The opening notes of “Happy Birthday” ring out in an earsplitting pitch that might shatter the overhead lighting. Someone’s filming. Someone else takes a picture. The flash nearly blinds me.
I despise a public serenade. I want to slither under the table and hide. Or get a sudden case of amnesia so that I can forget this entire night.
Ryan stands on one of the stools, then gestures for me to do the same. I shake my head. He pleads. Bridget hoists me up in my heels, and as I try to stay balanced, not even Ryan’s giddy grin is enough to still my twitching nerves.
I want to leave. I want to be on the train back to the city, even if it means sleeping alone on the too-soft mattress I put up with for Connor’s sake.
Anywhere but here.
The singing crescendos, wobbly and off-key, and Theo Ford slips through the circle carrying two frosted Pop-Tarts on paper plates, blue candles poked inside them at precarious angles. As I accept a plate from Theo, I lose my balance, the stool wobbling until someone’s hands grip it beneath me.
It’s Penn. He glances up at me, eyes crinkled with glee, and I grit my teeth. Something tells me he’s responsible for this chaos.
The singing stops, and Bridget shouts, “Make a wish, you two!”
Ryan and I look to each other, as we have for so many years, on so many birthdays. I see every version of him smiling back at me:age six, with buck teeth and long hair; twelve, with braces and a buzz cut; twenty-one, with glazed eyes and a euphoric laugh.
“Happy birthday!” he yells, and we both take big breaths, pausing briefly before we blow out our candles.
The sound of the crowd fades away, Connor’s voice in my head as I consider my wish:Don’t you have bigger dreams for yourself?
I’m not sure I do. But I did, once. And while I’m glad I’ve played it safe, I’m pretty sure it isn’t supposed to be this way. My birthday, or my life. I don’t want a roller-rink restaurant, and I sure as hell don’t want Penn, but some small part of me misses the daydreams.
As I stare into the flame, I wish, just for a moment, that I could meet who I might have become, if life had gone a little differently. If I’d been a little less afraid. If I’d held on to more of the me I used to be.
I close my eyes, blow out the candle, and think:I wish I was still like her.
3
Seize the Daydream
With my eyesstill squeezed shut, a sudden pain pulses inside my head. My skull throbs like it’s been mashed by a hydraulic press, my limbs strangely weightless.Am I lying down?
I must’ve slipped off the stool.
I’m embarrassingly breathless from blowing out the candle. Or maybe it’s the fiery shot constricting my airways. Leave it to Penn to serve us his worst tequila.
Headache be damned, I sit up, ignoring the stars that swirl across my vision like I’m a dazed Looney Tunes character. The ringing in my ears gets louder, as if a DJ is mixing EDM songs directly on my eardrums. Slowly, one eye opens, and the room spins, blurring the tall, purple chair in the far corner.
Wait.
I blink. Blink again.
Managing only short, shallow breaths, I glance around and try to get my bearings inside a strange, Technicolor room.
Several seconds later, no bearings have been gotten.
What the actual hell?
Unless Penn’s done some wild renovations to the staff room, or possibly moonlights as an eccentric interior designer, I’m absolutely not at Curly’s anymore.
I’m in a bed. In a bedroom I don’t recognize.
The walls—they’re turquoise. The duvet gripped between my fists is a swirl of pinks and greens and blues, like a hazy watercolor painting.Whose bedroom is this?
And the pounding isn’t just in my head. It’s a knocking at some distant door.
I put a hand to my chest, trying to stay calm.
