the girl a chance. And see what she did. She knew how much you cared about him.” My mind couldn’t process any of this. I told M.E.S.S. to leave the girl alone and that we’d deal with it later. And that she shouldn’t dare to hit her. That none of this was worth the threats or the tears. Eventually I was coerced back inside, all the time thinking PC was gone. I sat on the floor of my bedroom until there was a knock at my door. It was him. He said he wanted to speak to me in private. So I followed him into my parents room and he locked the door behind us.