I am happy, but in a way, I am mourning. Not the loss of a stupid birthday party or the attention I would have had all to myself. I am missing the person I was before tonight. The twenty-something. The woman who was “still young” with “so much time left to figure it out.” Now, I’m spending my birthday sitting in the corner of a room full of smiles when all I want to do is cry.
My phone buzzes in my purse. I grab it to silence it, stoppingwhen I see his name.Liem.
Junie sees it and whispers for me to go. No one notices when I excuse myself from the room to answer. “Hi, Hoodie.”
“Hey!” He sounds happy and warm. I miss him so bad. “Why aren’t you here?”
“Where?”
“At the restaurant.”
He came. Life floods back into me, warming me and prickling at my eyes. “You’re here?”
“I am.” He chuckles. “And you’re not.”
“I’m at the hospital. Keisha just had her baby.”
“Shewhat?”
“Wild, right?”
“Can I come steal you away?”
Steal me from what? My doom and gloom?Keisha has everything she needs and more. All the love possible in a room. I want a slice of love for a few minutes of my birthday.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m all yours.”Always.
Thirty-five
Liem
Beautiful but disheveled, Bri looks like she’s been through the wringer, walking out of the hospital doors in a suit and tennis shoes, her curls pulled up in a pile on her crown. She sees me and stops, covering her face. The bouquet of flowers in my hand seems to have done the trick.
I close the rest of the distance, her eyes staying on me rather than the expensive, out-of-season peonies in my hand. She nudges them aside to wrap her arms around me, her chest against mine, her head in my neck. All the stress of making her believe I wasn’t coming—then almost not coming for real when my flight time changed—fades away.
“You came,” she says in a tearful voice.
“Of course I did.” I hold her tight, feeling a little guilty that she fell for my ruse. As if I would ever skip something as important to her as this day. “I wanted to surprise you, but it looks like you’ve had a lot of those already.”
“Only a few.” She lets out a sad-sounding giggle, sniffling right after.
Her grip on me hasn’t loosened at all. I’ll hold her as long as she needs and be thankful for every second. “If you’re here, I guess that means you didn’t get sushi.”
“Or cake,” she says with a pout. I’ve got her covered on that part too.
“Let’s fix that.”
~
“I smell like a hospital. Can I borrow some clothes?” she asks the second we step into my rental.
“Go for it. My suitcase is in the bedroom.”
She leaves the room, giving me the perfect opportunity to get everything together. During the ride over, I ordered sushi from the restaurant we were meant to go to, but she won’t complain about having her cake first. I get it set up on the coffee table, pour some wine and dim the lights, Bri walking in right when I strike the match.
“You brought me cake,” she says. My sweatpants and T-shirt are too big for her but give her the effortless sex appeal of a nineties R&B music video. She looks damn good, but she’d look good in anything.
“It’s your birthday.”
