Free Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) by Brian Rowe Page B

A rap music video was playing on the
large HD screen, but only two or three people in the room were watching it.
Some were drinking. Most were enjoying something slightly more mind altering.
    “Come on,”
Hannah said.
    We sat down on
the couch furthest away from the TV, where two girls who looked no older than
fifteen were sitting together enjoying a joint. I about had a heart attack when
the girl furthest the armrest turned to me. She looked exactly like Kimber.
    “Can we join in
on that?” Hannah asked.
    The two girls
looked so stoned that they probably would have happily passed their joint down
to us if we were two homeless men who had stopped in from the street to blaze
for a few minutes and eat all the cereal in the house.
    “Sure,” the
Asian girl next to Hannah said.
    “Here you go,”
the Kimber look-a-like added, as she handed the joint to Hannah.
    She took a few
hits and then passed it to me. I felt embarrassed that, despite my popularity
in high school, I had only tried pot twice, and both times I had been too drunk
to really enjoy the experience. I felt confident that I wouldn’t look like an
idiot taking a few puffs, but I wasn’t entirely sure.
    “I probably
shouldn’t,” I said, pushing the joint away. “I have a big day tomorrow,
and—”
    “Oh, come on,
Cameron. Live a little.”
    All three girls
looked at me like they wanted to gang up on me and start scratching my face off
if I didn’t at least try it. So I did. I took a small hit and passed it back to
Hannah.
    “That doesn’t
count!” she shouted. “Take a real hit. Suck it in. Come on.”
    I licked my lips
and nodded. I decided to really go for it. I took the joint and sucked in the
smoke as hard as I could, for five seconds or more, and then let the smoke
enter my lungs like I never wanted it to leave. I nodded, the three girls
smiling at me, my eyes watering up, the smoke entering every crevice in my
body.
    Finally I
breathed out. Then I started coughing. And then I felt like I wanted to die.
    “Oh… Oh, God… water …”
    “Cameron? Are
you OK?”
    I just shook my head
as I stood up and raced over to the bar, my coughing accelerating at an
alarming rate. I felt like I was dying. Everyone just stared at me, confused,
like I was putting on a show. I needed water. But I couldn’t find a bottle of
water anywhere. I made my way to the sink, but there were no cups anywhere.
    “Where…” I
couldn’t stop coughing. “Cups?”
    “Cameron!”
Hannah shouted. “In the pantry!”
    I turned to my
left to see a pantry door halfway open, the light on, a pack of bottled waters
in the back. I slammed my arm over my mouth as I continued to cough, wondering
if I could make it the fifteen steps into the closet.
    But I did. I
slashed the plastic off the pack of twenty-four bottled waters and grabbed the
first bottle to the left, downing it like I hadn’t taken a sip of water in
days. I finished it, and then started chugging a second bottle. I spit up some
of the water and coughed some more. But I finally felt like I would survive the
ordeal. Don’t die, Cameron. Not here.
Especially not here.
    As I grabbed for
a third bottle, I heard the door lock behind me, followed by an odd tapping
sound. I turned around to see Hannah, looking a bit devilish under the one
bright light bulb on the ceiling, staring at me with wanting, feverish eyes,
her elongated fingernails tapping against the locked pantry door.

“Feeling any
better?” she asked.
    “Umm… umm,
yeah.” I walked up to her. “We should get back.” I brought my hand toward the
doorknob, but she slapped it away.
    “Where do you
think you’re going?”
    “Back to the
party?”
    “I don’t think
so.” She shook her head, and then started licking her lips.
    “What are you
doing?”
    She looked down
and brought her hands toward my rib cage.
    “What are
you—”
    “You want me to
stop?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Then why aren’t
you moving?”
    She had a point.
I wasn’t