“Good job!” Mom coos. “Good Job,Bronte!”
Click, clickgoes the photographer’s camera.
Everyone has their phone pointed at me as I fist the cake and stuff it into my face, shocked that they’re letting me. Usually, Mom makes me try to use a spoon.
“She’s perfect,” Mom says.
“That’s my girl,” Dad says proudly, frosting dripping down what Mom calls his “meaty bicep.”
Someone starts playing music again—“Happy” by Pharrell, because of course—and the backyard erupts into laughter, more camera clicks.
Why is no one stopping me?
Why am I not in trouble?
Right now, I’m a lawless beast, elbows deep in frosting, cheeks sticky, crown askew.
Grandma appears next to me with a fresh baby wipe. “Let me just—” she mutters, reaching for my face ...
I strike, ninja-like. Frosting flies.
Direct hit! Her glasses.
She gasps.
“She’s just growing up so fast,” Grandma sniffs, even though I amliterally still a baby.
Everyone is being so weird.
Dad starts a speech. He holds up his drink (not milk) and clears his throat like he’s accepting an award at the ESPYs. “Friends and family, first of all, thanks so much for being here. I know a lot of you traveled to get here,” he begins, bloppity bloop.
“These past two years have been the best years of our lives,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “We got married. Became parents to the funniest, sassiest, sweetest little girl—”
He pauses for dramatic effect.
“—in the whole wide world ...” He turns and looks at me. “Who also happens to be a frosting thief and serial remote control hider.”
He’s right. I love hiding it.
Laughter. Applause as if Dad is the funniest.
“She stole our hearts,” Dad continues dramatically. “Our sleep. Also my phone. Which she drooled on!”
More laughter.
Mom stage-whispers, “Tell them about the time she locked us out of the iPad for twenty-four hours, honey.”
“She did! She did do that!” he announces dramatically. “Five incorrect passcodes. We were digitally exiled by our own child!”
No one can get enough. I stare out at my parents’ friends, chunk of cake halfway to my mouth.
“Genius!” someone yells.
“Not like her father!”
I turn my head to the right.
Huh. What’s this?
