Subject:Dribble (noun)You drool on your pillow, just to let you know. And you sleep talk.
To:Ophelia Winters
If the rest of my birthdays begin like this one, then I’d like to live forever.
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY. Twenty-four.
I don’t know why, but it feels significant.
Over the years, I’ve prayed not to reach twenty-four, and here I am. Alive and breathing and feeling and aging, just like everyone else.
Oddly enough, I’m someone who enjoys my birthday. I’m not one for presents or parties, but I’m one for time spent with family. I’m one for the look of pride and relief in my mom’s eyes at the knowledge that I’ve made it another year. My depressiondoesfeel like an illness, and every birthday feels like an achievement as much as it feels like an exhausting feat of endurance.
This birthday in particular, I feel blessed. Ophelia’s presence in New York has flipped my week on its head. When I’m not pulling my hair out from stress and trying to juggle four hundred things at once, I’ll sit down and fully appreciate what she did for me by getting on that plane. It’s too much for me to think about right now, a kindness too great for my brain to accept.
I vowed as soon as my eyelids swung open this morning that I wouldn’t think about my father today. He doesn’t deserve it. It’s not like I have any real birthday memories beyond the age of ten that I associate him with, anyway. Green Aviation, his favorite child, took up too much of his time.
And after a mind-alteringly hot shower with my girl to start my twenty-fifth year, I spent the second half of my morning in a cramped hospital room with the eight women who put meaning behind my every action, purpose behind my every breath.
My mom’s recovery is slow, but she’s coming home. Ophelia seems in no rush to go back to Scotland. Fleur is speaking to me.
Today I feel surrounded by reasons to keep going.
Now I’m going through my emails in my office at home while Ophelia cooks me “the meal of a lifetime” for lunch, which may well be code for something that’ll make me shit myself, if history is anything to go by.
I love Ophelia, and I think she’s wonderful, but she’s the worst cook on the planet.
In the future I’m building for us in my head, I cook. She sits at the kitchen island and moans about the state of the world and how everything is becoming a QR code nowadays.
Maybe it’s my good mood, but I burn through my inbox in record time. The weekly update from the sales team doesn’t feel as dry as it usually does. The marketing strategy I’ve been forwarded seems to make sense. The negotiations with the French airports are progressing. The overambitious LinkedIn warriors in my inbox don’t make me want to put my head through the desk.
The folder of Deleted Items glares at me; one email in there teases me, taunts me all through my work days.
Carmichael wasn’t lying when he wrote to me. Sorrowsong’s architecture programisgaining more and more credibility.
Ophelia appears in the doorway, wearing a white apron over the green dress she bought in London.
I love that dress. I love the girl in it. I love what they do together.
She places an orange liquid in front of me with a small curtsy, dropping a cocktail umbrella in it. “Your drink,mademoiselle.”
I smother my laugh in my hand. She’s really going all out. “Do you know whatmademoisellemeans?”
“No.”
I take a sip,tryingto keep both eyes open. One gently sneaks shut while my esophagus melts away. I’m not entirely convinced that isn’t a glass of battery acid.
Her eyes are bright, excited. “Do you love it?”
“Love it.”
“Then why are you wincing?” She snatches it from me, takes a sip, then immediately coughs it all over my desk. “That’s fucking horrendous.”
“It’s lovely,” I say, struggling to keep a hold on my laughter. She furiously brings up the recipe on her phone. Her face falls. “Ah. A tablespoon of lemon juice. Not a cup. I’ll remake it.”
“Pass that on to Rocco, though. He’s always looking for new ways to melt padlocks from doors.”
“Wanker,” she breathes, on her way out the door.
