As Heidi shook the packages one by one, all of a sudden, she paused. I braced myself, mind racing.
"Lilly--" Heidi questioned hesitantly, "why do some of these say To: Rose?"
I gulped and completely froze up. Never did I believe that this sort of situation would ever occur to me. I'd always been so careful around everyone—especially Heidi, so that I wouldn't be faced with such a moment. What was I supposed to do? What could I say?
"Lil?" Heidi pressed, standing up and twirling around to face me, holding up a birthday-cake printed package addressed to Rose.
"W—uh…Rose…right. That's for, for…my cousin Rose! Yeah. My Mom's sister's daughter. Her birthday's today, too. I was supposed to mail her gifts by now, but I forgot. I was so caught up in the excitement of my birthday that I forgot about hers, so that's why they are still sitting in here." I braced myself once again, this time in hopes of Heidi believing me.
"Whoa! That's cool! You and your cousin have the same birthday? Your Mom and her sister gave birth on the same day?!! And you both have flower names? Wow!" She shrieked.
I let out a sigh of relief.
"Yeah…yeah, it's pretty cool," I said to her.
Heidi followed me to my room shortly after that, where we watched television while playing with each other's hair. I tied Heidi's long strawberry red locks into one of my signature messy buns, then I tried French-braiding it, though not successfully.
Heidi straightened my shoulder-length wavy blonde hair and painted my fingernails Pepto-Bismol pink. As if on cue, my Mom and Dad arrived just as she'd finished the last coat on my second hand. The smell of pizza floated from the front of the house back to my bedroom within seconds.
"Pizza's here!" Dad shouted, though there was no need.
Heidi had already rushed over to the wooden table, bringing her enormous appetite along with her. On the other hand, I took my time upon arriving in the kitchen, taking care to continually blow on my nearly dry nails.
"Hey, birthday girl!" Dad smiled when I did finally enter the kitchen, the smell of hot pizza even more prominent.
"Hey!" I replied, leaning in for a huge hug.
I took a seat next to Heidi and across from my parents as my Mom poured Heidi and I a glass of Mountain-Dew, and Dad placed a piece of fresh pizza on our plastic party plates.
As we settled down, Mom cleared her throat. "You know girls," she began, "While at work today, since business was extremely slow, one of my co-workers loaned me this fascinating read to pass the time…"
I paused in mid-bite of my pepperoni and pineapple slice of pizza, my throat suddenly closing up. I felt nauseas and light-headed as my blood seemed to refuse to flow correctly. I honestly hoped that where I thought Mom was headed with this story would be wrong. Please Mom…I silently begged with my ice-blue eyes, not here! Not in front of Heidi!
A/N: Yay! Another chapter!! Please review!! Hopefully, if all goes as planned, the next chapter will have some Rose and Jake in it!!! And I really will try to make the next chapter longer as well!!