The Best Birthday Surprise Ever

**The Best Birthday Surprise Ever** is the seventy-eighth chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on February 20th, 2019.

## Chapter

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**Annabeth's POV**
It’s mine and Jasmine’s 13th birthday, and just like the past seven years, we celebrated it between our birthdays since they’re just four days a part: two days after my birthday, and Jasmine gets hers two days before her birthday, which I’m fine with.
We kind of don’t like having to go to school on our birthdays, but for our party, it gives our families eight hours to set up, and for the first time this year, my biological family was coming, and Jasmine’s boyfriend, Will, was too. The party was always at Jasmine’s grandparents house because of how big their house was.
There’s only one thing, though, that might make the party depressing. Or one person being gone: Luke. He wasn’t the life of the party, but it was always fun with him. It still could be without him.
When we got back from school, the party began.
Us teens and kids got on our bathing suits and went swimming in the pool while the adults chatted around us. Once we got done with the pool, we dried off with towels, then completely by running to the park across the street. We eventually became exhausted from running and staggered over to the jungle gym.
I slumped into a swing and swung myself slowly.
“Hey,” Will said, standing in front of me. “Are you saving this for someone?”
He gestured to the empty swing next to me.
“I guess for you,” I replied.
“Thanks.” He sat down on it. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Oook . . .”
What would he want to ask me about?
Will glanced at Jasmine, who was playing with our brothers and Elizabeth at the monkey bars twenty feet away.
Oh. Of course. What else would Will want to ask me about?
He looked back at me. “Since Jasmine’s actual birthday is in two days, I want to do something for her, but I don’t know what. Do you have any idea for me?”
“Well, Will, I don’t think she’ll care what you do for her,” I said. “Did you ask her?”
“I want it to be a surprise. Can you tell me what she really likes?”
“You’ve been dating her for two months, and you don’t know what she really likes? Even I knew all that she likes the first two months I knew her, and we were five.”
“She’s told me what she likes, but she really likes a lot. It would be impossible for me to put it all together. Can you narrow it down for me?”
“Hmm. Well, she really loves music, and really loves animals. Even more than people.”
“Yeah, she’s told me that, and her reasoning is understandable.”
“I guess. And dancing, too. She can’t dance without music.”
“I know. But if I’m going to surprise her with those three things, I’m going to need help.”
He looked at me, silently asking me to help him.
“I don’t think I can help you, Will,” I said. “I mean, you live in Maine. It would be hard to plan a surprise here or there without Jasmine knowing.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
“But I think you can ask Jasmine’s mom. I don’t doubt she’ll help you, especially if it’s for Jasmine.”
“Ok. Thanks, Annabeth.” He stood up from the swing. Then looked at me again, looking embarrassed. “Umm . . . which one is she again?”
I stifled a laugh.
Today is actually the first day Will has met Jasmine’s entire family, including her parents.
She wanted him to meet them all at once, which was a lot of pressure for Will, especially remembering all of their names and their relation to Jasmine. But she mainly only wants him to remember her brother, her parents, and both of their parents, which isn’t hard. But since Jasmine’s mom, Sarah, and her mom and sister Emily and half-sisters Madison and Kiara all look similar to each other, it’s a challenge to distinguish which of them is which.
“You know which one Jasmine’s father, Zak, is, right?” I asked Will.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Find him, and he’ll help you find Sarah.”
“Ok. Thanks, Annabeth.”
“You’re welcome.”
Will walked back toward the party at Jasmine’s grandparents house. He’s going to need some luck with that.
I’m actually surprised that he and Jasmine are still together. I didn’t think that anybody could handle her except me and her family, but Will seems to have accepted the challenge to be with her and is doing ok.
I guess he knew what he was getting into before he asked her out. But now he’s definitely going to need some luck pulling off this birthday surprise.

**Jasmine’s POV**
Today was my actual birthday.
I’m thirteen now, and it sucks that I have to go to school.
Actually, that’s my choice. My parents would’ve let me because my grandma let my mom’s sisters and her older brother take their birthdays off from school. My mom and her twin brother never got their birthdays off from school because their birthdays were at the beginning of summer, and they got good grades, so they didn’t have to go to summer school.
Anyway, I went to school on my birthday because Annabeth had to and I didn’t want to leave her to bare it alone. After we got out of school and went our separate ways to our homes, I was surprised to find Will at mine in my bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“A boyfriend can’t say ‘Happy Birthday’ to his girlfriend in person?” he retorted, giving me a kiss. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks. And you can, but it’s pretty hard to when we live thousands of miles away from each other. How did you get here?”
“Your mom got me after I got home from school.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked her to.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because I wanted to give you a surprise for your birthday.”
“Ok. What’s the surprise?”
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.”
“Fair enough. So when do I get to see the surprise?”
“Tonight. We leave in a few hours. Wear something pretty. Of course, you always do.”
I blushed. “Ok. So what do we do until then?”
“Whatever you want to do,” Will said. “It’s your birthday, after all.”
“Ok. Let’s go continue our game of Hyrule Warriors.”
“Ok.”
I gave him a kiss and we went downstairs.
Hyrule Warriors was a cool game, and it’s multiplayer. Though killing so many enemies in a row is fun at first, it’s very tiring to have to press the same buttons, like, a thousand times before the level is finally complete. I have three saved games: one with Annabeth, the second with Johnathan, and the third with Will.
I’m Zelda, and he’s Link. I guess that isn’t really a surprise. But Link and Zelda aren’t a couple, though they totally should be. I mean, he’s saved her life how many times? Anyway, we played the game for a couple hours, then ate dinner, and played with Johnathan after that.
He and Will really got along. I think Johnathan sees him as his older brother, which is good if our relationship is going to continue.
Finally, it came time for us to get ready for my birthday surprise.
I put on a really pretty shoulderless blue dress, with a matching headband that had a fake flower on it and matching shoes.
I heard a knock on my bedroom door and opened it. Will was standing in front of it, wearing a tux, and holding a flower. He handed it to me. I gladly took it and sniffed it. It smelt sweet.
“What kind of flower is it?” I asked.
“What do you think it is?” he replied with a playful smile.
I looked at it again, and thought it looked kind of familiar, but I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s a jasmine.”
“Oh. Very funny.”
“I didn’t give it to you as a joke.”
“Really?”
“Well, maybe a little bit. But I gave it to you because it smells so sweet. Just like you.”
I blushed again. “I’m going to die before this night is over.”
“I hope not,” Will said. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“And you look quite handsome.”
He held his arm out to me, and I took it. He led me outside.
“So how are we going to get to my surprise, wherever it is?” I asked.
“By the Toothless Express,” Will replied.
I guess that was Toothless’s cue to fly down from the roof and land next to us.
He had a conductor’s hat on his head that had string on the sides tied under his neck to keep the hat on.
“Ok,” I said. “First of all, don’t call my dragon a train. Second of all, Toothless, you look really cute in that hat, and I don’t really like hats.”
“That was your mom’s idea,” Will said.
“What? Calling him a train, or the hat?”
“The hat. And using him to take us to your surprise. Speaking of . . .” He moved to Toothless’s side and gestured to his back. “Shall we?”
I smiled with anticipation. “We shall.”
He helped me onto Toothless’s back, though he really didn’t need to. I’ve climbed on and off his back millions of times. But Will is a gentleman.
After I got on, he climbed on behind me and put his hands on my waist to hold on.
“When we’re almost there,” Will said in my ear. “I’m going to have to put a blindfold on you until we’ve landed. Ok?”
“Ok,” I replied. “
“Toothless, tell me when we’re a mile from there so I can put it on her.”
*Will do, Will*, he replied, though I’m the only one that could understand him.
Then off we went.
It was 8:30, and the sun has almost set. It was a clear night with stars. We flew over many cities, and I was hypnotized by the beautiful sight. This is honestly the first time I’ve ever flown at night, and it was amazing.
*We’re almost there*, Toothless said.
Even though Will couldn’t understand him, he got the message.
“I have to put the blindfold on you now,” he told me.
“I know,” I replied.
He pulled a silk scarf out of his pocket and tied it over my eyes. I couldn’t see a damn thing, and all I could really hear was the wind and Will’s breath.
After a while, I could feel Toothless beginning to slowdown and descend. I also felt the presence of animals with my aura. Lots of them. Are we going to a pet store? No. There’s too many animals around me for it to be a pet store. What has a lot of animals both big and small?
“Are we at the zoo?” I asked.
“How did you know that?” Will asked.
“I can feel the animals presence with my aura.”
“I forgot about that.”
“Yeah. But even if you didn’t forget, there is no way you could’ve blocked it. Now can you take off my blindfold?”
“Sure.” He untied it from behind my head and pulled it away. “Surprise.”
I could see the whole zoo and all the animals.
I haven’t been here since I was eight years old, with Annabeth, Toothless, Luke, and Emily, and Cassandra. Boy, was that awkward. If Annabeth and I understood more then, we probably wouldn’t have invited Cassandra along. But she was grateful when Annabeth, Toothless, and I separated from them (my idea, of course) and they had to split up to find us. She found us first in the lion’s habitat. This time should be a lot better, and less awkward.
Toothless landed inside the park and we got off him.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Will, how did you do all of this?”
“I couldn’t have done it by myself,” he said. “Your mom helped me. She even had to pay a lot of money to the owner to allow us to be here alone and let the animals out of their habitats.”
“Really? How much?”
“I think almost a billion dollars.”
“Damn.”
“I know. Your mom also promised them that you would keep the animals from killing each other, even showed him proof of how, and that we would clean up and put the animals back in their right habitats.”
“I can do that, but we’re going to be here all night.”
“Yeah. But you love it?”
“Are you kidding? Will, I love you.”
I gave him a hug.
He had a goofy grin on his face when I pulled away.
“You do?” he asked.
I was confused by what he meant at first, but then I realized what I had just said: I love you. That was the first time I’ve ever told him that and we’ve only been dating for a couple months. I was about to take it back, but I didn’t want to. I really do feel something more for him.
“Yes,” I said. “This is the best birthday present I’ve ever been given. I love you, Will.”
“I love you, too, Jasmine,” he replied with a smile.
He leaned into me for a long, passionate kiss.
“Do you want to go see the animals now?” he asked after we pulled away, but still holding hands.
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s let them out first, then play with them.”
“Ok.”
“Come on, Toothless.”
I grabbed Will’s hand and led him to the first habitat.

After we let all of the animals out, they greeted us and I told them the rules, then we played with them.
We played usual things, like tag or hide-and-seek. Some of the big animals let us hide on their backs. After about an hour or two, we took a break on an elephant’s back. She wrapped her trunk around us and lifted us up onto her head and we climbed to her back. Will sat behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist and I leaned back against his chest. We watched the stars silently for a while.
Toothless was playing with some of the animals, especially the ones with wings.
“This is really amazing, Will,” I said. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I’d do anything for you,” he said.
“I know. And I’d do anything for you, too.”
I turned half around to give him a kiss, then leaned back against his chest.
“Sometimes I like to think about the future,” Will said. “What I want to do with my life and how I can make a difference in the world.”
“And what do you want to do?” I asked, turning around so that we were facing each other.
“I want to be a doctor.”
“What kind of doctor?”
“A doctor that works in hospitals to truly help people get better.”
I pursed my lips.
“What?” Will asked, noticing.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“It’s obviously not nothing, Jasmine. What’s wrong?”
I sighed. “It’s just, my grandmother doesn’t like most doctors that work in hospitals.”
“Why?”
“Well, she says that they’re not good doctors. That they don’t care about making people better, just making money. Especially on dying people who don’t have any hope of living much longer. One time, she told me when she had given birth to Emily, my mom’s little sister and my aunt, and when they were ready to bring her home for the first time from the hospital, they were given someone else’s baby, and they believe that the doctors and nurses did that on purpose.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They never really knew why.”
“How did they know it wasn’t her?”
“They said it was just a feeling they had—my grandma, my mom, and her brother—that something wasn’t right. And they were right.”
“When did they get Emily back?”
“Right as they left the hospital with the other baby girl. My grandma’s first husband, Nick, who had died almost sixty years before then and came back to life when my mom was one year old—”
“What? He died and came back to life?”
I waved aside the question. “It’s a long and complicated story that I can tell you about some other time. Anyway, Nick had watched the nurses switch the baby girls, and he switched them back. But my grandma didn’t know that it was him, that he was alive, until thirteen years later when my mom—” I faltered.
“When your mom what?” Will asked.
I shook my head. “Well, I don’t really know what. Something happened to my mom that caused Nick to come out of the open and admit that he was alive. But the point is, my grandma says that most doctors haven’t been good since before the twenty-first century, and she would know that since she was born just a couple years before it began. But she doesn’t just say that about doctors, but almost most of the people on this planet, and I do listen to her because she’s over a hundred years old and probably knows everything, which she doesn’t, but she seems to know what to do in certain situations.”
“Ok,” Will said. “Have you ever experienced or witnessed a doctor do anything like that?”
“Well, I haven’t been in a hospital since I was ten,” I replied. “And I don’t remember seeing any of the doctors do anything bad.”
“Why were you in a hospital then?”
“I wasn’t the one in the hospital. Annabeth was. She had gotten poisoned and . . .” I was trying hard to hold back my tears. “And her heart had failed once. The doctors used that voltage-thing, whatever-you-call-it, and jolted her heart into beating again . . . and it worked, obviously. The doctors saved her then.”
A couple of tears traced down my face as I remembered that day.
Will wiped them away for me. “That’s called a defibrillator. And I know what your grandma is saying. I haven’t experienced anything like that myself, but I’ve heard and read a lot about it, and I want to be different. If you remember, I did say that I truly want to help people feel better.”
“Well, you’re certainly cut out for it, being the son of the god of medicine and all,” I said. “And you technically already are a doctor at Camp Half-Blood.”
“Yeah, but I want to be one in the mortal world too.”
“And I know you’ll be a good one.”
“With you helping me.”
I turned away from him when he said that.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s just, my grandma says that it’s usually best to wait at least a year after you started dating someone to talk about my future with that person. Though she’s also told me that, if I have the intentions of being married someday, to only date someone that I can see myself marrying.”
“I understand. I guess it is too soon to be thinking that far.”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you want to do when you grow up?”
“I want to be a professional dancer.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“Well, you have the legs for it.”
I pushed him playfully, though I felt my face get hot that he had noticed my legs.
“What kind of dancing do you like to do?” Will asked.
“Hip-hop,” I said. “Do you want me to show you a dance?”
“Definitely.”
I slid down the elephants back and helped him down too. Then I went to the center of the area we were in, grabbed my phone out, chose a song called “Something to Dance For” that Annabeth sings, used my powers to summon speakers all around us and played the song, it booming on the speakers, and I danced to it.
After I did my dance, Will told me he loved it. Of course he’d say that. Then he told me a love poem he wrote for me. It was so sweet and practically killed my insides.
He laughed. “And every time you blush, I feel those butterflies.”
“So do I,” I agreed.
He really knows how to make a girl fall head-over-heels for him, even though I’m pretty sure I’m the first girl he’s ever liked.
We eventually got tired and I told all of the animals to go back to their habitats, and most of them listened to me, but the monkeys were a real pain in the ass, especially for me. Then we cleaned up all of the messes they made, which took a couple hours. That really tired us out.
We decided to stay and relax, so I summoned a blanket and we curled up together in it, leaning our backs against Toothless, which he didn’t mind.
“Thank you for the best birthday ever, Will,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We leaned into each other for a kiss. Then I laid my head on his shoulder and we eventually fell asleep.
Remember what I said earlier about if our relationship continues? I really hope it does.

**Well, you still got a long way to go, girl.**
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## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Annabeth Chase
* Jasmine Saturday
* Will Solace