happy birthday, dear Ryanne...

January 6, 2084 - Ryanne Phoenix is 13. (Sam Harris is 12.)

Ryanne hates her birthday this year. Because for Ryanne's thirteenth birthday, she's grounded. It's not just that she has - or had - a boyfriend. It wasn't like her dad had forbidden her to date or anything. In fact, she isn't even really sure Angelo Shaw was her boyfriend. They just held hands in school, and used to kiss a little in the utility closet at school, until she got caught doing something else to him in the utility closet, and now she's pretty sure, even if he was in fact her boyfriend, that he wouldn't be allowed to be anymore.

It seems like all the other kids at this bus stop have known each other for years. They've all grown up together on this street, and she's only just moved in. She didn't really want to move - she thought they were fine enough where they were, in the little condo near her grandparents, where Summer used to live with them before she went off to college. Now they're in this big suburban house, with all its empty rooms. She's too old to appreciate the yard, which doesn't even have a pool. Her dad said he might install one this summer. And there's this new bus stop, which is nicer than her last one. It's all nicer, but that doesn't mean she has to like it.

Ryanne keeps to herself here. She knows some of the kids on this street from school, but she doesn't want to make friends with them. She doesn't need any new friends, and especially not these kids. These cheesy suburban kids with their smiley happy families - this street, the street her dad just moved them to, this is the kind of street where people move to be smiley and happy. It's like a prerequisite. And these are the cheesiest kids who ever lived.

Like Lucy Harris, her big sister's best friend, and the undisputed cheesiest person alive. Lucy stops, next to that big ugly yellow car, a hunk of sun-shiney cheddar cheese itself, and she shouts, "Happy Birthday Ryanne!"

Ryanne immediately cringes. She could die. She could die, come back to life, and die all over again.

Summer must have told Lucy it was her birthday. And Ryanne hates her sister right now for having such a cheesy best friend. She hates her dad for moving them to this cheesy neighborhood, and for wanting to marry at bubble-gum cheesy woman who is now going to be her step-mother, and she hates the idea of having a step-mother. And she hates this place, being grounded in this place, just look at all the damned picket fences - the only good thing about this neighborhood is the graveyard. And she hates that she got grounded, she hates that they got caught, and she hates Angelo Shaw because he said it wouldn't be much different than kissing with tongues, and no, it was way grosser than kissing with tongues.

And she hates that Sam Harris was coming out of his house too when Lucy shouted, and he heard it too.

Sam moves past her to sit down on the bench. "Happy birthday," he says, grinning wide with a cheesy smile.

She can't really avoid Sam anymore, now that she lives three houses down. She broke up with him, though she was never really going out with him - she just used to kiss him a little in the utility closet, before she started kissing Angelo in the utility closet. Sam never asked her to do anything else though. Except be his girlfriend.

Her birthday. "Yeah," she says. "I guess it is."

"I'm gonna be thirteen next month too," Sam says.

"Yeah? Well it sucks."

The wide grin on his face deflates. "It might not suck."

"It probably will," she says, puffing out a breath into the cold air. "So why don't you ride with your sisters anyway?"

He glances over to the spot where his sister's beastly yellow car just left. "Oh," he says, grin lit up again. "Because there're girls on the bus. Girls who aren't my sisters."

"Ha," Ryanne laughs out loud, hard, short, and stunted. She's not laughing with him, but at him. It's so lame how funny he thinks he is, she could die laughing.

Though he doesn't seem to mind which kind of laugh it is, only that she laughs at all.

***

Other January Birthdays:

January 21: Jeremiah Day is 27
January 22: Liza Hathe is 15
January 24: Madison Riley is 61
January 26: Tosha Harris is 74
January 29: Orlando Centowski is 69
January 31: Meadow Lind is 69

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notes: just a little one to hold y'all over while I get the next story set in order.

So sorry for the delay. I'm happily coming to the end of the current phase of my novel work, so I hope to have a (reasonably) more steady stream of updates for you soon! Let's try to get some momentum going on this story again, shall we? ;)

Thank you all for your patience, and thank you all for reading!