Meanwhile at school.

While you were counting down the days to go until your birthday, back at school you began to notice Allison (who you'd kind of knocked to the wayside ever since discovering your mom was going to be a porn star) becoming a little more aggressive with her flirting - presumably thinking you were playing hard to get, which you of course were not. You were still attracted to her though and found her fun to be around, it was just that now, it kind of felt like you were holding out for something else, something better. After having become more than infatuated with your mother's body and her career in porn, not to mention the occasional lewd message you still received from her while in 'Amber Knights' mode, you'd begun to feel like there was no way Allison (as nice as she was) could possibly live up to that - feeling fairly certain that you'd still be thinking about your mom all the time even if the two of you did get together, which wasn't really fair on her.

This was pretty ridiculous of course for a 17 year old boy with very little in the way of sexual experience, who should be jumping on any opportunity he had to be with an attractive girl like Allison, as Randall constantly told you - not having a chance in hell after all of being with either a porn star or your mom!

"I'm telling you, dude, she's freaking hot for you!" he sighed, seeming more than a little frustrated, "Didn't you see her back there in History, she was all over you? Why the hell haven't you asked her out yet?"

"I dunno," you shrugged, not having any kind of feasible excuse that you could tell him, "I guess I'm just not really sure if she's my type."

"Your type? Your type?! Tim, she's everyone's freaking type! She's Allison Lowry for fuck sake! You've been chasing her for like the past year!"

"I know...It's just, after the accident. After my mom...well you know," you explained, your mother's '****' (then rebirth) in a sense being the actual cause of all this, "Stuff kind of changed."

Dipping his head as if embarrassed, Randall suddenly turned a little awkward., "Shit, dude, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so hard on you."

Having of course not really meant to take the wind out of the conversation in such a way, sometimes forgetting that not everyone else was privy to the knowledge that your mom was still very much alive, you quickly told him, "Nah, it's cool. It's been nearly three months. I guess I should be used to it by now."

"Stuff like that isn't all that easy to get used to though" he replied, turning a little quiet, "I know. I went through the exact same thing with my mom."

You didn't know exactly how to respond to this, feeling bad for dragging up old feelings in your friend over his own mother's ****, not really having the same point of reference as he did. You may have buried your own mother's body and she may now be no longer living her old life, but she wasn't dead. Far from it. She was now living life to the full, and doing things she never would have even dreamed of or imagined before.

Thankfully, Randall once again perked up after a brief moments pause, getting the conversation back on track and as he told you, "Anyway, all I'm saying is you should seriously give it some thought. Cause if you don't ask her out, then you can bet your ass I'm going to!"

"Good luck with that," you chuckled, this not really being too much of a concern for you, "I'm not exactly sure you're her type."

"Well she's into you so the bar must be set pretty low."

Laughing at this and braking into a little play fight, trying to make your friend eat his words, the tension in the conversation quickly dissipated and the two of you went back to shooting the shit like your normally did as you headed for your next class. That was until Randall suddenly decided to bring up your birthday, and what exactly you were planning on doing for it.

"We should totally have a party or something, seeing how your dad never has anything planned," he said, sounding rather excited, "It is your 18th after all, and it'd be a damn good opportunity for you to hook up with Allison...If you want to that is."

"Uhm, I dunno, Randall," you replied, not sure exactly how to tell him you already had plans - what with your mom technically being 'dead', and not really being able to just come out and say that you were going round to porn star Amber Knights' house for lunch. "A party probably isn't such a good idea. And besides, I'm uh, I'm actually already going to be doing something then."

"You are? Oh, cool! What?"

This was a good question - what exactly where you doing? Racking your brains for a plausible seeming answer that both excluded him and that wouldn't lead to too many more questions, you then said, "Well, I'm uh, I'm actually going to spend the day visiting my uh...one of my mom's cousins!" As soon as you said this you cringed a little inside, recalling how the whole 'Stephanie being your mom's long lost cousin' idea had been long scrapped, but in the moment being unable really to think of anything else.

It seemed to have the desired effect on Randall however, as looking a little confused for a second, he responded, "Uhm, okay. That's cool...I guess," clearly not being entirely sure what else to say.

After giving him a few extraneous bits of information, just to make it a little easier to swallow - explaining that you hadn't seen her for years and that she wanted to catch up and talk about your mom and things, and seeing as your family hadn't made any plans you decided to do it on your birthday, Randall seemed to accept this and no more was really said (apart from of course the suggestion that you should have a party anyway, on some other day), instead his attention turning back to Allison, who was actually in this very next class.