21
You can’t forget your 21st birthday. I was the only person you wanted to celebrate with, and so I was.
I can’t forget my 21st birthday. You were the only person I wanted to celebrate with, but you weren’t there.
2020. The world shut down, so to adequately follow Covid protocol, we just moved in together. From the moment we’d met, our relationship had simply been a countdown to the day we’d finally share a home, and lockdown presented the perfect opportunity: $2000 a month for a tiny downtown two-bedroom with minimal sunlight and ample opportunity to bond. I was your muse before you ever became mine, and our apartment was quickly decorated by your portraits of me.
Months passed in seconds - time flies when you’re falling in love having fun - and your October birthday grew ever closer. I wanted your 21st to be special, so I’d begun prepping months in advance. When you found out how hard I was trying to get my hands on at-home Covid tests and customized “legal drinker” masks so we could host a few friends in our apartment, you told me to halt my plans. The only person you wanted to see on your birthday was me. Despite already living together, we booked a hotel room for the big day. Cable and a bathtub were luxuries our apartment didn’t have but ones we were prepared to enjoy while tipsy. Sleeping in the same room would also be fun. We’d get to fall asleep talking. You finally admitted you wanted that intimacy with me. It seems like everyone already knew I always had.
After we checked into the hotel and claimed our (separate) beds for the night, I slipped you two twenties so you could buy the alcohol without actually having to pay for it on your birthday. Then we walked across the way to a grocery store that shared the lot with our Hilton and went through different check-out lines- you with your new horizontal ID at the ready, two giant black cherry Mike’s Harder Lemonades, and a handful of shots of Kahlua; me with two slices of birthday cake, “2” and “1” candles, and a matchbook. I didn’t remember to find forks for us, but by the time we made it around to eating the cake that evening, we were drunk enough to enjoy using our hands to dig in.
Back at our room, we both took a shot and then I made you wait in the bathroom while I put up the decorations I’d packed, everything shark-themed in honor of the one you’d had to dissect the week before in whatever upper level Marine Biology course you were in at the time. You were so thrilled when you walked back into the bedroom, already giggling from the effect of the Mike’s you cracked open while waiting for me to finish taping up streamers and pin-the-fin-on-the-shark. After handing me my can of black cherry lemonade, you showed me the surprise you’d packed: a bath bomb. In the months we’d been living together, we consistently bemoaned only having a shower, complaining about how much we missed the opportunity to take baths. Since you only brought one, you suggested we hop in the tub together. I’m the one who suggested the swimsuits.
After chugging the rest of our drinks, we propped a laptop on the bathroom counter and queued up the Halloween episodes of Phineas and Ferb to enjoy while the bath bomb fizzled blue around our bikini-clad bodies. I was properly drunk by that point, and couldn’t figure out how to fit my long legs in the tub without splashing over the side. An understanding of water displacement completely evaded my inebriated underage brain and you eventually pulled my legs across your lap so the bathroom floor wouldn’t be completely flooded. We giggled at Perry the Platypus and Dr. Doofenshmirtz while curled together in the bathtub for around an hour and a half before the water got too cold and we could no longer pretend not to be sobering.
I let you actually wash up first, Phineas and Ferb still sounding softly from under the bathroom door as I scrolled the hotel tv, searching for the Hallmark channel so we’d have trashy rom-com white noise for the remainder of the night. After my shower, we took two more shots each and started playing the party games, adequately bringing each other back to tipsy faster than intended as we were blindfolded and spun around several times to play our pin-the-fin game. You won, but I didn’t mind losing to you.
I shoved your birthday candles in the cake slices and haphazardly sang you “happy birthday” before we shifted our focus to the conventionally attractive straight couple on the television screen. As you fell asleep, you told me that was the best birthday you ever had. You forgot to move off my bed before you knocked out, and it escaped my mind to switch to the one you’d claimed earlier that night, instead carefully settling my body around yours as I fell asleep, too.
2022. Our lease had ended a year before, and you’d already secured a salaried job a few towns over, so we transitioned into a long-distance friendship. It was hard to be separated, but we’d already promised I was going to look for jobs in your new city the moment I graduated. My 20th birthday happened in the interim and you showed up and showed out, so we spent that birthday together watching DCOMs and reading through each other's Tinder messages. Before my 21st though, I’d found a match.
By coincidence, you kept getting called in for overtime at work whenever I made plans for you to meet my new boyfriend. It was unfortunate, but I wasn’t bothered because our solo plans together somehow never got canceled. As my birthday neared, I started making plans. A small group of friends were invited, but you were the person I was looking forward to seeing the most. It had been over a month since we’d last hung out. You told me in advance that you’d have to show up late- you were scheduled longer hours that weekend, heading into a busier time of year for your career. The evening began without you, but I wasn’t yet bothered.
Twenty minutes after you were supposed to arrive, however, I shot you a text: “hey are you on your way? we want to start the drinking game soon!” After another hour: “is everything okay? we’re gonna wait for you for cake!” Another hour passed: “hope everything is okay!!!! we’re gonna start having drinks and stuff now, but will totally save stuff for you, and we’re still not gonna do cake until you arrive. love you!!!” That one went straight to green. Someone else at the party tried texting you, but it was blue. You blocked me on my 21st birthday.
Whenever I see a can of black cherry Mike’s Harder Lemonade, I think of turning 21, and I think of you. Do I haunt the memories of your 21st birthday, too?