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Maurice popped into Brian’s room. “Happy birthday, Bud!”
Brian turned around from where he was standing in front of his full-body mirror. “You remembered,” He said, pleasantly surprised.
Maurice smiled. “Of course I did! Who would forget his best friend’s birthday?” Maurice came over and messed up Brian’s hair. “You’re fifteen now… You’re in what, at least grade five now?”
Brian rolled his eyes, immediately catching onto the joke. “Grade nine, Maurice,” He said with a laugh.
“A worldly scholar,” They both said sarcastically at the same time. They both started laughing.
Maurice clapped his hands together. “Got any plans today?”
“Yeah, actually,” Brian said with a slightly proud smile. “Cole Ruhlman invited me over to his house to hang out with him and his group for my birthday. I’m leaving really soon.”
Maurice frowned. He knew who Cole was through Brian’s stories. He was a new kid at Brian’s school. Tall, messy black hair, blue eyes, slightly tanned skin. Everyone at the school knew him as the ‘cool new kid’. The type that was slightly rebellious and very sarcastic but still always got good grades and was liked by the teacher. The type that all the girl’s thought was the cutest in school. The type who would embarrass or pick on people for a bit of laughs from his group.
Cole had disliked Brian since he first came to the school. Brian had greeted Cole in a friendly way and tried to make friends with him and Cole had started laughing at and making fun of him. And for the last month or so that Cole had been at the school, he had always tried to embarrass Brian or make his friends dislike him. From what Maurice knew they had never gotten physical, but they still didn’t get along. “Hey, Bri, ya sure that’s a good idea? Last you told me, they didn’t like you all that much.”
Brian smiled a bit more proudly. “He said that he wants to restart, get off on a new foot. He said he thinks I’m pretty cool and wants to get to know me, be friends.”
Maurice frowned, hesitating over whether he should say his next words or not. He sighed and decided to speak his mind anyway. “Bri, I think it sounds a bit fishy. He probably doesn’t actually wanna be friends, he just wants to invite you over and embarrass you or somethin’.”
Brian chewed on his lip. “I thought of that. And that’s why I declined him at first… But he looked really upset and said that’s not what he wanted and he really was interested in being my friend. He said he knew he was wrong before. Maurice, I really think I’m gonna get a new friend. I’ll be part of the cool group now.”
“Don’t ’cha already have friends? You got that fat boy who used to hate you, your brother and his nerd, and then your girlfriend.”
“Ronnie, Eric, Todd, and Kiersten,” Brian supplied. “And yeah, I have them, but being part of the cool group wouldn’t be bad. I can be friends with both groups.”
Maurice knew he wouldn’t be getting Brian out of his plans today and decided to go with it. “Well then,” He said as he walked over to the closet. He grabbed the vest that he had given Brian. “Might as well look cool when you go over to the cool kids group.”
Brian gave Maurice a forced smile. “No offense, Maurice… but this isn’t really something to wear when you’re trying to look cool…” He pushed the jacket away.
Maurice gave Brian a confused and shocked look. “You kiddin’ me? This looks cool!” Maurice held up the jacket again.
Brian took the jacket and hung it back up. “Usually, yeah. But not when you’re trying to be cool like this. These are the cool kids. I can’t show up in an 80’s looking vest covered in too many pins and expect to be accepted into their group.”
Maurice’s shoulders drooped a bit. “Oh. Got’cha, Bud.”
Brian nodded and took out a black leather jacket. It had a silver zipper and a pocket on the left breast. The sleeves had slits in the cuffs. “This looks better than the vest.” He slid the jacket on and examined himself in the mirror again.
He had used a bit of gel to uncurl his hair and mess it up so it seemed unkempt, but in a styled way. He had on dark grey jeans that were ripped at the knees. Under the jacket he was wearing an oversized light grey shirt. His sneakers were simply black with white soles. “This seems good. Also similar to what Cole and his group wears, so it’s gotta be cool.”
Maurice frowned. “You’re just gonna try to copy their outfits to fit in?”
Brian nodded. “Yeah. It means it’s cool and I’ll already seem like a part of the group.”
Maurice didn’t like that. Not at all. “You shouldn’t change what you like and how you dress just to get some new friends. You already have friends who accept you as who you are. Don’t go hunting out friends who want you to change.”
Brian sighed, getting exasperated. “Maurice, it’ll be fine. I’ll just have a few more friends now.”
Maurice frowned. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea, Bri…”
Brian whirled around, getting mad. “It is a good idea! Cole really wants to be my friend now!” He stepped towards Maurice. “You’re just jealous that you’re not my only friend anymore!”
Maurice stepped back and held his hands up. “Woah, Bri. That’s not it at all! I just think these boys don’t actually wanna be your friends, and I don’t want you to get hurt or embarrassed by them.”
Brian shook his head. “You’re just lying to cover your tracks! You know they want to be my friends! You know it! You’re just selfish and don’t want to share me! You don’t like that I’m making friends on my own now! Well guess what, Maurice, I’m going to make friends on my own and you won’t be my only friend! And if you keep trying to keep me from making new ones then you won’t even be one of my friends at all!”
Maurice’s face fell. “Brian, I’m not trying to keep you from making friends. I want you to make friends. But I don’t think these are the people that you want to be those friends.”
Brian went to his closet, grabbed the vest off of the hanger and thrust it at Maurice. “Take it! Take it back and get out of here! And don’t come back!” He left the room. “I’m going over to Cole’s now, don’t even think of following me there.”
Maurice watched as Brian left the room. He stared blankly, slightly unbelieving of everything that had just happened. He held out the vest Brian had given back to him. He folded it up gently with care and put it on Brian’s bed next to the pillow. He grabbed a sticky note and wrote on it with a sharpie. He stuck it on the vest and crawled back under the bed.
Brian knocked on Cole’s door. He lived in Brian’s neighborhood, so it was a simple ten minute walk for Brian.
Cole’s best friend Mason Lee opened the door. He was a bit shorter than Cole with straight brown hair. He wore red glasses that framed his green eyes. He was wearing a simple red t-shirt with grey jeans. “Cole! Brian’s here!” Mason called into the house. He stepped to the side. “Come on in, Stevenson.”
Brian nodded his thanks and walked into the house.
Cole walked into the room with his other two friends. They were identical twins, Hanaki and Haru Kumar. They had long, messy black hair that stuck out at such odd angles it looked like an anime style. They both had amber eyes. Hanaki wore blue glasses, but Haru didn’t, that was the only way to tell them apart. Hanaki was wearing a shirt with some Japanese writing on it next to an anime character Brian didn’t recognize and Haru was wearing a shirt with a Japanese urban legend. They both had on simple jeans and sneakers.
Cole was wearing a band shirt under an oversized black jacket. He had jeans on that looked similar to Brians except they were torn more, especially at the cuffs. He had on scuffed grey sneakers. “Brian Stevenson, glad you decided to come!” Cole smiled at him. “Sorry we didn’t decorate much, we planned to just hang out a bit. We did get you a present, but it’s only one since we all pitched in.”
Brian smiled and walked into the house. “Nah, it’s fine. I’m just glad we can start again.”
“No problem, why don’t you come downstairs and play some fighting games with us. It can have up to six people, teams or free for all.” Cole waved Brian over to a door that led down to his basement.
Brian smiled and walked downstairs with the group. See, Maurice? He thought to himself. I knew that this would turn out okay.
Brian groaned as he lost to Mason. They had played countless free for all rounds, everyone winning more than once. Then they set it up where it was 1.V.1 and the winner would advance until the last two players got to fight. The first round or two someone would have to go against a bot, but it still worked out fine. This was the fourth round of that. The first time Brian had lost in the second fight, the next round Brian got to the end with Cole and barely won, after that he lost to the bot he was put with in the first fight, and this round he lost to Mason in the final fight. “You’re good at this,” Brian told Mason.
“You’re not bad yourself,” Mason told Brian.
Brian smiled. “Thanks.”
“Hey,” Cole said. “How about we turn the game off and go upstairs for food, and then we can give Brian his present.”
The other three members of Cole’s group agreed and urged Brian to go upstairs with them.
Brian smiled. “Works for me!” He got up and waited with Cole and Mason as the twins unplugged the game and put it away, seemingly knowing where it went as Cole didn’t say anything. Made sense, Cole was always over here with his friends. The boys walked upstairs, all chatting with Brian about the games they played.
Brian found himself smiling wider than he had in a while. Not only are they my friends, Maurice, but they’re obviously better friends than you could ever be, Brian thought to himself. He followed them upstairs and outside to the patio. They had a wooden deck and a large pool in the backyard. There was a picnic table set on the deck with a bunch of food in covered Tupperware. “It’ll still be warm. Mom and I made burgers, I remember hearing you say you like those. You told Kiersten in the hall one day and I overheard,” Cole explained.
Brian nodded. “Yeah, they’re my favorite food. Burgers and cherries.” He sat down at the table, Cole on his left and Haru on his right. Mason was across from him and Hanaki was in front of his twin.
As everyone was served food Brian noticed there were peppers and tomatoes on the burgers. He managed not to frown. Those were his least favorite foods. He felt like he had mentioned it to Kiersten at the same time he had mentioned liking burgers, but maybe he was remembering wrong, or maybe Cole hadn’t heard that part.
Brian shrugged it off as a mistake and took a bite of the burger. He forced himself not to grimace when he got a mouthful of tomato and pepper. “It’s really good,” He said to Cole.
“My mom made it, and everything she makes is good,” Cole said to Brian.
Brian smiled. “I understand how that is completely.” He took another bite of the burger.
The boys spent the rest of dinner discussing the food, and school, and friends, and other random topics that came up in day-to-day life. After dinner, Cole got up and clapped his hands together, far too close to how Maurice did it for Brian’s liking. “Okay! What about cake? My mom made you a simple vanilla cake with buttercream icing since she didn’t know what you liked.”
Brian smiled. “That’s my favorite type!” It was a lie, his actual favorites were cheesecake or chocolate cake with cherry icing, but he didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
“Good! Because Cole’s mom’s cakes are incredible!” Hanaki said.
“The best!” Haru agreed.
Brian smiled as Cole went inside to get the cake. This was turning out better than he could have ever imagined it would. Cole came back out and set the cake down on the table. It looked incredible. It was made perfectly with the words ‘Happy Birthday, Brian Stevenson’ on the top in nice writing.
Cole set it down and handed Brian the knife to cut it. “Go ahead, birthday boy.”
Brian smiled and cut the cake, handing a piece out to everyone.
Cole, Mason, Haru, and Hanaki all took a piece and exchanged a look. The next thing Brian knew, four pieces of cake were being smashed into him. One into his face, one to the back of his head, and one on each arm. The laughter of the boys was immediately heard.
Brian wiped cake off of his face and laughed with them. He licked the cake off of his fingers. “It tastes good.” Brian tried to not let the boys see how much their joke bothered him. It’s just a joke, chill out about it.
“You could always jump in the pool to get it off,” Mason suggested.
“I would rather not,” Brian said awkwardly.
Mason shrugged. “Fair I guess.”
“But too bad!” Cole cried as he shoved Brian backwards into the pool, causing the boys to all start laughing again.
Brian pushed off of the bottom of the pool and hung onto the edge of the pool, coughing and choking, trying not to throw up what he just ate. None of the boys made a move to help him, all laughing too hard. “Okay guys, very funny… But I didn’t want to get wet.” Brian pulled himself out of the pool as he said this.
“Well, here’s your present, Brian!” Cole called.
Brian turned around and got hit square in the face with a raw egg. More laughter and eggs followed. “Hey!” Brian yelled. “Stop! It hurts! You’re making a mess of your pool and me!”
The boys laughed harder and started throwing eggs faster. “That’s the point!” Hanaki called.
“You didn’t think we actually wanted to be friends, did you?” Cole asked. “We just wanted to mess with you and saw a good chance!”
Maurice was right… Brian realized. They didn’t want to hang out with me… “Why not? I mean, we can just start over from here and be friends, can’t we?”
The boys laughed harder. “No way!” Mason yelled.
“You’re such a boring nerd!” Cole added. “And you hang out with those other kids always. Kiersten and Todd. And Ronnie. Such boring, nerdy friends. Someone like you couldn’t possibly fit in here!”
“When we were playing that game all together, I wished I could kill the real you,” Haru said. “You’re such an uninteresting guy, Stevenson.”
Brian felt tears welling up in his eyes. He had turned down going out with his family for this. He had told Kiersten and Ronnie he wasn’t feeling well so he didn’t have to admit he was going to hang out with the group of people who hated him. He had brushed off Maurice and quite possibly ruined his friendship with him over these boys.
Maurice. He had tried to warn Brian about what he had missed and Maurice had figured out, but Brian had yelled at him and gotten mad, pushing him away. Maurice would probably never come back now.
Brian stepped away and ran away from the boys when they had to grab more eggs, bolting through the fence gate. He ran through the yard, ignoring the shouts after him. He ran down the street and back to his house faster than he ever had, opening the door, slamming it closed and running upstairs without as much as a hello to his family. He ran into his room and locked the door, leaning on his desk and crying to himself silently. He looked up at his reflection after a few moments of self-pity and took a few breaths to pull himself together.
He tried to use his fingers to get some of the egg out of his hair, but it didn’t work very well. He sighed and turned around. He spotted something on his bed by the pillow and walked over. It was the vest he had shoved at Maurice before he had stormed out. Brian peeled off the sticky note and read it aloud to himself. “Hey Bud, once again, happy birthday. I hope things go well at Cole’s house, but I doubt they will. I’m sorry if they go south. Keep the vest, it’s yours. Maurice.”
Brian dropped the note, letting it fall to the ground. “It didn’t go well… You were right Maurice…” He whispered to himself.
There was a bit of silence before Brian heard footsteps. He looked up and saw Maurice standing on the other side of his bed. “Hey… Bud. I was hanging around to see how you were when you came back. Depending on whether you tore up the note and threw the vest across the room or not was gonna let me know whether I should come out or not.” Maurice gave a forced, humorless laugh. He sighed and walked over towards Brian.
“You were right,” Brian repeated to Maurice. “They just wanted to be mean…”
Maurice gave a sad smile. “I can tell. You still have… egg in your hair?” Maurice pulled some of the yolk out and stuck it in his mouth. “Egg.”
Brian laughed a bit, despite everything that had gone wrong. Leave it to Maurice to put something in his mouth and then find out what it was. His face fell again as he spoke, though. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, Maurice. I should have. And I’m also sorry I got so mad… I shouldn’t have snapped at you when all you were trying to do was help.”
Maurice smiled and put his hand on Brian’s head and messed up his hair, getting egg all over his hand. “Ah, it’s fine. That’s why I hung around, I knew that you would most likely come around again. I just wanted to make sure before I came back out from under the bed.”
Brian smiled at Maurice. “So… We’re good? Friends?”
Maurice smiled back. “Friends.” He held out his hand to Brian.
Brian smiled and reached out for his handshake with Maurice. He pulled away and laughed. “One thing that I don’t think either of us can ever do is hold a grudge against each other.”
Maurice laughed. “Definitely. So.” He clapped his hands together. “You wanna head down and have a bit of fun before the sun’s up?”
Brian smiled. After a few years Maurice had decided it would be safe for Brian to go back under the bed as long as he was quick with his visits. Brian had been nervous at first, but in the end had trusted Maurice’s judgement. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Maurice whooped and lifted the bed excitedly. “Happy birthday, Bri.”