“you’re the only one that my heart keeps coming back to”—Always Been You by Shawn Mendes
After we ate dinner and opened Christmas presents—yay, more presents—my guests start singing Happy Birthday to me right before I’m supposed to blow out the candles on my cake and cut it.
It’s awkward. Really damn awkward. Like, what am I even supposed to do while they’re singing? Just stand here and look embarrassed, apparently.
As soon as they finish singing, I suck in some air, ready to blow out the candles on my cake when Leon makes yet another attempt to ruin my birthday.
“Before Sofia blows out the candles,” he says in German, getting up from his seat again. Only this time, he kneels in front of Julia immediately instead of holding a whole ass speech beforehand. Julia brings her hands to her mouth, gasping.
I’m about to scream and freak out on them both when Aaron takes my hand, kisses the back of it and tells me to just watch. Squeezing his hand in either anger or an attempt to calm down, I do as he says… watch.
Everyone watches them, actually. Listening to the god-awful cheesy words Leon has to say.
And then he takes out the ring box, opens it and continues to say cheesy words until my ears fall off. Looking around, I first see how everyone else isn’t exactly fazed by Leon’s proposal. In fact, they look quite annoyed, kind of like they already knew—
“You told them,” I accuse a little shocked. Aaron nods. “Why?”
“Because it’s disrespectful. They all agreed. Plus, nobody should be proposed to on the holidays, how unoriginal.” I want to believe him, I do believe him, but there’s still this tiny grin on his face that tells me there is something else to come. And honestly, I am not sure if that should scare me.
When my sister says yes to the proposal, everyone is quiet, still just watching. Except for my parents, they’re both kind of looking happy for my sister, although still a little too pissed to be one hundred percent happy about that. Then, Leon takes the ring out of the box, ready to put it on Julia’s finger, only that he doesn’t get that far.
The second he takes the ring out, the part that held it up jumps out of the box, followed by what seems to be blue ink, exploding and dripping not only over his hands, but also hitting his, and my sister’s, chin, and their clothes.
As far as I can tell, every single person present gasps out loud, except for four. Aaron, Colin, Lily, and Lukas. All four of them start to laugh like little kids that just pulled off the best April fools prank of their lives. Only that it’s not April fools and they just ruined Leon’s proposal to Julia.
It’s hilarious, so much I can admit. Mean, but hilarious. They deserve it though.
So finally, I join my laughing friends, and brother. I lean my head against Aaron’s shoulder as I laugh to the point of my stomach hurting, but it’s the best laugh I’ve had in a very long time, so I don’t care much about it.
“Why did you do this?” I ask Aaron, whispering so nobody else would hear. Though, it wouldn’t matter because everyone most definitely knows this is his doing.
“Figured having people remember your birthday as the day when a proposal got ruined would be better than having them remember it as your sister’s something-good,” Aaron says, sneaking one arm around my shoulders. “Besides, this was Colin’s idea, and his execution. I don’t know how the chemistry and physics behind all this works.”
“I hate you.”
Just as the words leave my mouth, I can feel Aaron gently press his lips to the top of my head, whispering, “I hate you, too.”
