Some Things Never Change

If there's one thing in life you can always expect, it's that things always change. As much as we try to fight it, the years settle in and our friendships wax and wane, our careers will succeed and retire, our memories blossom and fade away, and of course, those pesky pounds keep sneaking up and taking residence in our belly. There are people who somehow manage to control their lives to an extrordinary degree, but that becomes more tedious than not -- it's better just to live, naturally.

But, even as time hardens or melts the things around us, there are some things that we'd want to change, that simply never do. Maybe it's that one friend's incredibly nasal and irritating laughter, your mother's incessant need to nag you about your clothes, the way your spouse always burns your coffee in the morning...

... and, sometimes, the feelings you still harbor for someone you know, that should have faded away a long, long time ago.

Alas, try as we might -- some things simply never change.

---

"So your parents are being extra careful this time, right?"

Bradley laughed at July's unusual question, but, he couldn't blame her; the last time there'd been a party at the Kane house surrounding the eldest son, some rather interesting things had happened... Including her boyfriend getting rather frisky with said eldest son's girlfriend. No one expected much drama this time around, but, one couldn't blame July for being a little cautious.

"Yeah," Brad said with a snicker, thumbing his hand in the direction of the kitchen. "My mom even threatened to install cameras in the house if Travis didn't promise to behave. I don't think a lotta kids from school are coming this time around, since it's more of a family thing, but..."

"...but, well," Bradley scoffed. "It's not like Travis isn't still psyched about it."

In reality, Travis probably had every reason to be. Finally, it was time for him to leave school behind and move into the 'Real World', his father called it; he would be leaving his teen days behind, and finally catch up in age to all the rest of his classmates.

In fact, of all the kids his age, only Thomas was still left a teen... One of only two reasons that Thomas was invited at all. He was also fortunate enough to still have July as a girlfriend, the lucky sucker.

And yet there was more mysteries in the invitation list than even Travis had expected. When Lolly Racket walked through the door, Travis thought he was about to burst out laughing. Lolly? Really? They'd been on fairly decent terms since he'd broken up with her so long ago, but he had no idea she'd actually come to his little birthday party.

"And I mean," Travis sniggered off to the side to July. "Lookit her... She's like the size of a blimp! I didn't realize she'd gotten married and gotten herself knocked up."

"Married? Noo, didn't you hear?" she snickered back, "Her parents are all infuriated that she refuses to marry the father, so they threatened to kick her out of the mansion!"

"Aww, I see little Bwadley-poo is still acting like a high-n-mighty smarty pants, huh?" Lolly could be heard mocking on the other side of the room. "Didn't your mommy tell you it was rude to be boring?"

"Hey, just because you aren't, you know, interesting enough to understand particle physics doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to talk about them!" Try as Bradley might, there was no way he was getting himself outta that one.

Lolly, for all her graces, simply stuck her finger in her ear one moment, then yawned the next. "Waah waaahhh wah waaah wah wah?" (It appears the sim-gods did not feel it gracious enough to give her a decent fifth trait.)

"I don't get what her problem is... I mean, you find the engineering of the modular space capsule to be interesting, right?"

"Of course I do, it's thrilling," July reassured him. "She just probably doesn't have the stomach for it. Most people don't."

"Well, I don't know how much more of this Travis-schmoozing I can handle for the night," Bradley dismissively groaned. "I think I'm gonna take off after the cake."

In the living room, Travis finally got to see what the 'blimp' in Lolly's figure was all about. "So, do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?" he asked, his hand curiously resting against her belly to check for any signs of life.

Lolly smiled. "No, not yet. I wanted to be surprised, with my first. The whole thing was kind of unexpected, so I just thought I'd carry on with the trend. It's kinda nice to just follow your heart instead of your mind, you know? Feels so... liberating."

"Yeah," he responded, rather dumbly. "Yeah, totally."

Well, when Meredith finally got around to lighting the candles, everyone gathered 'round to see Travis' final transition away from childhood... Even Bradley couldn't help but get excited, realizing that his days of sharing a room with that no-good-sonnova-grrrr were finally drawing to a close.

Cousins, sisters, sister's friends -- even little Alesha, who managed to get a pity invite -- as well as the last of Travis' graduating class, all started to cheer, hoping this birthday was the best...

... but among the crowd, his eyes only kept settling on one girl.

Still, it was best to get that wish done quick before the wax melted in the cake...

... and make sure to blow hard, so he might actually get a useful trait this time.

And, yes...

... everything gets better with age.

---

With the delicious cake finally finished off -- what do you expect, it was store-bought goodness! -- Travis decided to escape the myriad of kids and relatives and noise, just to get a small piece of quiet, trying to contemplate what would now lie ahead of him in life. So many paths to choose, so many actions to take...

... so many girls he just couldn't shake from his head, or from his side.

"Lolly!" Travis exclaimed when he noticed he'd been followed. "Why aren't you inside? There's food, your old friends, and... you know... warmth... since it's, er, too cold out here. You know, for the baby."

"No, I'm fine, don't worry," Lolly said with a chilling smile. "We're both plenty warm... But thanks for showing the concern. I really appreciate knowing you still care."

Travis was taken aback a little, but not nearly as much as he expected -- or, as he should have. "I... Well, yeah. I do. It's hard not to care, ya know... You're a nice girl, Lolly."

Travis tried smiling, trying to show some pure sincerity, but there was something in her eyes that he couldn't help resisting. Deep down, the alarm bells were flashing, and the little voice inside his head was screaming, "Nooo, nooo, she's crazy, don't do it! Doonnn't do iiittt!"

But, the little voice crying, "Yeah, but lookit those lips!" was just a wee bit louder.

"Stupid parties... Stupid brothers... So full of rubbish... No one deserves that much attention, especially Travis." Bradley sighed, sinking deeper into the chair with each depressed exhale. "He's too lucky for his own darn good."

Bradley wiggled his toes in his shoes, trying to amuse himself, but even he, the master of defeating boredom, couldn't think of the tiniest fact or statistic to cheer him up.

In fact, he wasn't even sure that Emerald could have gotten him out of this sulky mood right now, were she still alive. She really had been wonderful, and had loved everything he did or said, and never found him boring... But that didn't change the fact that everyone else did.

The simple fact was: people liked muscley, funny, brave guys like Travis... Not dorks with glasses and obsessions with logic and science. "You're just... fail, Brad. Just fail." And, apparently, self-depricating.

"Great... Another room taken by whiny teenagers. Sorry for intruding, I'll go." Bradley's eyes snapped wide open: when had she snuck in? He looked over at the door and the stairs, but he didn't recall either showing any sign of movement.

Why, what a sneaky little twerp.

"Wait, Naomi, wait," he said, jumping up from his seat, blocking her from the exit. "I'm sorry, I'm just..."

"You're crying 'cause your big brother is an attention hog when you're a real gem and a half... I get it," Naomi said with a roll of her eyes. "Trust me, I do. Everybody wants to make everyone else like them. S'all anyone cares about these days. It's stupid. So stupid I thought you were too smart enough to be one of 'em."

"I... That's--" Brad stuttered. "But I am smart. I can't help feeling like this... it's just the way I am..."

"Well, I'm just telling you what I think. That yer bein' stupid, 'cause plenny uh people like you. Yer sister never shuts up about you. I mean, I prolly know more about you than my own brother. And she's not the only one. Just because more people get along with Travis doesn't make him better than you. Just means he's less diff'rent, and that's not supposed to be bad, right?"

"Yeah... I guess."

"Well, I'm gonna go try to find somewhere else to get away from this noise. Stop bein stupid."

"Heh, yeah. Alright, Naomi. See ya."

"See ya, loser."

---

As the sun disappeared and the party fell to a close, the house slowly emptied of the guests, leaving only a few left waiting to say their goodbyes to the newly aged, eldest Kane child. The house hit a peak of silence, with the other kids streaming off to bed, his dad heading off to work, and only one last invitee waiting for a departing goodbye.

Naturally, it was Lolly. "It's been so great to see you, Travis. I wish I'd kept in better touch, but with my job on City Council, and trying to clean up my father's act, I haven't had time for much of a personal life... And it's going to be even less, soon. I didn't mean to forget about you, but..."

"Don't worry about it, Lolly. It's no big deal." Travis' gut cringed -- in reality, he hadn't thought about her at all -- but he couldn't help but feeling a little guilty. Aaagh?! Why did she have so much control over him?!

"Well I should go," she said as she pulled away from their hug. "But I'd really like to see you again, sometime.. If you're able. I've just missed you so much, and... Well..." Her lips pulled into a wider smile, and her eyelashes kept fluttering at his gaze in an awfully hypnotizing way.

"I... Yeah, I guess I'd like that." Travis felt a little relieved to get it off his chest. I mean, it wasn't like he'd dumped her because he didn't like her at all, right? It was because she was just getting a little attached, since she was young, and hormonal, and--

--and holy cow! In the one moment he got swept away in his thoughts, Lolly had tugged him to her, and pulled him into a kiss that sent him blasting farther into the past than he ever thought he'd travel.

He didn't even realize, until his lips began to automatically pull themselves away, that he'd embraced her equally in the exchange.

"Well, that was unexpected," Travis said with a measly grin. "I... don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. I just wanted you to know how much I missed you, that's all," Lolly said, slowly blinking her eyes. "I just wanted to remember what it was like. I mean, we never really got closure, and... I just... well..."

"I should go," she finally finished, though still gazing deeply into his eyes. "But I'll see you again soon? As friends?"

"Yeah," Travis responded slowly, the butterflies in his stomach sturring up quite a storm. "As friends."

---

Travis felt a little nervous, but not much; he knew what had happened with Lolly was a fluke, and unlikely to happen again. He had a girl equally, if not more, beautiful than her waiting for him to be in his arms -- and, she was much smarter, and much more self assured.

If he knew anything, it was that he did not need The Crazy back into his life. Crazy women were bad for his head.

Still, it'd been a little concerning that Jade hadn't shown up for his birthday. He knew it was possible she wouldn't make it, but he hadn't heard from her in days... and that worried him. She'd aged up to adult a few weeks before, so he knew she was busy getting into her new job and settling in with the changes of maturity, but ever since they'd started dating again, she'd been becoming more and more distant... And as much as he loved her, he was starting to worry.

"Hey, July," he said, spotting his cousin on the other side of the Rendezvous. "I asked Jade to meet me here for 7:30... Have you seen her?"

"Jade?" July smiled widely, nodding in response. "Yeah, she's been here about 15 minutes, she just ran to use the restroom while she was waiting for you. I was just talking to her about how she missed out on the awesome cake at your party last night. I bet she'll be back any second now."

And, July was right; Travis didn't have to wait long at all. As soon as July stepped away to get a drink, Jade appared from around the corner, everything about her just as he'd remembered it: long, perfectly straight hair, burnished skin, beautiful large... eyes...

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to keep you waiting," Jade said as she walked up to him, a little bit nervously. "I just wasn't feeling right, needed to clear my head."

"Don't worry about it Jade, it's no big deal. I pratically just walked in the door, anyways." Travis frowned, though, when she didn't seem to be any less frustrated. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she stuttered, "I'm just feeling a little light-headed is all. I've had so much going through my head the last few weeks, I feel like it's on overload. I really wanted to come out and relax, you know? But I just don't feel relaxed, yet, and... Anyways, that's all."

"Man, you're freakin' me out, Jade," Travis responded with a shake of his head. "You sound as neurotic as my mother... Which is okay, I just know you aren't. All you need's a good drink in you and some destressing, alright?"

Jade chuckled, still shaking her head with a smile. "You always look on the bright side of everything, huh? Well, I'll try. For you. And those pretty, green eyes of yours. It's nice seeing them on my level, again."

"Yeah, it is."

"Mmm, you're so cute," she said with a giggle, leaning in to rub his nose against hers, and give a gentle, quick kiss against his lips. "I'd almost forgotten how much you always cheer me up."

With a small smile, Travis pulled away, and grasped her hands into his own. "Well, why don't we get out of here, then? We've got plenty of time tonight to do some 'cheering up', hmm? Wanna go back to your place, and relax?"

"N-n-no, no, I--" Jade pulled away, suddenly nervous again. "Not back to my place, I don't really want to be-- I'm not ready for... Just not right now, okay?"

"I... Sorry, I didn't realize that would upset you," Travis muttered, frowning. "I just wanted to help make you feel better, and I thought--"

"--No, it's okay," Jade interrupted. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I've just been having a rough time lately, and feeling overwhelmed and confused."

Seeing him still sulking, she pulled him close into a hug. "Why don't we just go back to your parent's house, okay? I'll even stay the night, if you want, I just... I don't want to go home, right now. You understand, right?"

"Not really," he said truthfully, with a shrug. "But I'll do anything you want, hon."

As they settled onto the front porch, waiting for the moon to rise, Travis slowly began to consider everything that had happened the last few days: his last days of school, his final step into maturity, his delicious cake, a certain delicious lolly...

... but, even if the memory of those events never changed, he felt something even deeper he believed to be true: no matter what, his feelings for Jade would never change.

... Ever.

.... Right?