Carlos continued to watch the candle as it melted away, until there was no more candle left to burn and the flame died out. He looked at the corndog, now covered in melted wax, deciding he didn't want it anymore. Usually, no matter how full he was, he was always up to devouring a corndog, but after his depressing meal of tacos tonight it just wasn't worth it. He walked over to the trash can, threw his corndog away, and moped towards his room.

With almost perfect timing, his friends burst through the front door. Carlos tried to make an effort to look at his friends as they rushed through, but his eyes just started to form more tears than he could imagine, and he turned his head before they could see him crying again. He could hear each boy question him about what was going on, with worry in their voices, but he just couldn't bring himself to pay attention to anything they said, and just continued to drag himself into his room.

As a moment of panic set in for the three boys left remaining in the main living area, Kendall started to worry. "Logan, go after him and talk to him! You're the smart one! You'll be able to figure out what's wrong with him!"

Logan hesitated for a second, then hurried off to go try and catch up with Carlos. By the time he reached Carlos' room, the door was shut, and he could hear slight sobbing coming from the other side of the door. "Carlos, can I come in and talk to you?" Logan asked. Logan listened carefully as he heard some sniffling, and the sound of the door lock unlocking.

By the time Logan could open up the door and enter, Carlos was sitting on his bed, fumbling with his hockey puck again, still sobbing slightly. Logan sat next to him and sighed. "What's wrong, man? Why are you so upset?"

Carlos brushed away the tears on his face before responding. "Today was my birthday."

Logan sat and stared at Carlos for what seemed like an eternity. "Why didn't you remind us that it your birthday today?" Logan said.

"I thought you guys knew!" Carlos cried out. His voice started cracking with sadness, like he was going to break down all over again at any second. "I thought you guys had remembered. This morning at breakfast, I thought you guys were just holding of on saying happy birthday. You guys going to Palm Woods Park? I purposely didn't go because I thought you guys were going to plan a surprise party in the park for me. Movie and a dinner? I started to lose hope in you guys towards the end of the night, but I thought at least at dinner you guys would have the restaurant staff sing happy birthday to me."

"I don't even know how all three of us could forget…" Logan questioned himself. "I could've sworn I wrote it down on my calendar. I always put your guys' birthdays on my calendar. Carlos, you know I truly apologize about forgetting your birthday." Carlos sniffled and wiped his nose while he stared up at Logan with his puppy dog eyes. "How about we go out to the living room and tell Kendall and James that it's your birthday? Then, we can figure out how we can make it all up to you." Carlos nodded.

Kendall and James were seated on the big couch in the living room, too worried about what was wrong with Carlos to even drink the two cans of soda they had gotten out of the fridge. Logan filed out of Carlos' room first, with Carlos following behind. Kendall and James watched as Logan and Carlos made their way over to the adjoining section of couch. "You guys," Logan started, sounding like he was going into one of his educational speeches. "Carlos… Has something he'd like to say."

Carlos wasn't all too entirely sure how he should start off. He figured that the best way was probably to just say it right out of the bat. He hesitated for a second, then sighed. "James, Kendall… Today was my birthday."

He went on to tell them exactly what he had told Logan in his bedroom. He couldn't stand to look up at their faces as he told them, but he could feel that they felt absolutely terrible. As Carlos finished, Kendall and James tried to speak, but no words would come out. "We're so sorry, man," James said, after what seemed like an eternity of silence. "We feel terrible about forgetting. What can we do for you? We still have a few hours left to celebrate your birthday."

"You know, the movie and dinner were plenty enough for me, even though it ended terribly," Carlos responded. "You guys don't have to do anything, really."

"Not even a little cake?" Kendall asked. "You can't not have cake on your birthday."

"That does sound good."

Logan started rambling off a plan. "I know that all the bakeries are all closed down by now. Even the ones in the grocery stores… If my memory serves me right though, grocery stores should still be selling blank cakes right by the bakery. We could get one of those blank cakes, and decorate it for you ourselves. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Only if you guys will be decorating it with corndogs." Carlos smiled. He was starting to feel better already.

All four boys collected themselves, and started to head out to the nearest grocery store. Carlos ended up having to listen to his friends apologize profusely to him the entire journey, no matter how many times he said that he would be alright.

Once they had arrived at the grocery store, everyone but Carlos rushed over to the bakery to get started on picking out a cake. As he took his time getting to the bakery, Carlos could hear Kendall yell "Hey Carlos! Do you want a chocolate or vanilla cake?", to which he yelled back "Vanilla!" He neared the bakery, but once he got close enough, he could hear the scuffling of his friend's shoes on the tiled floor as they grabbed a cake, and ran off to go find the icing. Carlos figured that it would probably be a better idea to just wait around the registers, so his friends could discuss what they wanted to put on his cake as they picked out the icing.

Carlos waited patiently at the front of the store, expecting the trio to come rushing to the registers at any moment. Not more than five minutes after he found a place to sit, he could hear his friends scurrying up to go check out. He watched as they paid for all the fixing for the cake, and as they came around to where he was seated, they grabbed him by the wrist and rushed out of the store like no one's business.

Carlos was banished to the living room couch the second they entered 2J, while his friends got to decorating in the kitchen. He wasn't sure what to expect when the other three brought the cake out to him - none of them had extraordinary artistic ability, everything they did turned out to look like something a five year old drew. He tried waiting patiently on the couch, but he started to become restless. He tried catching peeks of it whenever one of the boys would move around, but James would always catch him in the act and attempted to fling a bit of icing at him.

After a good amount of time later, and some slight arguing about what they were going to do as they brought the cake out, Logan, Kendall and James finally brought out the finished cake out to Carlos. As they leaned the cake so he could see all of the designs on it, Carlos' smile widened so much he couldn't feel his cheeks anymore. After setting the cake on the table, James lit up the candles on the cake while Kendall started off in a round of singing happy birthday. Carlos felt the tears coming back in his eyes once again, but this time because he was happy. Even though it was nearing the end of the night now and it had taken up until now for them to really celebrate it, Carlos' mood had turned around 180 degrees.

"Guys, I'm sorry for not reminding you that it was my birthday today. I'm just happy now that you guys still wanted to do something for me. Just being with you guys right now is enough to make it fantastic." Carlos confessed, as Logan cut and handed him an end corner piece of cake embellished with an icing corndog.