12. Craig was not getting a birthday party, birthday presents, a birthday this year. His grandmother had died a month before and left him alone to (try to) move on. He stared outside his window and watched stars. He stared and he wondered if people really forgot things like dying and birthdays and other people. He wondered why no one seemed to remember (him) his birthday.

13. Craig was offered a trip to the movie theatre with his friends (Token) treating him to a nice birthday, to care, to friendship that Craig could not really, fully understand. He wanted to go, but there was a difference between want and could. He told them he did not want to go. He lied. He always lied.

(His dad said no.)

14. Craig was going to spend the whole night stargazing alone. He was not allowed to really celebrate another year of being (himself) alive. He had to stay home. He had to escape. He had to disappear in wishes that he knew would not come true and stars and their sketched constellations. He wanted to touch them, feel them on his fingertips. He wanted to burn and to burst into stardust so no one would recognise (the fuckups) him. He wanted to know that he was alive and what it meant to feel happiness behind a smile.

15. This year someone had climbed onto the roof with him. Bright orange and twinkling-starfire-blue eyes and hidden smiles in the moonlight. Birthday wishes whispered on the wind.

Craig did not invite him. He had not needed to.

16. Kenny sneaked him out of the house that night through his cracked bedroom window. He helped Craig down from the windowsill to crashing into his arms as they both avoided the scratching limbs of a frozen tree. Kenny had laughed, and Craig had felt a feeling he wanted to keep feeling even if it meant he had to let Kenny drag him to the pond and make broken, shabby snow angels. Kenny told him they were going to fly away to the stars.

17. Craig has a black eye. There are cuts and bruises and a broken rib. He cannot feel the pain anymore. He has numbed himself with falling snow draping him in a powdery veil. He has fooled himself to believing in anything but where he was. He wants to drown in the snow and the stars and dead dreams.

He wants to drown in the smile that greets him from across the street before orange assaults his eyes right in front of him. He wants to grab his hand and let him take him to wherever he just happened to want to go. He wants to feel that happiness again. That feeling that he could not identify but wanted to keep feeling.

He grabs his hand.

18. This is the first time Craig has ever gotten a present from brown-gloved hands and bluefire eyes. This is the first time he has felt a real smile creep on his face over something as trivial as Red Hots and a small two-worded sentence that could mean everything (if he just let it).

This was the first time he was kissed like that.

Heartstopping,

Lungceasing,

Dying,

Electrifying,

kiss that drove him breathless, to slow realisation that baby-skies and stars were looking at him from their place encased in blue-eyes and that they were for him, wanted him, cared about him.

19. Craig is sitting on the couch with a cat at his feet and honey blond hair tickling his almost bare legs. He is watching cartoons over a box of Red Hots and a can of Dr. Pepper that Kenny drinks too much of. He is comfortable and that feeling he did not want to go has not just yet. He hopes the stars grant his wish this one time. That they

"Hey Craig?"

Craig stopped thinking about nothing that meant too much of anything and his gaze met the one who had called his attention. He was about to open his mouth and ask what he had been called for when suddenly slender fingers pulled his face closer and lips met into a chaste kiss, that somehow, despite its length remained perfectly innocent. Kenny smiled when they parted, his eyes glittering all the words I could never manage to squeeze into every day.

"Happy birthday."