It was a month later, and things were slowly but surely returning to normal. Ethan and I had both giving our individual statements to the police and were trying our best to move on.

Ironically, the tape that Connor had left in the room to try and blackmail me with, provided excellent evidence for his assault, and he was almost immediately convicted.

To my relief, April was also arrested. I was worried that they might go easier on her because she didn't look like your stereotypical rapist, but my dad ensured that no leniency would be given, and fought hard to make sure she was being punished as badly as Connor.

Today was also my birthday. I was eighteen now, meaning I was officially an adult. I had planned to spend the day with my friends, but for some reason, they all decided to be dicks and had various reasons for why they couldn't come.

Even my so-called boyfriend had flaked, saying he had given himself food poisoning. The stupid idiot needed to learn how to check the best-before dates on his food properly.

So, to cheer myself up, I was currently kicked back on the sofa with my feet up, shoveling popcorn into my mouth as I watched some random movie on Netflix. That's when the doorbell decided to ring.

I groaned in annoyance, feeling too lazy to move. Reluctantly, I flung the blanket off my lap and stomped my way to the door. My parents were upstairs, so I knew they would yell at me to open the door. I swear if it's just another idiot trying to sell something, I'm not going to hesitate to slam the door in their face.

I opened the door and nearly shat myself as a stream of confetti came flying towards my face along with some cheers.

"What the fuck?" I screamed in shock as I stared wide-eyed at my cackling friends on the doorstep.

Ethan, May, Chloe and Lucas, all stood on my doorstep. They were laughing their assess off, probably incredibly amused by the startled expression on my face.

"It's your birthday Mia. Did you really think we ditched you?" May snorted.

I looked away in embarrassment, realizing I had fallen for one of the most basic and oldest birthday tricks in the world. Ethan's amused face then caught my eye, and I crossed my arms and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Food poisoning?" I said flatly.

"Hey, it wasn't my idea. Lucas thought it would be funny if you thought everyone had ditched," Ethan explained quickly, not hesitating for a second at throwing Lucas under the bus.

I glared at Lucas and shook my head. "You guys are mean," I complained, trying hard to fight a smile from appearing on my face.

"But you love us anyway," Chloe sang in excitement.

I just let out a heavy sigh and reluctantly let the lunatics into the house.

I took them into the living room and flopped back down on to the sofa. My eyes lit up like a child as I saw that everyone had brightly wrapped gifts in their hands.

"Yay, presents, gimmie!" I shouted rudely.

Ethan snorted and crashed down beside me on the sofa. He put an arm around me with a chuckle.

"Are you sure you're actually eighteen and not seven or something?" he teased.

I arched an eyebrow at him. "Well, you better hope I'm eighteen otherwise that makes you a pedo, babe," I retorted bluntly.

He just rolled his eyes at me, likely for a lack of a good comeback.

I always would, and always would be the comeback queen.

Lucas sat down on the sofa across and threw his present across the room, and onto my lap.

"Open mine first, it's the best one," Lucas snapped bossily with a cocky smirk stretched out on his face.

I looked at the gift in suspicion, wondering what kind of gift someone as weird as Lucas would give. Quickly, I ripped away the paper. Once it was removed, I paused, trying to work out what it was.

Then my eyes widened in horror. The weirdo had gotten me a pack of condoms but not just normal ones, he had given me fucking glow in the dark ones.

May let out a frustrated groan. "That's not what I told you to get, you dumbass," May snapped as she whacked him upside the head.

He rolled his eyes. "Well, excuse me, for thinking earrings sounded boring," he frowned. "I just wanted to get her something that she'd actually use," he shrugged.

I scowled at him. "Lucas, What the fuck. My dad could walk downstairs at any moment. He'd have a heart attack if he saw this in my hand," I hissed as I felt my face burn hotly in shame.

Lucas didn't seem fazed by my reaction at all. "And? Doesn't he want you guys to be safe? From the number of times, I've walked in on you guys with each other's tongues rammed down each other's throat. I'm sure it'll be used up rather quickly," he said flatly.

"You've only walked in on us one time, stop exaggerating," Ethan said in exasperation. "And also, why the fuck do you always get people condom as presents? I literally still have the stupid pack you bought me a couple years ago. I was literally a virgin Lucas, so what the fuck?" he said with an incredulous laugh.

"Well, I bought them on the off chance that 10th grade Mia might want to hate fuck you or something," Lucas shrugged.

His statement, caused my spit to lodge its way down the wrong end of my throat, causing me to break out into a furious coughing fit.

This didn't seem to faze Lucas in the slightest, and he continued blabbering on.

"And, also, are you shitting me about only walking in on you once? I've walked in on you plenty of times, just last week I came over to your house, and your hand was wiggling around down Mia's-"

"I think that's enough storytime," Chloe interrupted with a nervous laugh.

I sent her a grateful smile, thankful that she stopped Lucas from oversharing the more intimate moments of Ethan and I's relationship to the entire fucking room.

"Open mine next," Chloe said as she stretched over and handed me her present.

I ripped away the wrapping paper and smiled as I pulled out a cute little sundress dress and some sparkly nail polish.

"Aww thank you, Chlo, I love it," I said as I held it up to my chest proudly.

"You didn't say you loved my present," Lucas whined as he crossed his arms angrily. "

Yes, that was because it sucked!" I spat bluntly. Lucas just stuck his tongue out at me childishly.

I opened May's present next and pulled out a large photo album. A massive grin stretched out onto my face as I eagerly started to flip through the pages. They were filled with cute pictures of Chloe, May and I from when we were little, all the way up to now.

"Woah, what's that one!" Ethan laughed as he flipped back a page and pointed at a picture. "Why are you holding a notebook up to the camera, and smirking your head off?"

I widened my eyes in horror as I saw It was a picture of twelve-year-old me holding the notebook.

The notebook that Ethan is never supposed to see.

"T-that's nothing, give it back," I stuttered in panic as I quickly reached out to snatch it back.

"Hell no," Ethan snorted as he twisted around, so it was out of reach.

"Wait...what does that say on the cover?" he said as he squinted his eyes to see.

"Holy shit, why does it say, 'ways to get away with murdering Ethan Blythe'?" he laughed as he turned back around to face me with an eyebrow raised.

And there it was...

I opened my mouth to come up with an excuse, then closed it again.

I scowled and snapped my head towards May. "Why the hell did you put that picture in there?" I hissed.

"Thought it would be funny," she shrugged.

"I thought it would be funny," I mimicked her childishly. "Newsflash, May, it's not."

I turned back to face Ethan with a nervous laugh. "Yeah...about that...I might have held an unusual amount of resentment towards you in middle school, that some might deem 'unhealthy,' or 'psychopathic,'" I said as I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly.

Ethan shook his head at me, and his eyes shimmered with amusement. "Some might deem? I think all might deem," he snorted. "But don't worry, I'm fine with dating a psychopath," he winked.

I hit his shoulder. "I'm not a psychopath," I whined.

Ethan smirked and whipped out his phone. He typed something, then cleared his throat to speak. "Psychopath- an unstable and aggressive person," he read before shooting me a pointed look.

Well, shit...

"Oh shut, up," I grumbled before snatching back the album and flipping to the next page of the book.

When I was finished having a good look through all the pages, I looked back up at May with a grateful smile.

"Thanks, May, that was super sweet," I smiled.

"Yeah, it's our last year of high school together, so I thought I should make it to close a chapter and all that," May said with a soft smile.

My smile slowly faded from my face, as I realized next year, we'd only be able to see each other in the holidays.

"It's going to be so irritating not being at the same college as you guys," I sighed.

"Well, at least you've still got Ethan. You're going to Stanford with him, right?" May asked.

I paused, an evil idea popping into my mind.

"Actually, I got rejected. Guess we're gonna have to do long-distance, Ethan," I remarked with a shrug of my shoulders.

"What!" Ethan yelled as he practically jumped out of his seat. He looked genuinely stressed.

"No, no, but you said you got in. Did you lie? Why would you do this to me? You didn't give me time to process this. Mia, why-"

I cut off his frantic rambling with a laugh. He was just too cute.

"I'm only winding you up, Ethan. I got in," I chuckled.

The tension left his body, and his shoulders sagged down in relief.

He glared at me in annoyance. "Is your favorite hobby to bully me, or something?" he snapped. He picked up a cushion from behind me and started to furiously whack me with it.

I laughed. "Is that aggression, I see? Looks like I'm not the only psychopath in the room," I chocked out in between chuckles of laughter as he continued to hit me with the pillow.

He gave me an unimpressed look and finally stopped. I brushed my now messy hair away from my face and smiled.

"You're present better be good after attacking the birthday girl," I said as I eyed his gift on the table in intrigue.

He rolled his eyes at me and stretched forward to grab his very large present before placing it onto my lap. I was about to rip open the paper when he put a hand over mine to stop me.

"Wait a second. Before you open it, I just want you to promise me that you'll go through the content inside, safely and sensibly," he explained condescendingly slowly as though he was trying to reason with a rabid animal.

I scoffed at his dramatics. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I promise," I said dismissively.

As soon as he let go of my hand, I started to furiously rip away at the paper until it was scattered all around me, in tiny shreds. I stopped once I found myself looking at a beige woven picnic basket.

I arched an eyebrow at him. "You...er...got me a picnic basket?" I laughed.

He rolled his eyes. "You have to open it," he sighed.

"Oh," I said dumbly.

I lifted the lid of the basket, and a gasp escaped my lips as I saw what beautiful treasures laid inside. Tears of happiness sprung to my eyes.

The picnic basket was filled to the brim with a multitude of sugary delights, containing all my favorites from brownies and muffins to ben and jerry ice-cream. The cupcakes were decorated with the number eighteen on them, and some even had a shockingly good cartoon drawing of me on. All the bakery items looked fresh and had the most amazingly unique decoration on them.

"Holy shit," I breathed, barely able to take my gaze away from the beautiful sight before me.

I slowly looked up at him, with my mouth hanging open in shock. "Did you-did you bake this yourself?" I asked as I looked at him in disbelief.

He nodded his hand, and his face colored red in embarrassment.

This must have taken him ages; I didn't know he could even bake.

"So, I take it you like it?" he asked as he looked at me in amusement.

"Like it?" I scoffed. "I love it. I could marry you on the spot for this," I laughed as I leaned in and pecked him on the lips.

A mischievous glint sparkled in his eyes. "Careful, I might hold you to your word," he winked.

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