September tenth, his birthday. David Parsons loved celebrating his birthday. When in his older teenage years, he celebrated his birthday twice: once with his mother and another time with his school's soccer team. With his mother, he refrained from wild celebrations to connect with her on a personal basis; as the only child of a single parent, he came to appreciate the closeness of a relationship and learned not to give it up for granted. But with his mates on the soccer team, all closeness faded the moment his sensory needs were met with the blasting music, the wild car-rides, and the smuggled alcoholic beverages. David was the kind of boy who could flip flop from his tender side to his raving crazy side and back at will.
But in college, David participated less in the pure energy of the atmosphere, as not only was he an athlete stretched past his limits during practice and games, but his Chemistry homework took whatever energy that was left and squashed it until he had no choice but to succumb to exhaustion around ten o'clock and fall into bed.
On this particular night, September tenth to be precise, David held a textbook open in his hands and sat cross legged on his bed. His eyes scanned over the same paragraph time and time again, hoping to understand a little better with each reread. However, the longer he reread, the more frustrated he grew with the swimming words in his mind's eye, completely unattached to meaning. His struggle to attach words to some meaning he did not have worsened his mood which worsened his ability to see the words on the page which worsened his ability to comprehend anything he still was able to see. He shut the book with a snap and hurled it to the ground. Its spine hit the tiles and its covers bounced open and the pages fanned out like a peacock's tail.
"Fucking chemistry," David growled under his breath. He glared at the textbook, hoping that by some twist of fate he would suddenly develop the powers of laser vision to incinerate the paper. Unfortunately for his mental health, no such powers manifested. Begrudgingly, David slipped off the bed onto his woollen socks to retrieve the textbook. He had homework to muster through, and even if it killed him (which he was certain it would), he wasn't going to slack off and go with the flow like he did in high school. The days of settling for B pluses were behind him; if he could put in the extra time to sharpen his soccer skills, he could afford to put in the same amount of dedication into his academics.
"All or nothing," he muttered to himself as he bent over to scoop the textbook off the ground.
His fingertips made contact with the book, and the door burst open. He scrambled to look up yet in his alarm ended up tripping over his own feet and landing on the floor. His elbow like a gong rang upon crashing into the floor.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" a chorus of voices screamed. In charged a brigade of people, at least three college-aged boys, one of which made no hesitation to run behind David, grab his arms, and jerk him up to his feet. After a moment to find his balance, David gaped at the two in front of him and then circled around to gape at the one behind.
"Jesus Christ, Bradley," he said to the one at his six. "Tone it down, man!"
Bradley's face contorted into a devilish smirk. "What a lame kind of surprise party would that be?" he argued back.
"This," David said, circling his hand in the room to point out the entire situation, "is not surprise party. This is an ambush, is what it is. You ambushed me."
"Oh, come on." Bradley punched David in the shoulder. "Stop using fancy words like 'ambush' and whatever and start enjoying."
David frowned – since when had 'ambush' been considered a fancy word? – and mustered in a breath. He glanced back at the other two in front of the dorm door, which still stood open. They were also his teammates from the varsity soccer team, Wally and Diego. David released his brow from the frown he had condemned it to form. He straightened up a little.
"What am I supposed to be enjoying? What party?" he challenged.
"He's such a killjoy," remarked Bradley to the boys by the doorway. To David, he said, "the one we're throwing for you right now. My brother's apartment."
"Hmm, yeah, you're throwing it right exactly now?" countered David.
Bradley plunged on with his description of the party; "Don't worry, I got the official say so, I know you're a stickler for courtesy or whatever, and he even left a ton of booze for us before he went away for the weekend with his girlfriend." His smile was lopsided and if David didn't know his friend any better, he might be inclined to think him already drunk. "It'll so beat fucking last year."
Between celebrating David's favourite day of the year and the opposing option with complex chemical formulas and depressing drab white walls boxing him in, the decision was obvious. One option, David should take. The other option, he wanted to take. But this was the prime of his life, why waste it on black on white text and the mature decision of going to bed at ten-thirty no exceptions? Why couldn't he go a little crazy with his friends, form memories to last a lifetime? This was his chance to live without fear of the repercussions.
"What the hell," David decided, grinning from ear to ear. "I have a whole semester ahead to worry about chemistry."
"That's the spirit," said Bradley, punching David in the arm again.
"If you punch me in the arm again," David threatened.
"You'd what?"
"I'll beat the shit out of you, that's what."
"Wanna bet?"
A smirk traversed David's face. He shrugged. "Nah. You couldn't catch me anyway." Twisting on the spot, he kicked into a sprint, shot out the door, and pelted down the hallway. Judging by the footsteps behind him, Bradley was hot on his heels.