Charlie Williams
I'm in the kitchen with my birthday breakfast when I hear the doorbell ring. I pull open the door to see a huge colorful bouquet of flowers shoved in front of my face. I take the flowers and as soon as I do I get a surprisingly energetic hug from Ollie.
Things have been going so well for us this past month. I'm still watching her eating -discreetly of course- and encouraging her every now and then. We still haven't kissed yet which is really bumming me out because every time we get close to kissing, she pulls away from me.
She pulls away and says, "Happy Birthday!" with a huge grin on her face. I give her another smile and tell her thankyou before I wrap my arm around her shoulders and close the door before walking into the kitchen. My parents both greet her with a hug and she sits down with me as I finish my breakfast, which is pancakes dyed all colors of the rainbow with strawberries, blueberries and syrup on top.
"So are you ready for today? You're hanging out with the guys in a little bit right?"
"Yeah at eight. Wanna come?" I ask her
"No silly. You go hang out with the boys and you can hangout with me later. Promise." she answers
I finish my breakfast and put my plate in the sink before going back to my Ollie and give her another hug before walking her back to the door. I give her another hug and she walks back to her house before I have the chance to do anything else.
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The guys are taking me to an escape room and I'm actually really excited. I've never been to an escape room so this should be interesting especially with a bunch of guys who are used to running and jumping around on a big court. When we arrive, the employee assigned to us brings us to a pirate themed room and tells us our goal is to solve all the riddles and puzzles to find the code to the door. If we don't finish before the time runs out then they will unlock the doors for us and we fail. So pretty much we have to finish in the allotted time. We get to work on the puzzles scattered all over the room and slowly we solve them. By the time we have five minutes left, we have all the riddles and puzzles solved except one: what is a four letter word that can be written forward, backward and upside down and can still be read left to right? This was the one we've all been stuck on for at least twenty minutes. We finished all the others in about half an hour but this one has us all stumped. A buzzer sounds and we groan in unison. The door unlocks and the same employee comes inside and lets our gloomy butts out of the room. We go to a pizza place after because it's about lunch time and we're all starving from all the problem solving. We order 5 pizzas and we eat every single piece of it. By the time I get back home, I'm blissfully happy and fired up and ready to run a marathon.
I text Ollie and ask her when she's coming over and she tells me at three. Deciding that I couldn't wait till three, I go over to her house and knock. Ollie opens the door and I maul her in a hug and wobble on my feet like a penguin to walk backwards with her still in my embrace. "I couldn't wait to see you so I'm here now" I mumble into our hug. She disentangles herself from me and goes to close to the door before turning back to me. "How was hanging out with your boys?"
"Fine, Ollie girl but it would've been better if you were there" I say with a smile on my face. She rolls her eyes and walks into the living room where the kids are playing. I follow her and see all of her siblings playing with legos and Sofia in a playpen with her own toys and babbling happily. Ollie goes over to the playpen and grabs little Sof before setting her on the changing table and changing her diaper. After she's done, she walks into the kitchen and grabs Sof a sippy of water. I sit on the floor and start to build legos with the kids and Emma, the youngest before Sofia, comes over to me and holds up her lego creation to my face. I give her a bright smile and carefully take it from my hands to examine it and say, "This is beautiful Em, I love it!" she gives me another smile and brings me some more legos to help her build onto it. She eventually climbs into my lap and we start building another creation together.
Ollie comes back with Sof and sits on the floor, not letting her off her lap so that there isn't a chance she could even hold a lego. Sofia starts to whine and when I look over at her she's reaching for me. I look at Ollie and she gives me a nod. I grab Sof from her and Ollie grabs Emma off my lap. We start playing again and I try to entertain Sofia with her toys for as long as I can but eventually she just lays in my arms, bored out of her mind. I start to get her toys and make a pile on the side of my leg to at least keep them contained and when I look back at baby Sof, she's fast asleep on my legs. I tell Ollie that I'm going to put her in her bed and carefully stand up so I don't wake her. After I've put her in her bed I come back down and play legos again with the other kids.
"Thank you. I could've done that." Ollie murmurs after I sit back down on the floor.
"It's no big deal Ollie. Is your wrist still bothering you?" She doesn't answer me, which tells me exactly what I need to know.
"Still. She's my sister and it's your birthday."
"I know. But it's not a big deal. Really" I comfort her.
She gets up and walks out of the room when her phone rings to answer the call. A few minutes later she walks back in to tell me that the new nanny can come early. 15 minutes later the new nanny arrives and Ollie shoos me out of her house and tells me to make sure I'm ready when she's done. When she comes to my house later she's in a different outfit and immediately pulls my hand to get me out of my house. She walks me to her car and we get in and she starts driving. "Where are we going hedgehog?" I ask her and she tells me it's a surprise. "Why do you call me that?" she asks a moment later. "Hedgehog?" I ask
"Mhhm"
"Do you want to know the truth?" I ask and she bobs her head in response.
"Because you're so similar to them, Ollie girl. I did a report on hedgehogs in third grade and somehow I still remember most of the facts. But what I learned when I did my project was that hedgehogs are solitary animals and they're also very wary of others. Like you. They're also not good at easily trusting others which you seem to have down to a tee as well. Butttt, when you start trusting people, you let people see the real you. Just like hedgehogs. So that's where your name comes from. And don't even think about trying to get me to stop because it's not gonna happen." I didn't even really want to actually tell her that but it all just tumbled out. I blame it on Ollie. When she's around everything's easier to say and express. She doesn't say anything, but I can see the small smile that's formed on her lips.
A few minutes later we arrive at a building and I turn to Ollie, "You gonna tell me what we're doing yet?"
"Nope," she says, giving me a devilish smile before getting out of the car. We walk into a building and she tells me to wait while she talks to the employee at the counter. I look around the building, trying to figure out what the heck this place is but all that's there is bricks and posters advertising different donation companies. Ollie comes back to me and pulls me along into a room. "Take off your shoes and socks and put them in a cubby." she tells me. We walk into the next room and it's a basketball court. But it's different. The floor isn't regular flooring. It's a mix of a trampoline and a protective floor mat and there's what looks like bubbles and soap all over the place. There's basketballs lined up on the side of the wall on a rack and a hoop on both sides of the room. I feel my lips turn up in a smile and I look to Ollie before saying, "Race you" and bolting towards the room. We both run in and I give her a little head start before running after her and grabbing her waist in my hands while we both slip and slide all over the bubbles. We collapse onto the mats both laughing and already all soapy. When we finally manage to get back up, I waddle over and grab a basketball and when I get back to Ollie, she's managed to stand back up. I toss the ball to her and say, "First one to 15 wins Ollie girl. You in?" she grins and starts to walk very weirdly to the net.
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We're at 13-12 with Ollie surprisingly leading and we're completely covered in soap and bubbles. But I'm having the time of my life and I'm pretty sure Ollie feels the same way. I never knew that running around on a soapy mat playing basketball could be this fun. Ollie has the ball and is attempting to take another shot so I come up behind her and try to steal the ball but she shoots before I can take it again. She misses and we both struggle to regain composure of the ball again. I take my chances and lunge for the ball, landing on the floor but I successfully have it in my hands. I get back and Ollie grabs my waist in a feeble attempt to stop me from throwing the ball. I look down at her, humoring her attempt at blocking me and I can't stop the small laugh that escapes me. I try to move and Ollie hugs my legs even tighter trying not to let me go. I laugh again and say, "Ollie you know I could move if I wanted to right?" she tightens her grip impossibly tighter and says, "You'll never be able to move." I shoot the ball from where I'm at and miss the hoop by at least a foot. She groans and lets go of my legs before slumping on my back. "This isn't fair. You play basketball. I don't" I reach my hands behind me and start to tickle her belly to cheer her up and soon her giggles are all I hear. I turn her around and continue tickling her while she tries to run but just slips and slides in place and almost falls before I grab her arms to steady her. As soon as she's steady, she looks into my eyes with a strange smile and it instantly puts me on alert. What is she up to? She pulls on my hoodie sleeve so I bend down and she whispers in my ear, "I'm gonna do something. Close your eyes." she backs away for a second before pulling down my hoodie and pressing her lips to mine. I freeze for a second surprised at her bold action, before I realize what she's doing and kiss her back. And it has never felt more rewarding waiting for her to kiss me. There were so many times I wanted to kiss her but I didn't want to out of respect for her boundaries. But it feels amazing. Her lips feel like fire in the cold winter and a breath of fresh air that I didn't know I needed. She breaks away and looks into my eyes with a little too much satisfaction and smugness on her face. She disentangles herself from my arms and starts to run away before I catch her and we both fall to the mats while I try to get as much soap on her as I can.
We finish our game with a tie and I decide that I'll let Ollie win just this once. After we finish our game, we put the basketball away, and since we still have some time left in our room, we start doing tricks on the mats and just act like idiots. When we run out of time, the employee brings us towels to absorb all the bubbles and soap and partly to help us dry off. We put our shoes on and head back to Ollie's car. Once we get in Ollie says, "I have something for you." before reaching back into the back seat and pulling out a big gift bag. She hands it to me wordlessly and waits for me to open it. I start to pull out the tissue paper and feel a smile form on my face as I look at the contents. I pull out the shoe box and open it to see my dream pair of basketball shoes. I look at Ollie in disbelief. "No way these shoes are like $200! And they're one of a kind! How did you get these?"
"I have my resources." she says, giving me a sly smile and I'm in utter disbelief. I take my shoes off and pull on the new shoes feeling them softly hug my feet. I sit there marveling at the shoes until Ollie nudges me again and hands me the rest of the bag. I pull up the rest of the tissue paper to see a brand new light blue speaker. I've been telling Ollie that I needed another one so I'm ecstatic that she decided to get me this; even better that it's my favorite color. After my excitement dials down, Ollie starts driving back home, with me holding the hand she's not driving with. She pulls into the garage of her house when we arrive and we both get out. She starts to walk me to my door before I grab her hand and continue walking, pulling her along with me. When we get to my door, I pull her into my arms, giving her a big hug and giving her a gentle kiss on the lips testing her willingness and patience with me. Surprisingly she lets me and responds by kissing me back. A few moments later, she pulls back and says, "Happy Birthday Williams" before gently extracting herself from my arms and walking back towards her house, only stopping once to blow me a kiss.
My parents had me for the rest of the day as Ollie had planned because she insisted that I have a schedule if I didn't want a party. Which was fine except that now I wanted to go hang out with My Ollie girl and I couldn't because it was technically my parents turn. And I'm all for spending time with my parents with the exception of when we've been sitting at a restaurant for almost two hours because they found some of my dad's old coworkers and have been very adamant on catching up. We've been done eating for the past hour so I decide to text Ollie and see what she's up to.
Charlie: Whatcha doin Hedgehog?
Hedgehog: currently texting u
Charlie: What were you doing before?
Hedgehog: Dancing
Charlie: What r u working on rn?
Hedgehog: contemp piece
Charlie: Can I see?
Hedgehog: no
Charlie: Please? I won't show anyone else
Hedgehog: I'm not worried bout that
Hedgehog: It's just not ready for show yet
Charlie: Fine but I want to see it when you're done Ol
Hedgehog: lol
We keep texting back and forth until the adults decide that they're done with each other and we leave. We get back home and I immediately climb up on my roof and call my girl. She answers on the third ring with an "Hello"
"Hey Ol what are you doing?" I ask
"Dancing what are you doing" she says dryly and I can tell she doesn't want me to call her right now.
"Currently sitting on my roof admiring the stars and talking to you."
"Mmmm"
"I know you're busy so I'll keep it short but I just wanted to say thankyou for my birthday gifts today. It was a great day and your schedules actually helped me a lot. I didn't think that schedules could make something better but you proved me wrong. So thank you Ols you really are amazing and I had such a great day." I say
"Yeah sure. It wasn't a big deal, it was just my OCD tendencies wanting order on your birthday." She answers me.
We talk for a few more minutes before she eventually tells me she's gotta finish her dance and hangs up.
I lay on the roof for a little while more before getting up and going back inside and getting ready for bed. It's only nine so I decide to call Levi. Out of all the whole basketball team, Levi is the one who I've bonded with the most and he's a really good listener which is nice because he also gives really solid advice. We talk for a good hour and a half before he has to go. We say goodbye and I decide to go for a run before taking a shower. I run a good four miles before calling it and running back home. I take my shower and I'm chilling on my bed playing snake runner on my phone when my dad walks in with a banana in hand.
"You're getting low. Eat this." he says, throwing the banana on my bed beside me.
I grab it and open it before saying, "Thanks. I haven't really checked my levels today."
"I know. I was notified every time you dipped below good range today. Which was more than I liked in case you were wondering." he says with a little disapproval laced in his tone. "You need to watch yourself Charlie. We don't need you winding up in the hospital. You've never been this irresponsible with your diabetes before. We need you to try to pay more attention to your levels, maybe set an alert on your phone for every time you need to check them. OK?"
"Yeah I'll try to be better dad." I say
"Good. That's all we're asking of you son. We just want you to stay healthy." he replies before saying goodnight and walking back out.
No one at school knows about my diabetes except for Ollie and the teachers. I don't like telling others about it because then they feel sorry for me or treat me like I'm about to die. I'm not immobile, I can still do everything anyone else can except regulate my sugar levels naturally. My coaches don't even know because my coaches at my last school barely let me play because of it and I wasn't risking that happening again. I can still play but most of the coaches I've ever had don't let me play a ton when they hear about my diabetes which is completely unfair because I can play just as good if not better than most basketball players who don't have diabetes. My basketball friend group doesn't even know and right now my sensor is hidden by my sweatshirts and long sleeves so it's easy to keep out of the topic of discussion. I also usually take my sensor off for games because I've actually had it ripped off me and it hurts like nothing I've ever felt before. I finish my banana and toss it in my waste basket before I brush my teeth, turn out the light, and crawl into bed.
I need to start remembering to check my levels more. It's just that lately I've been so distracted by all the good in my life that I forget to check.