Happy Birthday

"Thanks for the update, Cupcake." I immediately regret letting how I feel show to her. She always knows if I'm kidding or if something's really up. Of course she has to ask.

"What the hell is wrong with you today? You've been talking even less than the normal few sentences you say a day." Always the joker, K.

"Nothing." As if that's going to do anything but make her want to know even more. She walks over to me, her eyes, one slightly covered by her pitch black hair, light up with anger and frustration. Great, now I've pissed her off.

"Tell. Me." She says through gritted teeth, her voice, able to be so soft, now is ice cold.

"Today is November fifth." I tell her, pointing towards the battery powered clock we found searching a house that displayed the actual date. It's crazy how time seems to slow down at times and speed up at others. More than a year had passed since this all started. It feels like ten.

"So?" She asks, obviously trying her best to calm down. I'm surely not helping with that.

"It's my birthday." I say flatly.

"Happy-"

"No. Not happy." Sure as hell not happy.

"Why?" She's interested now, and I know because she gets this look on her face whenever I tell her something and she wants to know more. It's impossible to resist.

So I tell her about how every year on my birthday something happens that makes me wish I wasn't born. Whether it's the day I came into this world thirteen years ago now, when my mom died, or every year after that when I lost something else I loved. I don't like explaining it, but I feel she needs to know. I tell her how I figure if I don't acknowledge it, it'll just pass like any other day. But that never works. It's a curse, and I can't seem to break it. Maybe today is different, though.

I'll just have to see.