"Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Anna,
Happy Birthday to you!"
Anna couldn't believe it. Was she sixteen already?
Her small group of friends sat around the table, beaming at her. All her old friends had abandoned her after she became pregnant, but her new ones were even better. There were nowhere near as many, but at least she knew they were honest, not phonies like the rich girls she used to hang out with.
Aimee, Garth, Cath, Haley and of course, Julia, sat around beaming at her.
"Now Anna, we all pitched in to buy you one present, and we hope you like it!" Cath said as Garth put the huge package on the table. Anna had been eyeing it all morning.
If she was at her father's house right now, they would be running around making preparations for a huge party to celebrate. As it was, Anna preferred sitting in Downtown Upbeat with the few people who really cared about her.
She opened the parcel eagerly.
"Oh my god! You guys!" she exclaimed, her smile getting even wider.
"Well, I hope it comes in handy," Garth replied, beaming.
It was a piano. Well, a keyboard actually. But still, she had her own piano to practice on now. She couldn't be happier.
Cath winked at her and handed her a slip of paper.
"This one's just from me, hon. I hope you make good use of it."
Anna unfolded the paper. There, in Cath's scribbled handwriting, was the recipe for cookies.
"This is the best birthday ever," she said happily.
There was a letter waiting for her when she got home.
She tore it open.
"Dear Anna, happy birthday.
From someone who cares."
That was all it said.
"Aimee?" she called.
"What?"
"Do you know who this is from?" Anna handed her the note.
"No. Come on, I got the keyboard set up. Come and play something for me, okay?"
Anna smiled and left the note on the little table. She soon forgot all about it.
"Come on, we're nearly there…""Where are you taking me?"
"Here." Immortal Street. Chris held her hand and they walked down it together. It was completely deserted.
"You see Anna? It's not so bad."
"What are you talking about?"
"This moment. Watch." He instructed her. There was Anna, sat on a bench, minding her own business. There was Chris, walking along, mini=ding his own business.
Anna couldn't tear her eyes away as she watched the whole horrible scene unfold before her. She was forced to watch Chris fall lifelessly to the floor again. How many times was she going to be forced to go through this?
"You see. It is really your fault after all," Chris said to her.
"What?"
"Play pretend, Anna. Let's play pretend. Let's act like you weren't there, like you didn't tell them who I was, like it wasn't your own frikkin father who told them to kill me in the first place! That's right, Anna. Play pretend." He started laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" she asked, taken aback by his behaviour.
"It's frikkin hysterical, Anna. Don't you get it? You killed me! You killed me!" The world around her faded.
She woke up in a cold sweat, shaking all over.
'Just a dream, nothing more than a dream…' she thought, trying to get rid of it from her mind. But she couldn't. That wasn't Chris…that horrible, hysterical man wasn't Chris. He was someone else. He had to be.
"Anyway," she whispered, "What does it matter? It was just a dream anyway."
She checked the clock. It was three in the morning. And a Monday. How depressing.
She couldn't go back to sleep, not now. Instead she crept downstairs to where her piano was. She plugged the headphones in so as not to wake Aimee, and began to play.
For the first time in her life, Anna was writing her own song. She didn't know whether or not she would actually play it for anybody; she just wanted to write her feelings down. Maybe that would be enough.
She didn't want to sing it, for fear of waking Aimee. Instead, she hummed it softly under her breath. She could sing; it was another of those mandatory lessons all Mackenzie girls had to take. She let the words pour out from her being; swallowing her up. They were real, they were true.
'Just another Monday morning
Wake up and see the sky
Try to forget my life, what's happening
And just try to get by
Let's play pretend
Like it never happened
Try to forget you,
Banish you from my mind.
Let's play pretend
Like you never existed
Like you never left
Like I never loved you.
Another day, a new beginning
Another opportunity
To be stupid, to be young
To close our eyes and never see
Close your eyes,
Then maybe it won't happen anymore
Close your eyes
Maybe you'll exist again
Let's pretend we were important
Pretend we mattered
Pretend we won't disappear and never be missed
Let's play pretend
Like it never happened
Try to forget you,
Banish you from my mind.
Let's play pretend
Like you never existed
Like you never left
Like I never loved you.'
She finished her song. There, she felt a lot better now. She even liked the tune she had come up with. So what if nobody else would ever hear it? It was her special secret, her own private thoughts. She even had a name for it; "Let's Play Pretend".
She heard Julia begin to wail. She ran upstairs before she woke Aimee and began to rock her back to sleep.
She found that she was singing her song. That only seemed to make Julia cry harder.
"Shhhh. It wasn't that bad, was it?" Anna asked, cuddling Julia against her.
"My little girl…we'll make it, the two of us, won't we? You and me together. We'll show them all, won't we?" Julia had stopped crying and was sleeping soundly. Anna put her carefully back in the cot.
"You'll never know how much I love you…" Anna whispered. She looked like a little angel while she was sleeping.
"I wish you were here with me…" Anna whispered out of the window, to the stars. She found herself crying, her whole body shaking with sobs. But nobody came to offer any kind of comfort. She was alone. As she always would be from now on.
A thirteen-year-old girl waited in the park. She was wearing an old coat, and her face was scrubbed clean of makeup. But she was still beautiful enough to attract the attention of passers-by.
She had to be sixteen, at the least, didn't she? At least, that was what they all thought as they stared at her.
"Chris! Over here!" she suddenly shouted, waving to a boy.
He jogged over.
"I'm glad you made it…" she said. She didn't know quite what she was going to say to him. She hadn't made it that far in her plans. All she knew was that she had to see him again.
"How did you get away from your old man?" he asked, staring at her.
"He's always busy with something or other. I slipped the butler a twenty and ran like hell," she said with a smile.
"You bribed your own butler?" Chris asked incredulously. What he was really thinking was, 'She has a butler? God, I'm in way over my head here…'
"Well I wanted to see you again," she replied.
As it turned out, conversation wasn't such a big problem. They were getting on like a house on fire. Once they got past the initial shyness, they couldn't stop talking. Anna had never been able to talk so openly with anyone like this before.
She glanced at her watch.
"Oh! I have to go! My dad might notice I'm gone soon…" she said, getting up.
"Wait! When can we see each other again?" he asked, jumping up after her.
"Tomorrow. Park again?"
"Yeah. Same time?"
"Sounds good to me." Chris smiled. Anna glanced around warily, then lent over to him and kissed him on the cheek.
"I have to go now. Bye!" she said, before sprinting off into the distance.