The Gift

Cassie stares out her bedroom window, her face a picture of anger and her hands clenching together so hard they've turned white. She can't believe he forgot – forgot about her birthday, of all things. She wants to punch something she's so mad. And do you know what she wants to punch? It's more like a whom and that whom? Rod McGuiness.

She should've known better than to have invited him; it's not like they are best friends, or anything. They just talk every now and then, kind of like acquaintances but different. Different because her feelings for him are a tad too strong just to be just that. In fact; if she didn't know any better she'd say she had a major crush on the guy. But it's too bad – she does know better.

Cassie knows that Rod is an arrogant ass; she knows that he probably doesn't feel in any way romantic towards her and she knows that even though she invited him to come – that it never would have meant he would. Rod never gave her straight answers, but she always managed to get her hopes up anyway. Which is exactly why she couldn't have a crush on the guy; it'd be emotional suicide.

Tapping her feet Cassie lets out a sigh and hears a rap on the door. It's her older sister, because her older sister always knocks in the bathroom killer theme (she's always been a sick sort of kid). She lets out another sigh and looks to the door, glaring at it, "What?"

"Hate to break it to you sis, but the guy ain't coming; get some freakin' shuteye I can hear you huffing and puffing from the next room." Lila complains, and Cassie glares harder at the door. Maybe if she glares hard enough she'll burn a hole through the door and right through her sister's insensitive blonde skull. Better a veggie than mean, Cassie reckons.

"Then get back in the next room or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow you back there." She snaps, only getting a snort in response; but nonetheless the snort is accompanied by the sweet sounds of Lila walking off and closing her bedroom door behind her.

Cassie sighs and then looks to her window, biting her lip; her sister does have a point. Her party ended over an hour ago and she has her job to get to in the morning. Besides which it is just demeaning to be waiting around for a guy who never promised to come, especially if it's an hour after the party…meaning even if he does come it's extremely rude of him to do so.

Her lips pressing together into a thin line she shrugs, reaching for the blinds and closing them over her bedroom window. It's too late, now. At least she has her answer – he doesn't care, and he won't want to go out with her. If he did he would have come, and he would have asked her out. Not the other way around.

Cassie shakes her head and begins stripping her clothes off, changing into her PJs. It's time to get over the guy; time to get a new crush – time to get into bed, and sleep her troubles away. This is what she's going to do. Tying the knot on her pyjama pants she strides over to her bed, ducks under her canopy and pulls her Disney princess covers over her with a grimace; he probably doesn't want to go out with her for this very reason. She's way too much of a kid.

But who cares anyway, right? Cassie presses her face into her pillows and hugs one of them to her chest, getting comfortable. Not her, that's for sure. She can be as childish as she wants….because what does it matter to him, anyway? Even if it does; she deserves someone that likes her for her. Not a guy that skips out on her birthday party.

One which she'd – pathetically – thrown entirely for the excuse to ask him to come visit her. It is her eighteenth after all. It's normal to ask everyone and anyone to come. She thought it'd be normal to ask him, but apparently not. Since he feels the need to lie to her and not show up instead of straight up telling her he doesn't want to come.

Cassie hugs the pillow a little tighter and lets out one last sigh before deciding she really needs to get to sleep – when she hears a noise. Blinking, she opens her eyes and listens; but all she hears is silence. She shakes her head, angry at her mind for playing tricks on her like that. She's about to close her eyes once more when she hears the noise again, louder.

It's almost like someone is throwing rocks at her window.

Cassie sits up in her bed and eyes her window; definite rock throwing is going on. Biting her lip she doesn't know whether to get up – or to leave the person standing out there until they wake up her dad and her dad kicks their ass. Letting out a frustrated breath she decides to save them the trauma and goes over to her window, opening up the blinds.

The light of the night shines into her room as she squints into the shadow of her porch; her heart speeds up as she realises standing before it is Rod and he's not looking empty handed. Her breathe catches, and as she reels the window open she clears her throat, "What are you doing out there?" she whispers into the night.

"Wishing you a happy birthday," he stage whispers back, grinning wickedly, "so come down here and let me."

It is as if she's in a dream, and Cassie blinks down at him in disbelief. Can she be dreaming? It certainly seems more possible than him showing up, if a little late…

Especially a little late; it's kind of indecent the hour he's dropping in on her. Shaking her head she reaches for her blinds, frowning, "It's not even my birthday anymore, you loser. Missed that by," she looks over her shoulder to her alarm clock and back, "about an hour and a quarter."

Rod cringes a little bit and shrugs, "I did say happy birthday to you at school? And it's not like I didn't want to come to your party, Cass. I wanted to. I just…I wanted…well I'll show you what I wanted; just come down here."

Cassie snorts and looking at the reel she reaches for it, "You know what, Rod? I think not. My party ended ages ago, my parents are sleeping and you're both a disturbance and disturbing."

Cassie grabs the reel and starts to wind her window back but he interrupts her, grabbing onto the porch roof and attempting to haul himself up, "I'll come up there," he warns her, his legs dangling and arm muscles tensed. "Don't think I won't."

"Kiss my ass." Cassie laughs mockingly, watching as he strains to lift himself up on her slippery and wet from the rain, porch roof. There's no way he can get up into her room like that. He'll fall right back down onto his ass and hurt himself and it'll be his own fault.

"Gladly," he says and then lands one of his legs up onto the porch roof, dragging the other after it. It's not over for him yet, though. He still has about two metres to go before he gets to her window and that's the hard part. She watches him wriggle away, grabbing every hard surface he can grab along the way – but realising most of it while hard is extremely slippery. While he's at it he catches her eye, "You're making this really hard for me you know."

"Like you deserve a chance anyway; why are you even here?" Cassie wants to know, arching an eyebrow. But, internally; she's horrified. Because he appears to be closing in on her. "Just go home before you hurt yourself."

As she says these words, however, he reaches up and with one final, forceful wriggle he catches hold of her sill and brings himself up. Smirking, he waggles his eyebrows, "Open up."

"Go to hell," she replies sweetly, reaching out to wind the window in on his fingers when they touch hers, causing her to gasp. She snatches her fingers back and glares at him as he lowers his hand back to the sill. "Do you have a death wish?"

"I'm assuming you've already decided to kill me; leaving me out here in the cold like this to get pneumonia…I mean, how much worse can it get?" He smiles right back, only his smile is genuine; and genuinely wicked.

Letting out an annoyed noise she decides to let him in; after all, he does have a present for her…that is lying on her front lawn and not with him….

On second thought, why let him in? He can just go home. It's not her problem. "Why should I let you in?"

"I have something for you?" he says, raising his eyebrows at her. She looks at him, and then at the lawn, and back again. He notices this, too, and laughs at her. "That's not it."

Eyeing his clothes she wonders whether it can be a bracelet or a ring or something – maybe a new phone? She's been wanting a new phone.

With another little sigh she reaches for the reel and starts winding it back, letting the cold air rush into her face and pick up her hair. She wags her finger at him, "It better be good because otherwise I'm gonna kick your ass back outside this here window and into the next week –"

Rod skips over the sill, landing in front of her with grace and grinning. She eyes him suspiciously and looks down at his hands, waiting for the gift that seems nonexistent at present – when he puts his hands down on her shoulders and plants one on her.

It surprises her so much she bites down on his lip in shock. But he doesn't stop for that, his hands tighten and he leads her backwards on her jelly legs.

And when those jelly legs nearly collapse beneath her he just sweeps them from beneath her and lays her gently down on her bed, kissing her one last time. One last time before he stands up straight, turns and jumps back out the window he came from; leaving her lying on her bed, staring after him her lips all agape and tingly. Rod just nearly god damn sucked the life out of her with those lips of his.

Staring over her belly out the window in disbelief she spots a note he'd dropped onto her stomach before leaving and picks it up. She brings it in front of her eyes and squints in the moonlight.

You don't need to throw a party to get me to hang around you. I want to hang around you all the time – but it's not like I wanted to share you with everyone else. Next birthday it's just you and me, aiight?

Cassie feels her lips turn up; he's so getting his ass kicked into next week. Placing the note on her bedside table she gets up to close the blinds, her mind a blur with intimate thoughts.

Although you've probably realised as much by now. I'll try and update just so busy! And lazy. God I'm lazy.