MALLORY HAD TWO BIRTHDAYS, the first being her actual date of birth and the second, the day Cole had brought her home from the orphanage. They were the same days, but different. June one was when she was born, and September 29th, the day that she was reborn, reborn in the sense, that by adopting her, Cole had untangled her from the clutches of fate, and remoulded her into the person he wanted her to be, the future he wanted her to have—he and Jane.

She read all this on her bed, among the stacks of letters she'd gotten from all sorts of people, some people she'd seen at the annual family get together, and others whose names she hadn't heard before. Yet it was Cole's letter that stood out amongst the litters, a judgement she made without having to read the other letters. She didn't have to. There would be more depth and meaning in Cole's letters than there ever would be in the letters of a bunch of random strangers who she didn't know, and who most likely didn't know her too. Familiarity fueled meaning, made the inked words on a paper seem much closer to the heart, more genuine than if someone she hardly knew wrote it. It could be the same words written but to a different effect.

Cole's letter had made her cry. She read it in his voice. She read everything in his voice, that calm, dreamy voice of his that had grown vines in her memory since she was a child. It was the voice that she'd heard every night before she went to sleep. Cole had read those bedtime stories that sent her into a deep spiral of unconsciousness. But it wasn't really the story that made her sleep, it was his voice, more lullaby than lullaby itself, an anastasia that would work faster than any other.

Mallory pulled out a pen and paper and began to write back, but stopped halfway, her heart protesting. How could she write to the same person she still harboured malice for. Or did she? She touched her chest as though to look for it, the black inked stain of resentment that sometimes sullied the purity of the heart. But she didn't find it. She was mad at Cole from a logical side—he should have told her about Jane— but was soft for him emotionally. Time had quelled her anger.

"Mal, take out the garbage will you?" Susan yelled from the kitchen, her high-pitched voice filling Mallory's ears with steam as it usually did. She hated Susan on a normal day but hated her more now. Who gave a person chores on their birthday? Who but an insensitive, emotionally out-of-tune person, which were descriptions Susan would fit in for any day but still...

Mallory reluctantly shoved the pile of letters from her lap and climbed off the bed. She slipped into her bunny slippers and began heading for the kitchen to refuse Susan's demands. But Susan was not there, the pot of potatoes she was boiling, rumbling and clattering on the cooker. She walked over to it and turned the knob off, not because it was overdue, but because she wanted to elongate the time that it would take to be due. Susan's cooking was not the best. No, in fact, it was the worst, much more disgusting than a pile of cow dung. But at least, something as repulsive as that would still have a taste. The longer she had to wait to shove the meals underneath the table cloth during lunch, the better.

She took the black waste bag from the kitchen floor and slung it over her shoulder. It was surprisingly weightless, as though nothing but air occupied it, and that was a shock considering the quantity of waste Susan produced from her numerous trial and error cooking sessions. She shrugged and made her way outside, opened the large entrance door that led to the green dumpster cans outside, and was met with everything she wasn't expecting.

"Suprise!"

Mallory yelped at the sight of them, a colony of people lined up across the green lawn. Ballons and Happy birthday banners hung over them like colourful adornments. The cheeky grins on their faces were so jubilant, it was heading towards creepy. She recognised some of them, most of them being from her high school, Becky Ryan, Mary Jones, Tracy Umpire, and hers truly, Allen Wrights, the person who she spent her entire high-school year crushing on from a distance. He'd never actually noticed her, and over time, the pain of an unrequited attraction had quelled every inch of romantic feeling she had for him, but yet there was still something magical about this, something dreamy-like about the brawny, caramel-skinned jock setting foot in her territory in her house, and something almost pleasurably murderous about his staring at her.

She turned away and averted her gaze to Susan instead. She was a step out of the line, a happy birthday cake stretched out in front of her. Her smile was overdone, a smile that almost stretched to the edges of her face. But it was the state of her eyes that worried her. There were so widened in excitement, Mallory feared that her eyeballs would bawl out of their sockets and fall into the cake in front of her. She was still staring when Susan told her to "C'mon, make a wish." Mallory did, and she wished for one thing

For all of them to go away.

It should've been obvious by now that Mallory was not the one for social gatherings. She hated concentrated environments, where there were so many eyes, that there was no particular place to feel secure in. The undignified chatters of crowds always repulsed her, were like unintelligible sounds that were viscerally amplified in her ears. There'd always was something impossible about speaking to people whom she wasn't close to, and just for what? for the sake of socialising?

"Thanks for the party, Susan," Mallory said, sitting aside Susan by the barbecue stand. Others were in the middle of the lawn, either drinking, talking, laughing or doing all those at once. She caught a glimpse of Samantha and Allen getting cosy at the far end, having their hands wrapped around each other's waists, in a way that made her preempt a kiss. But they only seemed to be talking, and Mallory felt an odd compulsion to grow mega hears and listen in on their conversation, to know if they were talking about anything along the lines of romance even when it was obvious that they were. She didn't have anything for Allen, but yet still felt abnormally protective of him, in the way that you were protective of a precious artefact, only he was the precious artefact, the memory she wanted to preserve. He was her first love after all.

Susan flipped the fish upon the grill. She looked up at Mallory, smiling. "You're welcome."

"But if you really wanted so bad to celebrate my birthday, you would've known that I'm not especially the type for crowds," Mallory said, matter-of-factly. She didn't take the bite from her words either. Sometimes, she felt compelled to take it away, felt a self-lash of guilt grip her whenever she responded to Susan rudely, but that was just her illogical side speaking. Susan deserved more disrespect than she was giving her.

Susan didn't look at her. "I just wanted to make you happy, I guess."

"But why?" Mallory asked.

Susan dropped the grill stick. "What do you mean why, Mal?" She stared at her pointedly. "Why not?"

"You're not asking me that question," Mallory laughed incredulously. "Why not? Because all you've done is try to tear me down, Susan. Oh, is that what this is all about? Some form of atonement for all you did to me? The wound might heal, but the scar remains."

Susan stayed silent for a while, and then when spoke, followed up with a non-sequitur. "Cole says hi."

Mallory's heart jumped. "How's he?"

"Good."

"Really?"

Susan sighed. She lifted one grilled chicken from the grill and placed it onto a plate. "Not really Mal. He's—he's just been diagnosed with Cancer."

Mallory didn't let the words sink into her being. She blocked them from entering, the soldier of denial standing just at the entrance and sending the words back towards the exit, but when he locked away, one sneaky word entered. It was Cancer. She mouthed it over and over again, as though that would make her understand the entirety of the word, the meaning even though she knew well enough what it meant. Cole and Caner seemed impossible. He'd been the person who appeared impervious to lethal things like that, like the person that would never die.

"But he's still going to be okay right?" Mallory asked, fighting back tears. It would be embarrassing, nonetheless to cry in front of Susan Wells. Susan Wells of all people.

Susan shrugged. "I have high hopes that he would," the expression on her face belied the confidence in her words. There was fear written all over it, wrinkles of worry that professed the obvious. It would require a miracle for him to turn out well. "He's taking Chemotherapy today. That's why he couldn't make it."

"I understand," Mallory said, blinking back more tears. She suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to run back into her room and complete her letter to him, or better still, take a drive to the hospital and be there next to his bed. She wanted to hold his hand and tell him it would be okay, even though she knew Cole had the mental fortitude to handle just anything. But she felt obligated, by her fear, to do that. She didn't want to lose him, and yet the chances of that happening were growing fatter and fatter each day. She began to choke for no reason, perhaps on the reality she didn't want to set in.

"Here's water," Susan said, giving her a red plastic cup. Mallory sniffed it first, for the possibility that she'd spiked it with a little something. She knew she hadn't, but hatred was a much stronger proclivity than she thought. It crossed the bounds of logic at times, and became this thing that was negative, but that you still felt, that you liked to feel.

"Why won't you stay away from my father," Mallory asked, "Why did you come back to him after all this years. He was quite fine with the divorce you know, the happiest he'd ever been."

Susan looked at her fingers, and Mallory wished she would raise her head, bask in the verification that her words had cut deep. That was all she wanted, would be the best birthday gift she had, to finally let go of her deep-seated resentment and hurt Susan very bad. Because then she wouldn't have to fantasise, or dream about doing so to her, for the times when she'd called Mallory, "fat," and "stupid and "ugly", words that seemed ineffectual on the surface, but that cut deeper than the sharpest swords, that contributed to those perpetual feelings of insecurity she would forever have. There were some things you shouldn't say to a child, their minds being as soft and collectable as a sponge, and combine that with a terribly efficient long-term memory, and it was unforgettable. Susan had never understood that

"I—I love your father, Mal," Susan said, looking up at Mallory. She said it as though it was a clarification of Mallory's doubts. "If that's what you want to know...I love him, and I would never hurt him."

"But you hurt me," Mallory got up. "And I frankly don't believe someone like you would ever be capable of love."

Mallory threw the plastic cup on the ground and walked off, ignored the hurting look in Susan's eyes, the look of someone who couldn't comprehend the weight of the blame being hauled at them. She didn't need her to. Words cut deeper than one could comprehend.

Mallory retired to the food table to scoop some punch for herself. She'd tired of her own birthday party already. It was a party that was meant for her, but that completely excluded her. Everyone was busying themselves with their own things. She couldn't help but ignore the piercing gaze of someone, couldn't help but turn to look at the man who's back was turned against the wall. He was staring at her and smoking, in a way very incongruous to the nature of the party. He was the only one that seemed to notice her, but even then, was not a positive kind of attention.

His gaze held a million secrets she couldn't decipher, spoke of a hidden motive. She winced, then talked herself to approach him. Maybe he was another relative she hadn't heard of before. But as she was approaching him, he took for the opposite direction.

Weird.

She tried to chase after him, screaming, "Hey, wait, sir!" The urgency with which he ran made her feel like it was necessary to catch up to him. But she didn't, couldn't. He was faster than three Usain bolts combined in one. She crouched to catch her breath, and it was then, face turned towards the ground that she saw it, what'd he dropped, a description tag.

Michael Benson

- Starlight Academy.

Just when she thought Starlight was all behind her...