Author's Note: It's before Midnight where I am so I can still post this and say I did it on my birthday. This was a birthday present to myself from myself.
10) Twenty-Years-Old
I sat on my sofa in my lounge, looking at the toes of my socks. I sighed and pursed my lips, unsure of what to do. I didn't want to go out—I didn't have anyone to go out with. But I didn't want to stay in. Celebrating alone was no fun.
"I wanna be the very best! Like no one ever was!" my phone sang at top volume. I glanced over at it. Phil's contact photo was giving me a derp face. I smirked and picked it up.
"Hello?" I greeted.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR CASSIE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YYYYYYYOOOOOOOUUUUUU!" two voices belted out. I smiled the whole way through and laughed when Phil in particular exaggerated the ending. I took a couple moments to compose myself and calm my giggles before speaking.
"Thanks you two. You're honestly the first ones to call—but that's probably because my parents aren't awake yet."
My parents were like seven or eight hours behind in a different time zone.
"Awww! Yay!" Phil exclaimed.
"So, Cass, is this your first birthday away from home?" Dan asked.
"Yeah. Or at least, this is the first birthday that I've been alone—like, without my family, I mean," I answered. There were several long moments of silence. I could imagine their faces. They were probably having a sort of silent conversation between themselves.
"You know you can always come over to our place tonight. We may not party but it's better than being alone," Phil offered.
"Thanks guys," I mumbled gratefully.
"I like how she thinks it's a casual invitation," Dan commented sarcastically in the background. "Cassie, sweetheart, you are coming over to our place tonight to celebrate. It won't be a huge party, but we'll go get pizza and a birthday cake and ice cream and play Mario Kart and maybe—just maybe—invite a couple other people. We won't if you're not comfortable with that, but we want you to have a great twentieth birthday." There was a pause. "This is your twentieth birthday, right?"
I chuckled, ignoring the "sweetheart" comment. "Yeah it is," I answered.
Phil laughed as Dan and I engaged in a dramatic pillow fight after I beat him in a round of Super Smash Bros. I had my own pillow up as a shield as Dan kept trying to whack me with his. Phil was just watching. He had completely lost the round—and the only reason I won was because I held out against Dan long enough to get to Sudden Death. And Sudden Death was the only part of Super Smash Bros that I was really good at. I'd beaten him with a one-hit KO—and totally made him angry at me.
I was laughing as I fended off his attacks, before lashing out myself and clocking him in the torso with my own pillow as he raised his above his head to bring it down on me.
The doorbell rang.
All three of us completely froze.
"I'll get it!" Phil exclaimed, hopping off the sofa and rushing out of the lounge. I took a few steps back, away from Dan and his wild but not painful pillow flailing—bumping into one of the dining chairs and making it screech on the floor. I winced at the sound, but didn't have time to dwell on it because I heard Phil closing the front door with his foot. "Pizza's here!"
Dan and I glanced at each other before taking off out of the lounge. "Pizza!" I shouted excitedly, running down the stairs and taking the boxes from Phil's arms. I didn't realize that Dan wasn't right behind me until Phil and I returned to the lounge and he wasn't anywhere in sight. "Where'd Dan go?"
Phil shrugged. "Probably the kitchen to get the kitchen roll." Paper towels, I corrected internally.
"Dan?!" I called through the apartment.
"Yeah?"
"Where did you go?"
He reappeared in the doorway with the roll of paper towels in his hand—and something behind his back. But he just held up the paper towels. "Kitchen roll," he answered.
"What're you hiding?" I demanded.
His hand slid even farther behind his back. "Nothing," he replied too quickly.
"Dan," I said flatly. "I'm twenty, not twelve."
He sighed. "Okay. Fine. You caught me." Dramatically, he pulled some plates out from behind his back. I rolled my eyes as he and Phil broke down laughing. I totally should have known he'd be a sneaky and cheeky idiot like that.
The three of us ate our pizza while we talked and laughed. I was having fun. Sure it would have been more fun if my family and friends had been there too, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I was just grateful that not just one person, but two people wanted to celebrate my birthday with me—so I wouldn't be going to somewhere like Shake Away alone and then drinking my milkshake in silence and darkness in the solitude of my flat. I liked being alone—I was a notorious introvert—but there were days when I wanted to be with people. And my birthday was one of them.
"So, Cass," Phil started seriously. "You've now been on the planet for two decades. How does that feel?"
I chuckled contemplatively. "Well, I've experienced a lot, but not as much as I would have thought when I was a kid. I can definitely say I've enjoyed my life. I have great parents and great friends, and I think I've become a good person. I like being who I am, and I've learned to love myself and be confident—even in the face of Anon hate on the internet. Not that I've gotten much." I looked at Phil seriously, even if I couldn't hold back my smile. "But what about you, Mr. Lester? You're going to be thirty in a little over two months!"
"Yeah… but today's not about me! It's about you," Phil retorted.
Once the pizza was finished, Dan FaceTimed my parents and they all sang happy birthday to me. I blushed and looked down at my plate. Phil dodged out of the lounge and returned after a few moments of my parents telling me they loved me and wishing me the best birthday with a birthday cake a tub of chocolate ice cream—my favorite.
The cake said, HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY CASS! The exclamation point had a heart instead of a dot.
My parents hung up the FaceTime call so that "us kiddies could eat our cake". Which we did. Gladly. It wasn't as good as it would have been if my mom had made it, but it was still absolutely delicious. I'd definitely needed a proper cake.
Since there were only three of us, there was plenty of it leftover. We'd split it into three parts later so we could eat more as leftovers.
We also ate the ice cream with whatever toppings they had in the house and Phil hadn't eaten yet. The three of us chatted about everything we could think of off the top of our heads—the health of Phil's houseplants, the birth and death of stars (a discussion largely dominated by me rambling about how much I loved space), our expectations for The Incredibles II, and Dan's various existential questions. I couldn't help but grin as my lips got sticky from the chocolate syrup and my brain froze from the chill of the ice cream.
"I'll be right back," Dan commented as he finished his ice cream first, getting up from the dining table where we'd taken up residence.
"Mm," I acknowledged around a mouthful of chocolate, figuring he was just going to the bathroom. Phil put a caramel-sauce-covered spoonful of ice cream into his mouth at the same time and raised his spoon so Dan knew that he'd been heard.
But Dan went right instead of left, heading towards his and Phil's rooms.
Maybe he was just getting cold from the ice cream and the autumn air and going to go retrieve on of the many onesies that he and Phil owned for whatever reasons.
But he surprised me and came back with two paper gift bags. One was obviously from Phil—it was bright blue with haphazard wrapping paper sticking out of the top—and the other one was definitely from Dan. It was a black bag with little silver stars all over it and silver tissue paper poking out of the opening. I sighed heavily.
"Didn't I say something about no gifts?" I asked.
"Nope. You said no such thing," Phil put in decisively.
My eyebrows scrunched. "Really? I could have sworn I told you something last week—"
"You didn't," Phil insisted.
"You don't have to do this."
"We know," Dan put in before his flatmate could say anything. "We wanted to, Cassie." He set the bags down in front of me and went over to the bookshelf next to the mantle. Tilting up onto his tiptoes, he pulled down a small little box with a ribbon wrapped around it that I hadn't noticed before. He set it on the table so that it joined the two gift bags. "Louise, Baby Glitter, Zoe, and Alfie all sent this to us to give to you," he explained.
"Why are you all doing this?"
"You don't have family here, so we're being your family," Phil answered.
"Open them!" Dan pressed, pulling his phone out and starting to film it. I rolled my eyes and picked up the box first.
Gently I tugged the ribbon's bow until it untied and pulled the lid off.
Inside was a pair of beautiful earrings. They were silver, not dangly, with heart-shaped fake diamonds. My mouth dropped open and I put my free hand on my heart. "You guys!" I exclaimed, touched, looking up at Dan's camera. "Thank you all! I love them! They're beautiful!"
"Mine next!" Phil exclaimed, pushing the colorful bag towards me. I chuckled and picked it up.
After pulling the haphazard wrapping paper out of the top, I saw an oddly-shaped package wrapped in more paper in the bottom of the bag. I reached in and pulled out the lumpy, messily-wrapped gift out of the bag. Dan started laughing at Phil's wrapping job, but I wasn't paying attention to the boys. After a moment of turning it over and over in an effort to find a seam in the paper for ease of opening, I gave up and just ripped it open on one of the crinkled spots.
A roll of green cloth landed in my hand. I pinched part of it and held it up, making it unfurl.
"Oh my gosh! A new T-shirt!" I squealed excitedly. My free hand clapped over my mouth as I caught sight of the design when I turned the shirt around since I was looking at the back of it. "It's a Slytherin T-shirt!" I leaned across the table and gave Phil a tight hug. "Thank you so much! It's awesome! I love it!"
Phil chuckled and squeezed me. "Glad you like it," he murmured quietly in my ear.
When I sat down, Dan gently nudged his gift closer to me with his free hand.
He was blushing.
That made me curious. What was he embarrassed about? Was it from embarrassment? Or was the blush because of something else?
Eagerly I pulled the silver tissue paper out of the starry paper bag and reached in. The backs of my fingers brushed something soft. I put my arm in a little bit more until my fingers curled around something that felt like velvet. I pulled out a small box with rounded edges and corners that I recognized as being the kind that held jewelry—everything from rings to bracelets to earrings to necklaces. I glanced up at Dan curiously. He was still blushing, hiding behind his phone.
Biting my lower lip, I slowly pulled the lid of the box up.
Sitting in the cushion was a silver ring with three circular black stones in the setting—two smaller ones on either side of the larger middle one. I felt tears prickle at the corners of my eyes and I looked at Dan again. "It's beautiful!" I exclaimed.
He gave me a smile. "I know it's not the same as the one you lost when we went to that concert—" he started.
I cut him off. "No it's amazing! Thank you so much!"
Dan reached past the camera and pulled it out of the box to slide it on my right hand's ring finger—like he'd proposed to me or something. It fit a bit more snugly than the ring that I'd lost at the concert, but it still fit. The one I'd lost had been silver with a small blue circular stone that wasn't particularly valuable—I'd just worn it as an outfit enhancer—but I had felt bad when I lost it. The black stones gave off a faint shimmer in the light from the chandelier in Dan and Phil's lounge as I blinked tears away.
I stood up from the dining chair so abruptly that I knocked it over with the backs of my knees and threw my arms around Dan's neck, despite him being more than a foot taller than me. I felt him bend down to be on my level and wrap his arms around my waist, holding me tightly even though I was squeezing him so hard I was probably cutting off his windpipe.
"Thank you," I whispered in his ear.
"You're so welcome," Dan replied quietly.
"Cass, you missed something in Dan's bag," Phil remarked from behind us, where he had bent down to pick the dining chair back up.
I let go of Dan and gave him a curious look. His ears had turned slightly pink and the little rosy patch of skin that he sometimes got on his right cheek turned from a pale shade to a deeper one. I turned back to the bag and peered inside.
Resting on the bottom, under where the velvet box had been, was a little piece of thick paper—about the size of a business card—sitting facedown. I reached in and extracted it, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger. Once I set the black bag back down on the table, I flipped the little card over to see what was on it.
You, Cass, are hereby invited to join Dan Howell for dinner on any evening of your choice.
The black letters were—thankfully—not in Comic Sans, but they were surrounded by a pretty design that looked a bit like twining vines.
I gave him a sidearm hug. "I plan on taking you up on this offer," I commented.
Dan rested his chin on the top of my head. "Good."
Phil came over and he and Dan wrapped me up in a hug from both sides. "Happy Birthday, Cass."
"Thanks you two. You have no idea how much I needed this!"
End Note: Couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than with the two men I look up to so much! XD
Thanks for reading! Have a great week!