of birthdays and Reasoning

I don’t get him sometimes. He’s confusing in his simplicity. He says things I don’t understand, not because he’s too smart, but because what he says is Scott Logic, which is very different from what I think in, Regular Logic. Regular Logic says ‘My girlfriend might like to go out for her birthday.” Scott Logic says ‘My girlfriend might like me to come to her house at an ungodly hour and kidnap her.”1

He, of course, chooses Scott Logic nine times out of ten.2

It is because of this choice I am sitting in my clothes from yesterday in the passenger seat of my boyfriend’s car - sweating a little because he isn't running the damn air-conditioner and it's nearly June in Florida - staring at him quizzically as he talks about a ‘surprise’.3

“I should leave you for a girl,” I say as I stare, and he gives me his normal quirky smile.4

“Can I watch?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. He’s disgusting. I am eighteen years old today, but for about nine hours I am still seventeen and can kill him and be tried as a minor. He’d better watch his step.5

I pull down the mirror and try to make sense of my hair. “You could have called me,” I say, pulling my hair from my face only to tug a few strands back, sexy-movie star like. Sexy-movie star with bags under her eyes and a pillow pattern on her face, that is.6

He shakes his head. “Would ruin the surprise,” he says simply. 7

I sigh. I am stinky, tired, and awake at seven in the morning on a Saturday. He’s cruising for a bruising.8

Breakfast is grabbed on the way, donuts, which I DO like, but won’t admit or smile to. I still fail to see when my happy special birthday surprise is supposed to come into creation. He won’t tell me where we’re going, which I DON’T like, and say several times. He gives me that same smile every time, and shakes his head.9

We finally pull up to – surprise? – his driveway, and he looks excited as he  gets his house key, opens the door, and lets me in. His mom is gone already, his sister at a friend’s, so the house is quiet and smells like coffee. He turns off his phone ringer and then pulls me to his room, smiling like a damn Cheshire Cat. The windows are covered in dark sheets, so the room is dark except for his bedside lamp. He sits on his bed and says “Happy Birthday!”10

And I stare at him. 11

He gives me a look as if I’m an idiot. “Well? Get it?”12

I keep staring, and though it may appear to the outside world as if I’m simply standing and looking, I’m actually deciding the quickest way to castrate him. “What am I supposed to get here?” I ask.13

He smiles, and if he says anything relating to a birthday fuck, I swear my plan will go into action.14

“You always say you want us to wake up together,” he says. “So we will.”15

I am speechless. He takes this as a good sign. 16

“I set the alarm for ten,” he continues. “Then we’ll shower, and you’ll put on the new dress that me and Mom picked out and we’ll go out for brunch, or whatever it is you girls do.”17

I can’t help it. I start to cry. 18

He pales and jumps up, hugging me quickly. “I’m sorry,” he squeaks. "I thought you'd like it."19

I can’t stop crying long enough to tell him that I love it, that he’s the sweetest person ever, that I love him more than air and I’ve never been so happy. Instead I reach up and probably choke him with my hug, kissing his face.20

He finally realizes I’m not going to kill him, and his smile comes back as he leads me, still crying, to his closet where my ‘new dress’ is hanging next to his leather jacket. His mother must have picked it out and made him pay for it, because it’s cute, and Scott can barely pick out his own clothes. It means i get to shop for him, though, so i never want him to have fashion sense.21

We finally go to bed, me wearing a pair of his boxers as sleeping shorts, and I put my head on his chest staring up at him. This is possibly the best present I’ve ever gotten, period. “I love you.”22

He smiles. “I know,” he says simply, giving me a kiss on my forehead. I tilt my head up farther and another lands on my lips. I get a long birthday kiss, and then he cuddles me close. “Go to sleep,” he whispers. 23

I sigh and cuddle back. I don’t get him at all sometimes, but God his logic rocks. 24