Mark’s Birthday

“Happy Birthday Mark!!!” yelled a chorus of female voices as Mark entered his room.

There were girls everywhere, all so excited to be wishing Mark a happy birthday. They all stood together, clapping as he entered the room. Looking around, he saw Tiffany with a cake, Winter and Katie on one side of her, Jess and Ali on the other side. Looking further into the group behind them, he saw Miranda, cleavage out and about as usual. To the side of her was Cassidy, smiling brightly.

All the girls had come together to wish him a happy birthday, he felt on top of the world.

Then he woke up.

Fuck, he thought to himself, just another dumb dream.

Rubbing his eyes, Mark looked at the time on his phone, it was still pretty early, just after 8:30am. It was still a good time to check his Facebook wall and messages to see if anyone had wished him a happy birthday yet.

Scrolling through, he put his phone back down quickly. No messages and a couple of people posting on his wall that he hadn’t spoken to in years.

After what happened with Ali last night, Mark was pretty down in the dumps again. Leading girls on was something he never thought he would capably be able to do but now he was, without even realising it.

Waking up, Mark went through his usual daily routines. He had a shower, got dressed, had breakfast and went to the library for just a tiny bit of studying.

Once finished there, he was treated to a nice lunch in the city with his good friends, Daniel and Maple.

“I should have been ordered that seafood platter man, that looks incredible,” Daniel said, looking at Mark’s meal that was just handed to him by the waiter.

It was a good sized platter, full of fish, shrimp, calamari and salad with a wonderful dressing.

“It’s elite, I love it,” he said, taking a couple of bites, “Thanks again for shouting guys.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Maple said. The short blonde had her own Caesar salad that she was enjoying, savouring every taste.

It was a nice to be out, enjoying a beautiful birthday meal. But conversation soon turned to the whole scandal with Matt and Cassidy.

“So if you don’t mind me asking Mark,” Maple said curiously, “Have you spoken with either of them since Saturday?”

Mark finishing a mouthful, reluctantly started to prepare to answer this. “Not really, just briefly on Sunday but that’s it,” he explained, “Let’s just say, I don’t think I’ll be receiving any birthday wishes from Matt at all and Cassidy, well I don’t think I cant even really afford to speak to her right now, it’s just not a good idea right now.”

Both Maple and Daniel were sympathetic towards him. They felt bad after seeing his depressive reaction once they brought it up.

“Look Mark, don’t get too down on yourself, we all make mistakes and at least you weren’t the one who actually cheated on someone,” Maple said, hoping to cheer him up.

It did certainly help, the trio quickly got back to different conversations for the rest of their time at lunch.

The rest of his day went by fairly quickly, birthday wishes here and there from people across campus. Tiffany had whipped up some special birthday cupcakes for him that she delivered to his dorm room during the afternoon. Considering what she was going through with Travis and exams all at once, it meant a lot that she would take the time to do something this nice for him.

But otherwise, most people were just focused on the first exams that were coming up the following day.

After dinner that night, he received a call from someone who asked him to come to their room.