Page 119 of Finding Us

“I will if you sing it with me.” He sits down on the stool next to the microphone. “You ready?”

“Me? I can’t sing.”

“Everyone can sing Happy Birthday.”

“No, I really can’t. I seriously cannot sing, not even—”

“We have a special performer here with us tonight,” the guy announces into the microphone.

I move closer to him. “No!” I whisper. “I’m not doing this.”

“This is Jade and we’re going to sing Happy Birthday to her husband, the young man sitting back there in the blue shirt. She’s a little nervous. Let’s give her a round of applause.”

All the tables on the patio are full and everyone starts cheering and clapping.

I feel like I’m in some terrible nightmare. Like those ones where you’re about to take a test and you forget everything you learned, or where you’re giving a speech in front of a room full of people and you realize you’re not wearing any clothes. You wake up in a state of sheer panic. Yeah, that’s what this is like.

I hear the old guy again. “Ready, Jade?”

I notice he now has a microphone shoved in front of my face. I look over and see Sean, Harper, and Garret standing up, smiling and clapping. I guess this is my punishment for laughing at the guy.

He starts singing, motioning me to join in. I hesitate, but then go ahead and sing along with him.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you…” And the song continues for what seems like the longest ever rendition of Happy Birthday.

When it’s done, I race back to my seat and sit down.

Garret leans over and kisses me. “Thank you. That was quite a performance.”

“Yeah. A comic performance. Why didn’t you go up there and save me?”

“Here.” Harper holds out her phone and I see a video of myself singing with the old guy.

“You recorded that? Harper!”

“It’s a birthday present for Garret. I’ll send it to you.” She turns the volume up and I hear myself singing. I’m so bad it makes me laugh.

I kiss Garret’s cheek. “Sorry, Garret. I tried.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He kisses me back on the lips. “I loved it.”

“Here’s the best part.” Harper turns up the volume even more as the song comes to the high note, which I couldn’t reach. I hear my voice crack, which causes all of us to laugh.

I’m going to miss this so much. The four of us hanging out all the time, talking, laughing, doing stuff together.

We stay there the rest of the night, listening to the old guy sing. He even raps again. I’m glad he was there. I thought the dinner would be sad and serious, but it ended up being fun and was a good way to spend our last night together.

The next morning Sean and Harper leave for Connecticut. Even with my ‘see ya later’ line, goodbyes still suck. I know I’ll see those guys again but it’s not the same as seeing them every day.

“Hey.” Garret puts his arm around me as we watch them drive away. “You still gotmehere. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.” I wipe the tears off my face and smile up at him. “But you’re not a girl and as much as I love you, sometimes I need to talk to a girl. And Harper’s the only girl I felt like I could really talk to. I’ve never had a friend like her. And now she’s gone and I have to start over. I’m not very good at making friends.”

“You’ll make new friends, Jade. And you’ll still talk to Harper.” Garret kisses my forehead, then takes my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” I follow him inside.

“We’re going on a road trip.”

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