Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2)

by Rowe, Brian

  “Which one should I play?” I asked the guys. They all looked on, grinning, knowing that I was seconds away from getting thrown out of the establishment.

  “Don’t play the one in front of you,” a gruff male voice said at the chair next to me. “That one just ate a hundred of my hard-earned dollars.”

  Oh my God, I thought. Is that who I think it is?

  “Welch?” Ryan asked behind me.

  The bald-headed giant stood up and looked out at all of us with a mystified expression. His head was so bald now that it was literally shining a bright light in my face. “Ryan? Matt? Oh my God!”

  He brushed past me and hugged Matt and Ryan.

  “How are you guys? It’s so great to see you!”

  “How’s the new season going?” Ryan asked.

  “We’re doing great! It’s been hard without all of you, but we’ve got a good shot at State again.” He crossed his arms and squinted his eyes in suspicion. “Aren’t you guys a little young to be gambling? Last I heard, you had to be twenty-one.”

  “It’s nothing big, Coach,” Ryan continued. “We’re just blowing off some steam and celebrating Cameron’s upcoming wedding.”

  “Martin’s getting married?”

  “Yeah! We just had his bachelor party over at The Spice House.”

  I chuckled. So that’s what that dirty place is called.

  “You showed him one last good night, huh?”

  “Yeah, he’s been having tons of fun.”

  “That’s good. That’s insane! He’s getting married? At eighteen? I got married at twenty-four, and that was about twenty decades too early!”

  Most of the boys laughed, and Welch slapped his hands together.

  “So where is the little blackmailer? I hope he hasn’t started aging again, has he?”

  “Well…” Ryan started.

  “Where is he? Is he here?”

  Most of the boys pointed at me, behind Welch. I barely came up to his butt crack.

  Welch turned around. “Where?”

  “Down there,” Ryan said.

  Welch looked down, and I waved up to him. “Hi Coach,” I said in my high voice, obnoxiously higher due to my intoxication.

  “Whoa!” he screamed, jumping back and tripping over a cocktail waitress. He fell backward and smashed his head against one of the dollar machines.

  “Coach!” Ryan shouted. “Are you all right?”

  “Martin…” he said, slurring his speech. “He’s… he’s just a kid…”

  “I’m all right, Coach,” I said, taking a step forward. “It’s not what you think!”

  “Get him away from me!” he shouted, awkwardly standing up. “The kid’s a freak!”

  “Psh,” I said, taking another swig of my beer. “A freak who won you the freaking state championship last year!”

  Welch didn’t respond. Instead, he sped away, not saying good-bye to me or any of the other players. Ryan helped the cocktail waitress up. This one had long red hair and reminded me of Liesel.

  Liesel.

  I momentarily resorted back to my worried self, but I shook the bad thoughts away. I needed this escape, just for this one night.

  I turned to my right to see a dollar machine calling my name. I pulled out my wallet to find a single one-dollar-bill sitting toward the back of it. I pulled it out and took a step forward.

  “Is everything all right over here?” I heard an unfamiliar older male ask the waitress.

  “Stop that kid!” she said. “He’s trying to gamble!”

  Uh oh. Better make this quick.

  Ryan shouted first. “Cameron! Don’t!”

  And then I heard the older man shout, “Don’t do it, kid!”

  I took one more swig of beer, and one more step toward the machine. I let the machine eat the dollar.

  “Don’t!”

  “Stop!”

  I reached out to pull down the handle, but before I could, an overwhelming dizziness took hold of me, one that I couldn’t control.

  “I feel…” I said. “I feel funny…”

  I pulled the handle and fell to the ground, smashing my head against the side of a chair. The last thing I heard before going unconscious was the loud ding-ding-ding of the dollar machine echoing through the loud casino.

  9. Ten

  I threw up, twice, before opening my eyes. The sky looked cloudy above me, and I turned to my right to see a long row of trees.

  I sat up and surveyed my surroundings. It was the following morning, I figured. I could see that I was in the back of the Silver Mine Casino parking lot. I had been dumped, probably by Ryan, or by the mean old security team.

  At least they dumped me on some grass, and not the hard pavement, I thought. Could be worse!

  I turned to my left to see a car parked close to me, and I could see my reflection on the shiny side of it. It was subtle, but I could tell I was even younger, mainly judging by my shorter hairline.

  I licked my teeth. “Oh God,” I said aloud. “Can’t be.”

  I had endured braces for a brief amount of time in the fifth grade to straighten my teeth, particularly the front four on the top and bottom. Worst of all, I had a big gap between my front two teeth that had brought me unnecessary ridicule for much of my elementary school life.

  “Beaver!” they had shouted at me. “Chipmunk!”

  Now here I was, licking my upper teeth again to feel that big, empty space at the front of my mouth. “Shit,” was all I really had to say about that.

  I stood up and rested my hands at my side. I looked out at the parking lot, feeling, again, like somebody was watching me.

  “Rough night?” someone asked behind me.

  I didn’t jump or scream. Instead, surprisingly, the voice didn’t scare me.

  I turned around to see Wesley standing by his car and removing his sunglasses. “I guess Ryan was right,” he said. “I guess you did have a pretty wild night.”

  “Wes…”

  I stood completely still, frozen to my spot in the grass, as Wesley looked down at me for the first time in his life. Wesley, always a few inches shorter than I was during our time growing up, was finally the giant towering over me he always wanted to be.

  He kneeled down and hugged me. “Cam, we’re gonna fix this, OK?”

  It felt good to be hugged, by Wesley, by anyone. I hugged him back and brought my chin up to his shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m not heading back until you’re back to normal.”

  I just shook my head as he got back on his feet. “No. What? You have school, Wes. You have your own life now. I’m not gonna let you re-arrange everything just for me.”

  Wesley didn’t really respond; instead he just stood there, arms crossed, looking me over. “I never thought I’d see anything weirder than you at age eighty-five. And then there was the whole floating incident at graduation, which I was able to look past. But then you stay with this girl, and then you’re engaged to her, and now she’s missing, and you’re getting sick again, now you’re aging the other direction, now you look ten years old. Can I ask you one question, Cam?”

  “OK,” was all I said to his rambling.

  “Why is this Liesel chick still a part of your life?”

  Chick. The word seemed so degrading. “What do you want me to say, Wes? I love her.”

  “She’s brought you nothing but problems ever since she cursed you at Uncle Tony’s last year. She’s caused everything. She’s threatening your life, time and time again. That’s not love, Cameron. That’s assisted suicide.”

  “Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a sec!”

  “What?”

  “How did you know about the Uncle Tony’s incident? I haven’t told anybody about that.” I thought for a moment. “Wait… except for…”

  That’s when I saw Kimber step out from the back of Wesley’s car. Her face was bright red. She brought her hands down to her pockets and stared at me with a frown from afar, the wind blowing thro
ugh her curly brown hair.

  “Do you want to get some breakfast?” she asked.

  I looked up at Wesley, who nodded toward me. I could tell these two were the only people right now, besides the missing Liesel, who could help me.

  “I’m starving, actually,” I said.

  “Good,” Wesley said. “Come on.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and walked with me over to the car. I was barely to the sidewalk when Kimber rushed up to me and gave me a hug ten times bigger and stronger than Wesley’s. I hugged her back, and found it extremely disconcerting to look up into the teary eyes of my own baby sister.

  I plowed my fork into the plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns, remembering just how much I loved and savored breakfast foods. I hadn’t eaten much in the last few days, but now, at age ten, I could tell I needed all the grub I could get my little kid hands on.

  “Don’t eat too fast, Cam,” Kimber said, sitting across from me, “or you’ll throw up.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said, my mouth full of food, “but remember, Kimber, no matter what I may look like on the outside, I’m still your older brother, and I’m the one to give the advice, OK?”

  I tried to make my remark humorous, but nobody laughed. Wesley sat next to Kimber, and he was only picking at his oatmeal. It still seemed odd to see Wesley, not only without his signature curly hair, but also ordering food that was actually healthy.

  I took a few more bites, noticing awkward tension at the table. I looked out the window of the Reno diner and noticed how quiet the city was on this chilly Sunday morning.

  I turned back to Kimber. “So. You told him?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything? I asked you to keep it confidential. Did you not hear that part?”

  She put her hands up in the air in frustration. “It’s Wesley. It’s your best friend. He just randomly showed up from L.A. and wanted to find you. What did you want me to say? I had to tell him. You’re sick. Again.”

  “And you believed everything she told you?” I asked Wesley.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the only thing that makes sense. I don’t know if I’m a believer in witchcraft and spells and what-not, but… come on. Progeria, an accelerated aging disease—that we could buy. But there’s no such thing as going back in age. Unless your name’s Benjamin Button. I mean, look at you! You’re a child! You look the way you did when we went on that horrible field trip to Virginia City, remember?”

  I spit out my orange juice, laughing. “Oh God, how could I forget?”

  “Remember? When we got lost in the mine? It was like two hours before somebody found us. I had to poop so bad I went all over the—”

  “OK, OK,” Kimber said. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

  “This is weird, Cam,” Wesley said. “It’s surreal. I feel like I’ve stepped in a time machine and gone back eight years, back when things were… well… a lot more simple.”

  “I know,” I said. I went to take another sip of my orange juice but stopped. “Wait. How did you guys even find me today?”

  “It was a matter of luck, really,” Wesley said. “I just happened to call Ryan this morning as I was coming into Carson City, asking if he knew where you were. He told me they left you on the lawn behind the casino, that they offered to take you home but that you shouted at all of them to just leave you there.”

  I looked at Kimber. She was biting her lip. “I don’t want to go home,” I said. “I don’t want Mom and Dad to see me like this.”

  “You have to come home, Cam,” Kimber said.

  “No. I can’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” She clenched her fists together and sighed. “Cam, there’s something happening with Mom and Dad.”

  “What is?”

  “I told Mom that you were coming home tonight, that they’d be expecting you.”

  “I don’t want to scare them. I don’t want them to think I’m dying again. It’ll kill them way faster than this thing kills me.”

  Kimber shook her head. “Showing Mom and Dad what you’re going through right now… well… it might be the one thing that can save them.”

  I opened my mouth and looked at Wesley, who seemed to better understand what Kimber was talking about. I took a deep breath and tried to relax my brain, which was feeling at this point like it might explode.

  “Kimber, what the hell are you talking about?”

  She sighed again, looking away from me for a moment. “Mom told me about something… something bad.”

  “What?”

  “Cam, Mom and Dad are separating.”

  A sharp pain struck my stomach a second later, and I placed my arms on top of the table. I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Cam?” Wesley asked. “Are you all right?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off of Kimber. “What do you mean they’re separating?”

  “Mom hasn’t been happy for a while, apparently. I don’t know, she didn’t give me details. They don’t want to go into it until you get back. Remember, they don’t even know you’re in Reno.”

  “They don’t even know I’m sick!” I screamed.

  I knocked my empty plate to the ground and stormed out of the diner.

  I stepped toward Wesley’s car at the back of the parking lot, the harsh winds blowing at my face, a light rain dusting the cement ground from above. With each step I could feel my emotions overwhelming every pore in my body. I started crying about halfway across the parking lot, and I started bawling by the time I reached the back bumper. I grabbed hold of my stomach and fell to the pavement, my eyes unleashing too many tears to count.

  “Cam!” I heard Kimber shout from across the way.

  I covered my face with my hands and knocked my knees against the bumper, allowing my face to stay hidden. I just kept crying, trying to make sense of this new revelation about my parents.

  “Cam… it’ll be OK…”

  I looked up to see Kimber towering over me. I tried to talk through my sobs, but it was difficult. My stomach hurt beyond belief, and I thought I was going to pass out.

  “How… how could this be happening…” I said. “Everything was going so perfect… now Liesel’s gone… I’m dying… Mom and Dad are getting a divorce… what the hell is going on…”

  “Mom didn’t say anything about a divorce. She just said she and Dad need to spend a little time apart.”

  “That’s a divorce, you moron!” I screamed at my sister, more vindictively than I had ever spoken to her in my entire life.

  She swallowed loudly and licked her lips, but she wasn’t backing down. “Cameron. You and I both know there’s no way they’re gonna go through with this if they find out what’s happening to you. You have to see them tonight. You are the best chance we have to keep Mom and Dad together.”

  “Until… what? I get healthy again? And then they split up… forever?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I had no idea Mom was unhappy. How long has she been unhappy?”

  “Dad’s never around, Cam. He works eighteen hours a day. Honestly, I figured this would have come years ago.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute or two. I tried to compose myself, and finally did. I stood up and gave my sister a half hug.

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll see them.” I looked over at Wesley, who was on his phone in the distance, clearly trying to give the two of us space. “Wes?”

  He turned around. “Yeah?”

  “Can you take us home?”

  Wesley nodded. “Sure thing.”

  He started walking over to us, as Kimber brought her hands to my shoulder. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s gonna be hard. But they need to know about what I’m going through. And trust me… I’m gonna have a few choice words to say to Dad.”

  “Cam… don’t blame Dad…”

  I didn’t respond. I just turned around, waited for Wesley
to unlock the door, and sat down in the back seat.

  I crossed my arms and didn’t say a word during the twenty-minute drive.

  ---

  We arrived home to find neither of my parents’ cars in the garage. We made ourselves comfortable on the family room couch inside as Kimber called Mom. She talked to her for a minute and then told me and Wesley that she would be home in the next hour, that she had been meeting with a friend for lunch.

  “And,” Kimber said, “guess where Dad is today?”

  “No,” was all I had the heart to say.

  Dad had apparently gone into work at 6 A.M. to perform one of those awful, longwinded rhinoplasty surgeries, which meant he probably wouldn’t be home until late.

  What would Dad do with his time if he didn’t have that job? I swear.

  I looked around the house. Our home up in the Reno mountains was huge, a 6,500 square-foot beauty that would look more like a palace if I hadn’t spent the last twelve of my eighteen years in it. But it was true—Dad had provided well for us. Emotionally he hadn’t provided much at all. Even though he showed compassion when I was sick last year, he still hadn’t come around enough lately for me to say that he was truly a changed man. He still had a long way to go, and it was going to be interesting tonight to see how he’d react to my new illness.

  Will he try to give me another facelift?

  Since we had an hour to kill, Wesley, Kimber, and I walked my dog Cinder around the Reno neighborhood on the Steamboat Ditch trail. The loop takes about forty-five minutes, but we were walking so slow and talking so much, about my illness, about Liesel, about Los Angeles, about Wesley’s movies, about my dreaded lip-lock with Kimber, that we lost track of time. When we finally returned home an hour and a half later, my mom was in the garage, unloading bags of groceries.

  She caught sight of Kimber first. “Hi honey!” Cinder raced for the garage, and my mom started petting the dog pronto. “Did you get a nice walk? Huh?” She turned back to Kimber. “Did she go poop?”

  “Yes!” Kimber shouted. “Twice!”

  “Good,” Mom said, and then her jaw dropped when she saw Wesley. “What the hell? Is that Wesley?”

  Wesley walked out in front of me, and I tried to remain inconspicuous on the sidewalk in front of the house. I was afraid to enter the driveway. But I knew I had to.