Okay, so for the next few months Travis and I were dating. If that's what you call not kissing, but more like him flirting with me and every other girl in the school except Kristin because apparently Zach got to her first and they hooked up.

"Hey Z!" It was December, the middle of the year, and today had just happened to be my birthday.

"Hey Travis. What's up?" I smiled a little as he hugged me, and then pulled out a medium-sized box, handing it to me.

"Happy Birthday!" I blushed, hating the attention.

"Thanks!" Hell, it was nice, so I sucked it up and opened it. Inside, under all the pretty paper, there was a small black box.

"Wait!" Travis said, and I looked up. "Card first." He handed me a clearly hand-made card that had 'Zoey' on the cover. I opened it and a $25 iTunes gift card fell out, I caught it and read the card. Very simply it said 'Zoey, Happy 17th Birthday –Travis'.

"Thanks Travis, this is really sweet." I smiled.

"Now for the main event." He looked pointedly at the box. Sighing, I opened it to find a pair of custom-made earphones, specifically made for iPods. They were a smoke-y color with red swirls and a black wire. My favorite colors.

"Oh, my god," I breathed. I hugged Travis. "They're perfect!! Thank you!!!" I grinned.

"Let's face it Zo, you NEED new head phones, I mean, look!" He pulled one of my much-abused headphones from my ear, where they were 99.9% of the time. These were broken, taped up and most of the wires were showing. It was pretty sad.

"What? I like my music."

"Like!? Zoey, face it, you should go to music rehab, that's how addicted you are." I grinned.

"Psh, no!" I stuck my tongue out at him.

"And the best part is that these have a life-time warranty and are virtually everything-proof. So they won't turn out like these." I took out my old headphones and shoved them in my bag, while putting the new, prettier, headphones into my beaten-up, not-so-pretty iPod. It was like a match-made in heaven. I smiled and started listening, the standard earphone try-out. The music was crystal-clear and I could hear EVERYTHING.

"So? Do you like them?" Travis asked.

"Like them? No." His face fell. "Love them, yes." I smiled, and he grinned.

"Really?"

"DUH! These are like, my favorite colors!!" And they were. Travis grinned again, clearly relieved that I liked his gift.

"And, I can hear everything!!" I smiled, pausing to try and figure out what I was listening to, it was Shinedown.

"So, you really like them?"

"Travis, quit second-guessing yourself, its perfect." I smiled.

"Okay, okay." He smiled back, just as Kristin and Zach walked over.

"Happy Birthday Zoey!!!" Kristin squealed, hugging me.

"Thanks Kris." I smiled, and she handed me a card, which I opened, and another iTunes card fell out. The card said HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOEY!!! YOUR BFFLAD KRISTIN! In big swirly print.

"Thanks Kris." I hugged her. She grinned. The bell rang, and we said bye to the guys and left for our homerooms.

"So what'd Travis get you?" I showed her my headphones.

"Wow. That's big Z, he got you to get rid of those pieces of crap you called headphones!"

"Oh, shut up! And they are not crap, they've got amazingly good quality thank you very much."

"Quality schmality. Zoey, those headphones are crap." I sighed, shaking my head.