07
I used to make calendars. I enjoyed the process of tracing perfectly straight lines, writing in perfectly round letters the name of months and days, color-coding seasons to make my life easier. My favorite part was making the month of my birthday, and on the 30th day, writing in big, bold letters: MY BIRTHDAY!
That changed over the years. I became less eager. The point of saying “Happy birthday” was to suggest that day of one’s birth was cause for celebration, elation, happiness. But my birthdays seemed to always stray on the verge of being depressing, mournful events. The word “happy” was a laughable, almost insulting thing to use.
On the day before my eighteenth birthday, my uncle died, and so the next day became a flurry of phone calls, people offering their condolences, and my father calling me a bad daughter. The very next year, I avoided the day like the plague, hoping people would forget, and getting that exact wish. People remember death more easily than they remember life.
I was turning twenty. I had pretended to be busy the night before, but instead, found myself praying to an empty altar that housed my belief: nothing. I was left feeling incredibly lonely, looking for some kind of forgiveness in the form of chanting ancient words and hoping something greater would hear me. I begged for happiness and for second chances. But like always, I was disappointed. The day did not bring forgiveness or acceptance. I did not stop crying for someone who no longer lived. I did not stop crying for someone who actually lived. I was a mess of tears, mourning the loss of two men, one dead and the other alive.
I ignored the calls the next day. I didn’t check my Facebook nor did I answer the tweets. I pretended I had been rubbed off the face of the earth. That I no longer existed. That I was far, far away and that nothing could reach me, not death, not love. And especially not hurt.
There was a knock on my door. I was faintly surprised but figured it was probably a bouquet of flowers, maybe sent by my dad as he couldn’t get out of bed to see me. I stared into the mirror for a few seconds, deemed myself decent, and went to open the old door that had seen enough people walk out of it to be a point of Badness in my life.
He stood on the other side. It had been over a month since I had last seen him. He looked exactly as I remembered him: handsome in a way only I seemed to find him, eyes as dark as the way my soul felt the day after he left me, lips still perfectly curved. I blinked a few times, just to assure myself I didn’t see an apparition but an actual human being made of flesh.
“Hey.”
I didn’t respond. I stared at the box he held in his hand, wrapped in shiny yellow paper.
“Happy birthday.”
I looked at him, meeting his eyes, willing myself not to look away.
“I brought you something.”
“Why?” I cut in immediately.
He looked uncomfortable. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Just open it”
“No.”
He sighed. “Andy, just take it and open it.”
“No.”
He grew frustrated. “Look, you’re going to regret it later. Like you regretted not telling me you loved me when I asked. Like you regretted breaking up with me. Like you regretted a lot of things.”
I snarled and snatched the gift, ripping the paper apart, silently grieving the death of the pretty paper. I shook the box angrily before prying it open and looking inside.
The first thing was a picture. It was an old one from prom, a badly angled picture where I was smiling and he was leaning over, kissing my cheek. It was before he had grown into his good looks, back when he was still shy and insecure and I was the only one who found him beautiful.
Next was a movie. It was the first one we had seen as a couple, a few days after I had landed on New York ground and the first time we had seen each other in months. As awkward as I had believed it would be, we were completely and utterly comfortable in each others’ presence. He had asked me if he could kiss me near the end of the movie and I snapped because I hated being distracted during movies.
Third was the email he wrote me when he told me why he liked me. It had been a short, almost superficial letter, but it was one of the things I read almost every day for a year.
Finally, there was a closed enveloped. I stared at it before flipping it over, my finger lifting the flap and reaching inside. A folded, college-ruled paper with small, hurried writing came out.
“All you need to read is the last part,” he said, taking the paper and turning it over, a finger pointing at the last few sentences. “The rest you can read later.”
I love you. That’s all you need to know. That’s all that really matters. I have, always, loved you. I know that I, always, will. I’ll try as many times as I have to until we’re together for the rest of our long, long lives. So, I’m sorry, please forgive me, and please, say you’ll take me back.
Happy Birthday, Andy. Happy Birthday.
