Unforgettable

Part 12

Natalie

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Lera-a-a-a-a, happy birthday to you!"

Lera stirrs from her sleep when Melanie blows a party kazoo in her ear. She shoots up suddenly, holding her ear in her hand, alarm written across her face. And she screams... loudly. Oops.

Once she realizes it's us, her face softens, and she start giggling.

We look like idiots standing around in our little room. We've all got party hats donning our heads, and I'm holding 10 balloons between both my hands. Persephone has an extra party hat for Lera in her hand and... well... Melanie elected herself as the official kazoo-blowing-person. Totally surprised.

Lera pushes her duvet down, and clambers out of bed, planting her feet into her slippers before she comes over to me. She wraps her arms around my neck, bringing me into a tight hug. She moves to Persephone next, who places the hat on her head before reaching out to hug her as well. Melanie stands at the end of our crammed line, bringing Lera into her arms as they near each other.

"You guys didn't have to do all of this!" Lera exclaims, her eyes darting from the balloons to the odd decorations that we put around the room when she was still asleep.

"Oh come on, you know we did. You did it for both of us, and the only reason we didn't do it last year was because we knew your cranky fuck of a roommate would've skinned us alive if we did." Melanie rambles, throwing the kazoo's in every direction until we're all armed with at least 2 each.

Lera just laughs as she continues to survey the room around her. We've strung colorful streamers all around the room, stemming from the doorway all the way to our beds. I'm actually really impressed at how we managed to get all this done without Lera waking up in the middle of our decoration session.

Our attentions turn to our doorknob as it jiggles suddenly. The door gives way, and a tall man can be seen at the outside of the door. Melanie grabs her kazoo, and motions for us to do the same as the man steps inside our crowded dorm room.

Christian steps back in shock at the force of our 4 kazoo's being blown at him, before he laughs loudly. He shuts the door behind us, his hands armed with a large gift box and a bunch of flowers.

"Wow, are you guys trying to wake up the whole building or something?" he jokes, his eyes never leaving Lera as he walks over to her. She smiles up at him as he reaches her, before standing on her tip toes and pressing a kiss to his lips.

"Happy birthday, Dreamy." he says, handing her the flowers as he tucks a strand of her messy hair behind her ear.

"Thankyou Christian, you didn't have to come here this early." she replies as she rustles around our small cabinets in search of a vase. She finds one close to the front, as Christian's frequent flower deliveries have left it in high demand.

"Of course I did, my girls 20! No longer a teenager in love with her childhood crush, but now an adult in love with her childhood crush!" he gushes sarcastically, receiving a kick in the back of his knee from the woman of the moment. He pretends to stumble over, before his arms find her waist, holding her close to him. Melanie makes a pretend puking sound, making them pull away from each other.

"Okay, presents time." Melanie announces, as she sits down on my bed. Persephone and I follow her, leaving Lera and Christian to sit on her bed.

Lera reaches for Melanie's gift first, a small square shaped box wrapped in blue tissue paper. Lera unwraps the gift slowly, before lifting out a black box. She opens the lid, pulling out 4 rectangular pieces of paper. She laughs, before flashing the tickets in our direction.