Losing Love

"Happy birthday!" A group of voices screeched in the distance awakening Mandy from the darkness of her sleep. A very comfortable sleep may she add. But she refused to open her eyes. Maybe if she stayed positioned the ways she was, without moving a muscle they would go away and leave her alone.

Nope, that was not going to work.

She almost leapt three feet in the air when a single voice screamed "Happy birthday," in her ear and when she said screamed she meant you could hear the voice halfway across the country. Obviously, her plan of ignoring them did not work. Her eyes shot open, probably caused by the surge of adreniline reeling through her body. She rubbed over her earlobe soothingly before placing herself on her knees upon the soft bed. As she fluttered her eyes to remove the heavy grogginess that made her vision blurry she focused on the people around her. The first face she saw was Sally's.

Sally? Oh Sally!

She jumped enthusiastically from the bed and into her friend's arms.

"Oh my God what are you doing here so early? I thought you weren't coming here until tonight."

Having her best friends here was the best present she could ask for.

"Come on, Mandy, you asked me the same question last year, you know we always spend the day together on each others' birthdays. I told you just because we live in seperate places doesn't mean anything changes. Besides, I have to get you excited for going out. You didn't seem really enthusiastic on the phone when I was speaking to you."

Yes, she forgot to mention that they had convinced her to go out for her birthday. She still can't remember when that happened but Mandy wasn't about to agrue.

Looking around her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw Ben was there too. Not that it should have surprised her, where ever Sally went Ben went. She embraced him quickly before giving Garry a brief hug until she found herself making the rounds onto Caroline and Shane.

"You missed someone," a voice shouted from the living room. When she walked out, her brother was standing there with a round sponge cake in his hand, candles sparkled straight at her.

And then her worst nightmare happened, they all began to sing happy birthday. Why would the ground not just open up and swallow her? This is why she hated her birthday. It was constant attention on her. Attention can be nice sometimes but not this much. Not when everyone around you treats you like a three year old.

Suck it up and smile, she told herself. Ben and Sally didn't come all the way for nothing and she was grateful that they were here with her, so she plastered a smile on her face and leaned over to blow out the candles.

"Wait," Matt stopped her. "You have to make a wish." She glared at him from under her lashes before rolling her eyes and making a wish that her birthday would go off without any drama. God knew there was enough personalities to spark a volcano.

"Woohoo," Matt squealed like twelve year old girl. "We have cake for breakfast."

"Grow up," Mandy groaned, scolding him for a long moment.

After the group huddled around the kitchen counter and shared out the fresh cream cake, Mandy quickly opened the patio door onto the balcony to let some air in before plopping her tired body on the couch to dig into her cake.

But guess what? She couldn't even enjoy that. She could hear her phone ring to life in the bedroom.

"Whoever loves me will get that for me," she pouted around the room but it didn't surprise her that nobody moved. The cake was so good they were too distracted, not that she would know, she hadn't even tasted it yet.

Grunting, she lifted herself from the couch. "Pack of asses," she mumbled under her breath before picking up her phone to read the caller id. She should have known who it would be. Why did she even bother to look?

"Hey mom," she said trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Happy birthday sweetie. How are you?"

"I'm good," Mandy replied before filling her mother in about what had happened that morning and who was there.

"Isn't that nice, that Ben and Sally are there for your birthday? You are still coming home next week right?" Her mother asked.

Mandy and Matt had planned to go home for a week once her birthday was over, that way she avoided her parents coming down for her birthday.

"Of course, Mom," she assured her mother. Then she was passed onto her father who kept her on the phone for twenty minutes talking to her about how she grew up so fast and how proud he was of her. For twenty minutes, she literally listened to the man cry.

"Thanks dad," she smiled to herself. "But I better leave you go, Sally is calling me to start picking out an outfit for tonight," she lied and caught the attention of Sally, who was not looking at her with a bemused expression on her rounded face.

"Okay sweetie. Have a great night and be careful. I love you."

"I love you too dad and send my love to mom." She told him before hanging up, letting a deep sigh escape through her.

"Why did I get involved in that conversation?" Sally finally asked, placing her blonde locks behind her ears.

"Bet dad was getting all emotional?" Matt questioned, answering Sally.

"Oh yeah, you know how he is. I needed an excuse." Mandy explained, feeling guilty.

"Oh," Sally simply trailed off, shrugging her narrow shoulders.

Mandy placed herself on one of the high stools close to the counter. Her appetite for the cake had suddenly deminished.

And then her stupid phone buzzed again but no one took notice to her swearing under her breath. They were all too busy laughing at something they were talking about. She had no idea what that something was of course.

Thankfully, this time it was just a text message. Good, she thought, she really wasn't in the mood for a conversation.

But when she looked at the name her heart began to beat so loud she was sure they could hear it around her. There was one unread message from Josh. She found herself having to catch her breath for a moment in fear her heart was going to pound right out of her chest. What was wrong with her? She wasn't supposed to be acting this way.

She could feel her cheeks heat as she opened the text. The content of the text was so simple it was almost difficult to get her head around it and she had no idea why. She just wanted to read it over and over again. It very simply read:

Happy birthday beautiful! I'll see you tonight!

Tonight? So he was serious about coming to her birthday. It didn't help that Matt had previously told her that he had invited all his friends. Not that she really cared, it wasn't anything special. It was just going to be a normal night out on the town. Although, nights out on the town with this group were always far from normal.

"What are you smiling about?"

Caught.

She jumped, automatically exiting out of the text as Shane had mentioned her current expression. She could feel her cheeks flame a bright pink as everyone turned to look at her.

"Nothing," she lied, shaking her head.

Their was just silence and skeptical looks. She lowered her eyes to the ground before looking up to see her brother's expression totally falter. His eyes widened and a smirk egded on his lips.

"Stop looking at me like that," she swallowed hard. She could almost hear his very thoughts. "You are freaking me out, Matt."

"I knew it," he shook his head in disbelief.

"You knew what?" Everyone asked in unison, obviously not appreciating being left out of the loop.

"Has this anything to do with Josh?" Caroline asked casually, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world before taking another mouth full of cake. Now everyone was looking at her, including Mandy who felt like breaking her neck.

"See, even Caroline can see it." Matt pointed out.

"Hold on a minute," Ben stopped them. "Who the hell is Josh?"

"Oh my God," Sally hopped from her chair as if she had just gotten a jolt of realization. "Isn't Josh the guy from the party?"

"Matt's friend?" Ben added.

It seemed that they were speaking to everyone except Mandy right now.

"It this the same Josh she works with?" Shane quizzed.

"She works with him too?" Sally squealed. Whoops, she knew she had forgotten to tell her something. She seemed to be sitting there watching her grave being dug.

"Oh yeah, she works with him," Caroline told Sally who was now staring at Mandy with a death glare. If looks could kill, Mandy would be presently sprawled across the floor.

"Okay guys," Garry interrupted. Someone was finally coming to her rescue. "Leave her alone. If you don't mind, I am going to steal her for a minute," he said and then wrapped his hand around her wrist and yanked her from the stool. Before she could take another breath she was sitting in their room watching him shut the door.

Looking down at her with an expression of sheer amusement he chuckled softly.

"What was that about?" She demanded.

"I'm sorry," I couldn't stay out there and watch your face. You looked so helpless," he teased.

"Shut up Garry."

"You should be thanking me. I just saved your ass. What did that text message say anyway," he asked, nodding towards her palm which was clenched tightly around her hand. "And don't try and lie to me. I know you better than anyone and I have seen that you are in a better frame of mind lately. Ever since you started working at the muesum to be exact and I don't think it is just the skeletons that are doing that."

Mandy took a deep breath, mainly to gather her thoughts and rolled her green sparking eyes.

"He just wanted to wish me a happy birthday and said he would see me tonight."

"Tonight?" Garry asked, narrowing his gaze on her before running his fingers through his dirty shade of blonde hair.

"Yes, Matt invited all of his friends," she told him. "Well he invited himself before Matt did." She gave in.

"This could be good for you Mandy and it says something that Matt did not fly off the handle when he found out it was Josh. He obviously thinks he would be good for you."

"There is nothing happening and there never will," she snapped.

"Yeah we will see."

"No I am serious Garry. I don't want anything to happen."

He huffed loudly before placing himself gently on the bed beside her.

"It's not that you don't want anything to happen. It's more like you are scared to let anything happen. This is about Nick,"

"This has nothing to do with Nick," she demanded.

"Yes it does," Garry persisted cooly. "It has everything to do with Nick and Ellie." He caught her off guard with that. She wasn't expecting Ellie's name to be brought into this. "You are scared to tell him about everything that has happened to you. But you don't have to. Not straight away."

"I really don't want to talk about this, Garry." She told him. What he had said hit a nerve. What if he was right? What if the only thing stopping her was that she was scared to let Josh in? Garry was right, she didn't want to drag Josh into everything that happened to her.

"I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. Anyway," he said standing up enthusiastically. "It is your birthday so turn that frown upside down."

"Oh you are so sad," she was actually embarrassed for him.

"That is why you love me."

"You're lucky I do," she grunted opening the bedroom door. It wasn't fun being greeted by blank faces.

"So," Sally waved her hands in the air. She was really getting annoyed. She usually got like that when she didn't know something. "Are you going to tell us what he said?"

"He said Happy Birthday. Now get over it already and eat some cake."

"Yeah eat some cake," Garry backed in, laughing. "I paid money for that damn thing."

"Before I eat anymore cake," Sally started. "I know everyone agreed that we would give you your presents later but..."

"Presents?" Mandy shouted in shock. "I am going to kill you guys."

"Shut up," Sally shot at her. "Anyway, I am going to give you my present now," she said running out onto the balcony and reappearing with a large, pink, glittering gift bag. It had Sally written all over it.

"What a place to hide it?" Garry muttered in her ear making her giggle for a moment.

"I guessed you would not go shopping for yourself so I bought you this and the reason I am giving it to you now is because you have to try it on and see if it fits"

"Sally."

"Shut up," she repeated before Mandy could say anything else.

"Now go and try it on," Sally pushed her towards the bathroom. Before she went to try it on she said goodbye who had to leave, he had to be somewhere.

Locking the door, Mandy reached deep into the bag and pulled out the black satin dress. It was stunning and exactly what she would not have picked. Still, she impressed when she tried it on. It clung to every curve on her body. The capped sleeves fell from her shoulders and into a criss-cross shape at her back before hugging into a rounded neck line. A belt of encrusted diamonds was secured around her waist under the bust. The satin material fell to just below her knee

It was absolutely beautiful.

"Can I see it?" Sally asked with a light tap on the door. Mandy twisted the lock and opened the door to let her in.

"Ah, I love it. Wow, I am good," Sally laughed. "You are going to knock Josh off his feet tonight. Although, by the sounds of it you don't need a black dress to do that. It seems you have done that all by yourself."

Suddenly, Mandy was more excited than she thought she would be about tonight, and there was no denying exactly why that was.