Today is my 13th birthday party. I’m not really that excited. I don’t really know who is going to end up coming, I’m pretty sure my mom tried to invite at least one person. I didn’t invite anyone on purpose and didn’t tell her that. 

I’m with my mom in the kitchen waiting for people to come, the people I don’t even want to be coming or even invite in the first place. The doorbell rings. 

“Lena, answer that please”, my mom tells me. Ugh, why does she do this to me. 

“Yes, mom”, I say. 

I trudge to the door. I open the door to find a girl for my school, one of the pretty ones and a woman who I can assume is her mom. 

The girl smiles at me and says, “Hi, I’m Ji-su.”

“I’m Lena”, I say, avoiding looking at her.

I can feel them both staring at me while I awkwardly stand in the doorway. I suddenly realize that they are waiting for me to let them in, I jump back out of the way and look at them apologetically. 

“Come on in”, I say.

They walk in and the woman goes into the kitchen and starts talking to my mom. I stand quietly and awkwardly by Ji-su.

Suddenly Ji-su asks, “Um, where am I supposed to put this.”

I jump hearing Ji-su speak to me, I look at her to figure out what she is talking about after pausing long enough to make me look stupid. I notice the present that she is still holding.

Oh, stop being so dumb, I think. 

“Over here,'' I say as I show her to the kitchen counter where my mom told me to put the presents.

Our moms are in the kitchen talking, so I figure I am all by myself on trying not to make this too awkward. 

“So how old are you?” I ask, awkwardly. 

Ji-su looks at me and smiles. I think she is trying to put me at ease.  

“14, my birthday was in January,” she says

“Cool, you probably already know how old I am.”

She looks at me and chuckles.

“Yeah, it’s your 13th birthday party, I figured you were 13.”

I nod. I look right into her eyes, her eyes are beautiful, practically black but still so pretty. Ji-su looks at me just as intently. Her mom comes over to us and clears . We both look away from each other; Ji-su looks at her mom and I look at the floor.

 “Sorry to interrupt your staring contest..”, she says

I feel my cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. I see Ji-su blush. 

Her mom continues, “...but I was just coming to see what you two were up to.”

I stand silent not wanting to embarrass myself more. 

Her mom says, “You two are getting along fine, right?” 

I nod rapidly as Ji-su says,“Yeah”.

 “Good”, her mom says and then walks away.

Now that was embarrassing, this situation only seems to be getting more and more embarrassing.

“Um, Ji-su, do you want to go up to my room?” 

“S-sure”, Ji-su says.

Why is she nervous? Maybe she… No it’s not possible. 

I lead Ji-su to my room, and then sit on my bed. She sits on the floor. I don’t say anything. 

She quietly asks, “Do you know if I am the only person coming to your party?”

I stare at my hands and pretend that she isn’t here. 

No, don’t cry. Please don’t. Why are you always being such a baby? Then, I pull my legs to my chest and rest my head on my knees. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset,” Ji-su says, sounding genuinely upset.

 I try to muffle my crying. Oh no, I think she heard me.

“What’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?”, she asks worried.

I feel awful I didn’t want to make her so upset. 

“No, it’s okay. I’m s-s-sorry.” I say, with my face down so I can’t see her and my voice sounding muffled because of my face against my knees.

She sits next to me on the bed. I glance up at her for a second, then hide my face. She nervously puts her hand on my back to try to comfort me. 

“Do you want to talk about what’s wrong?”, she asks gently.

She touches my back and I tense at first, then relax a bit. She starts rubbing my back like my mom does when I am upset. She keeps doing that untiI lift my head. 

I look at her and say, “I guess.” 

“What made you cry?” she asks. 

“Um, just something stupid that happened at school.”

“Silly stupid or I am pretending it doesn’t really matter but it actually a big deal kind of stupid.”

“I don’t know, maybe both.”

“What happened, then.”

“Well, it’s just none of my friends could come,'' I say, in my best not lying voice.

“They just couldn’t come, or is it something more than that,'' she asks, raising her eyebrows and looking at me very seriously.

 She’s kind-of acting like a mom at this moment, I would be laughing if it was one of my friends. I look at her surprised. How does she keep reading my mind? 

“Well actually….”, I say and then suddenly stop.

I look at her again, weighing whether I should actually tell her or not. She smiles at me. 

I look down, and continue, “They kind-of ganged up on me and told me that I wasn’t allowed to talk to them, because they didn’t like me anymore. I never asked them if they could come because they said that if I talked to them again then they would tell everyone....”

“That’s horrible!! What were they going to tell everyone?!”, she blurts out.

“Nothing, they were not going to tell anyone anything. Forget about that part”, I say, rushed, I realize that I’m standing up and sit back down on the bed. Stay calm, she doesn’t need to know your big secret, this could end really badly. Ugh, again with the blabbermouth.

“It sounds like you told them something that they didn’t like and are trying to use against you,'' she says. I hope she just ignores what I said. 

“I don’t really want to talk about it”, I say, kind of defensively.

“Well, I want to fight them for you those es”, she says fiercely. 

“Don’t do that. You could get hurt or suspended”, I say, worriedly.

“Why would that matter?”

“Seriously don’t get in trouble because of me”, I say, now begging.

“Fine”, she says almost like she’s mad at me. 

My mom walks in right after that. 

“We were wondering where you two went. It’s time to do cake”, she tells us.

“Okay”, I say, pretending to be fine like usual around her. 

 I turn to Ji-su, “Come on, let’s go.” 

Effectively ending the conversation that could have ended a lot worse than it did. 

We eat cake but since my mom got a whole big cake we barely eat any of it. 

“Go get the present, sweetie”, my mom tells me after we finish eating cake. 

I get up and then come back to sit where I had originally been sitting next to Ji-su. She smiles at me after I glance at her. 

I open it and it's a gift card to Target.  

“Thank you, I love going shopping at Target.” I say, as I smile at both Ji-su and her mom, trying to use my best manners. 

“We’re glad you like to go there”, Ji-su’s mom says.

“Um, Ji-su where do you go to school?” I ask. I shouldn’t have asked that, she’s probably going to remember that we go to the same school.

“Ravenwood”, Ji-su says.

“Me too,” I say. Great, now she’s going to be looking out for me.

“I’m in 8th grade,'' she says.

“Me too,” I say. She’s going to be more likely to notice me now, . 

“I guess we have different classes, then,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. 

“You could hang out with me at lunch, you know if you wanted to,” she says.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” I agree but only because my mom is right there. I hope that she doesn’t plan to follow through with that, I don’t need to embarrass myself more.  

“My friend, Kai will love you”, Ji-su tells me. 

“Really? Are you sure?”, I asked.  I really don’t believe her. How could anyone love me or even want to hang out with me.

“Yeah, he will. I think you would like hanging out with him too,” Ji-su tells me excitedly.

“Are you sure?”, I say, still doubtful. Maybe I’ll like him, but who can say that he’ll like me? I'll bore him more likely.

Ji-su nods vigorously. I don’t believe her. 

“Is Kai nice?”, I ask.

“Yeah, we laugh and joke a lot too,” Ji-su tells me while smiling. 

“What’s your favorite thing to do?”, I ask.

“Dancing,” Ji-su says.

“Hm, cool. What kind of music do you dance to?” I ask. I love to dance, too. I’m just not good. I don’t really want to admit that to her though.

“Anything, but k-pop is my favorite. I started dance lessons when I was 4 after I begged my mom to do dance and still do it to this day”, she tells me, her eyes sparkling like this is her passion, which I’m sure it is. 

“Wow. Are you good?” I ask. I mean how could she not be, I think she is actually good at everything she does.

“Yeah. I just love doing it, that’s why I even do dance, because it makes me happy”, she tells me passionately.

“I like to dance. Not all the time but it’s fun for me”, I say without really thinking. Why did I say that? I should have kept that to myself. I was going to myself.

“Are you good?” She asks.

“Not really”, I say. Maybe, she won’t ask more about it.

“I know what we should do!”, Ji-su practically yells, very enthusiastically. 

“What?”, I ask. NOOOO. I bet it’s dancing. I really shouldn’t have said anything.

“We should dance together!”, she says, ignoring the fact that I said I was bad at dancing. 

Great! I inwardly facepalm.

“Maybe you should just dance. I’m really not good at dancing”, I tell her. I really don’t want to dance in front of her.

“I bet you’re better than you think you are. Come on, it will be fun. Let’s have some fun”, Ji-su says while pulling me into the living room. 

“Fine”, I say, giving in. Why is it so hard to say no to her? Ugh.

“You find something you want to dance to, because I can dance to anything”, she tells me. 

I open my phone and find one of the dances I’ve been learning. I turn up the volume and press play. Ji-su listens for a second and starts dancing. I don’t move, watching her is amazing. Not only is she talented but her body…. Ok let’s not go there. 

“Lena, come on dance. It doesn’t matter if you look like a floppy french fry dancing or are the best dancer in the world. Just freaking dance”, Ji-su tells me, looking at me like she will literally force me to if I don’t move.

That breaks me out of my haze and prompts me to get up. I find the place in the song and start dancing. I lose myself. I’m not even paying attention to Ji-su anymore, in the slightest. I just dance, like it’s just me here. When the song ends I sit down back down on the couch.

“You are good, Lena”, Ji-su tells me. 

Nothing compared to you, Ji-su. 

“No way. And by the way you looked amazing”, I say.

“Where did you learn to dance? And thank you”, Ji-su tells me, as she stares at me. 

“I didn’t learn how to dance anywhere”, I say. 

“Wait, you learned that without a teacher?!”, Ji-su exclaims, I can see the surprise written on her face. 

“Yeah, it’s nothing special”, I say.

“You have talent, you should come to the dance studio I go to. Maybe you can talk to your mom about it”, Ji-su tells me.

“I guess I could ask her about it”, I say. 

Haha, I think not. Dance studio, no way. I don’t want to go dance in front of people and have people tell me what I’m doing wrong. Plus, she wouldn’t let me do that. 

“Can I see your phone for a sec?”, Ji-su asks.

“Why?”, I ask, hesitantly.

“I just wanted to look it up for you”, she tells me.

“Why not just use your phone?”, I ask. 

God, that sounded rude. I should just let her use the damn phone. It’s not like she’s going to do anything that will harm me or anything. 

“Um, I left it in the car”, Ji-su says, she kinda looks like she’s lying. 

It’s not like she’ll find out anything… or kill my phone. What’s wrong with her using the phone?

“Ok, here”, I say, after I unlock it. 

I don’t watch over her shoulder but she seems to be typing an awful lot and even seems to pose for a selfie. 

Is she doing something other than just looking up that dance studio? Why would she need to take a selfie for that?

Then, she turns the phone around. 

“This is the place”, Ji-su says, then hands me my phone back. 

It’s just a normal looking dance studio to me. 

The type I don’t want to step foot in. 

“Oh, it looks cool”, I say, trying to seem interested in it for her sake. 

“Thanks for letting me use your phone”, Ji-su says.

I look through my phone. I find a selfie of her and a text sent to a contact that I don’t remember adding:“SuSu<3”. I don’t ask her about it. It’s obvious that this is what she was doing. 

Ji-su’s mom comes in and says, “Ji-su we have to go”. 

Then turns to me, “Happy Birthday Lena!”. 

Then turns and leaves the room. 

“Bye, Lena, I hope you had a good birthday. Thank you for inviting me”, Ji-su says, with a smile.

“Thank you for coming. And see you later”, I say, awkwardly. Why am I so bad at these things?

Ji-su turns to follow her mom towards the door. I follow her to where our moms are standing.

I somewhat listen to my mom tell them, “Thank you for coming. Lena had a great time and it was very nice to talk to you again, Siyeon”. 

“It was great of you to have us”, Siyeon, Ji-su’s mom says. 

“Thank you for coming”, I say, trying to sound polite and appreciative.

“We’ll be going now. Thank you again for inviting us”, Ji-su’s mom says.

They walk out the door and Ji-su turns, and waves at me. I awkwardly wave back. I watch them get in their car and drive away through the front window.