“Yeah,” I say, faking a smile. “Just figuring out dinner with Eli.”
We keep shopping, and I find a dress I actually like—tight, black, but with a little shimmer. Not too much, just enough. It makes me feel confident…and beautiful.
Once we pull back up to my house, I see Eli already parked outside. I hug Simone and tell her I’ll see her tonight, and I’ll text her what place we pick and the time. She tells me happy birthday again before driving off.
As soon as I walk up to Eli’s car, he gets out and starts walking towards me with a smile on his face. I’m glad to see that he’s happy. I was worried he was actually upset about earlier, even though I still didn’t really know what was wrong about the situation.
He pulls me into a hug, and it feels like home.Hefeels like home. The kind of home I’ve never really had. A loving home.
“Happy Birthday, babe,” he says, kissing the top of my head, and then he pulls out a wrapped box and a bouquet of flowers from the backseat of his car.
“Is that for me?”
“Do I have another super hot girlfriend I love whose birthday is today?”
I laugh. “I don’t know…do you?” I tease.
“Just you.”
“I’ll open it inside, okay? Thank you, babe.”
I take both the box and the flowers, then I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him. We walk in together, and I thank him again as I set the flowers in a glass in the kitchen.
My foster mom, Sarah, walks in and smiles. “Oh, those are beautiful, Elijah. How sweet of you. And happy birthday, Lydia,” she says, wrapping me in a hug.
My foster dad, Mark, follows, and then Huxley, mouth full of a PB&J, shouts, “Happy birthday, Lydia!”
I laugh. “Thanks.”
Sarah hands me a birthdaycard. It’s thicker than usual, the envelope oddly bulky. I open it slowly, confused about what would be inside. When the keys fall into my palm, my breath catches.
“No…I can’t. I can’t accept this.”
Sarah waves a hand in the air. “Yes, you can…and you will. You deserve this.”
“It’s in the garage,” Mark tells me, nodding his head in the direction of the door.
I don’t know how to process any of this.
When we all walk down the steps into the garage, my breath catches—an all-black Mercedes sits parked in front of me.
“This…this is too much. I don’t think I can accept this, really.”
“Stop,” Sarah tells me, nudging me forward. “Go turn her on and get in.”
They look so happy, like it bringsthemjoy to gift this to me. And I feel like I’m fighting with so many emotions inside. I’ve never owned anything luxury in my life. I wasn’t raised around money like this. It’s a lot to take in. Everything inside me wants to reject it, scared it comes with strings, or expectations, or will be held over my head, things people have always done to me throughout my entire life. I’ve had so many foster homes constantly treat me like an inconvenience, like some annoying job they had to do to collect their check. But Sarah and Mark don’t ever treat me like that. If anything, they try to make sure I’mtoookay. I’m not used to any of it, and it scares me to get used to, because I know how this goes. These homes never last. I don’t know what will happen or when I’ll have to leave again, but I know it always eventually comes.
I get hit with the sudden sadness that Camilla isn’t here to see another birthday with me. That she isn’t here to seethis. She’s still the first person I want to tell things to, even after all these years of her being gone. And then the guilt hits even harder. The guilt of thinking about how if shewerestill here, we would probably be living together in some small apartment, with her working several jobs, just trying to make ends meet. I wouldn’t be in this house, living like this…I wouldn’t have met Eli. And I don’t know if I would want to go back to the kind of life we lived, always struggling and fighting to survive. Yet at the same time, I would do absolutely anything to have her back here with me. How do I reconcile with wanting both things, but knowing I could never have had them together?
I try to pull myself up before I fall too deep into the hole that wants to drag me under. I plaster back on a forced smile and take it all in, sitting in the driver’s seat, feeling the expensive leather under me, the fancy display screen, the cool controls…and still not being able to wrap my head around any of it. I look back up to everyone staring at me.
“Thank you,” I manage to get out. “This is crazy. Really, you didn’t have to. Thank you.”
Mark walks over and hands me a large envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Just open it,” he tells me.
