Selcouth • J. Hale ✓

lxix.

From left to right, Karina's birthday outfit and her and Elijah's matching outfit for Christmas!

chapter sixty-nine.

Karina's birthday came fast, but the girl refused any sort of celebration. She ended up spending most of the day alone in her bedroom. She let Leah take Elijah to the reservation to meet Sue, which was purely Seth's idea apparently, but it allowed her to hide away.

She placed a large shield around her house to keep anyone who dared to come by away. Karina no longer cared for her birthday, she simply wanted to be with Jasper again, but she was beginning to fear the worst as he still wasn't answering her calls or text messages.

By the time Leah and Elijah returned home, Karina couldn't help but be touched when the girl had bought a small cake with a few presents.

"What's all of this?" Karina asked as she walked out of her room and into the living room.

Elijah, Paul, Javier, Bella, Rosalie, Leah, and Seth were gathered around with smiles on their faces. She hadn't expected to see the others, but she couldn't deny how happy that it made her.

"Well, you hid away all day so now we've come to celebrate your birthday." Bella told her with a smile.

Karina gave her a small smirk, "I stopped aging four months ago." She pointed out and Bella rolled her eyes at her.

"Well, we're celebrating anyway." Rosalie told her with look that told Karina there was no getting out of this.

Karina laughed and nodded her head, "Sure. Why not." She walked over to the group and immediately Elijah was in her arms.

"Happy birthday mama!" He cheered and Karina smiled at him.

"Thank you handsome." The compliment made Elijah's smile widen and everyone awed at the sight.

Karina sat at the table with Elijah in her lap, the others quickly followed suit and started handing their gifts out to Karina. Karina laughed but gratefully took the gifts after spouting thank you's to all of them.

"Alright, I need you to open them!" Bella muttered, slightly frustrated. "I don't have Alice's ability to see the future and I just need to know what you think!"

Karina and the others laughed but Karina complied to Bella's request. First she grabbed the small bright yellow gift and with the help of Elijah, the two opened the gift slowly.

Karina let out a laugh at the contents of the box. "Oh god, who did it?" She looked at everyone, but Rosalie was the only one who wore a proud expression. "Of course, it was you Rosie."

Rosalie shrugged, "I had too."

"Thank you, I love it." Karina lifted the gift in her hands to reveal a bracelet. =

It matched her old necklace that she bought back when she had first met Jasper. She now wore the one he had sent her for her last birthday when he was gone, and she never really took it off unless it was to shower. Still, the bracelet brought back so many fond memories and she loved it so much.

"Okay, I must confess." Rosalie spoke up, she couldn't take credit for it. Not after seeing how in love with, it Karina looked. "Jasper asked me to give it to you for him and I was going to take credit, but Jas definitely needs it more than me."

Karina smiled and she loved it even more. "I still love it."

From there, Karina opened Paul's gift which was several oversized t-shirts that Karina appreciated greatly because baggy clothes were so much more comfortable to her than the tight restricting kind.