“Don’t be dramatic. Everything is under control.” Wasn’t that what people whose lives were a big, hot mess said? I shook my arm away, flashing a confident smile I couldn’t feel, let alone believe. I knew I had no fucking right blocking other guys from dating her when I couldn’t do it myself. Nonetheless, I just couldn’t stop myself.

“Hale should stay away from Jesse if he wants to keep his dick intact. Actually, feel free to pass this message on to the rest of the male population in this town. By the way”—I leaned down, my mouth on her cheek—“you’re showing. Congratulations.”

Later that evening, I stared at myself in my bathroom mirror, trying not to flinch.

I gripped the sink to a point of white knuckles, asking myself if I had it in me to do what I supposed I should have done a long time ago.

To let go of the bad shit.

I looked down. Clutched the scissors next to the faucet.

Looked back up.

You’re not the bastard who raped your mom, Jesse had said to me this week. But Jesse didn’t know all there was to know about me, so really, did her opinion count for shit?

I grabbed the bun on top of my head and cut it, throwing it to the sink and turning on the water with the elastic band still on.

Looked back up. Didn’t flinch.

Proceeded with the rest of my task.

Looked up.

Flinched.

THERE’S AN EVOLUTION TO BIRTHDAYS. The older you got, the less eager you were to celebrate them. In my case, The Incident had aged me a dozen decades. For the past couple years, I’d tried to act like it didn’t exist. Like I didn’t exist. It was easier to pretend nothing was happening, because if life happened, I had to take control of it, and I didn’t have it in me to do it.

Not until now.

Three years ago, Pam had gotten me a bow bracelet from Tiffany’s for my seventeenth birthday and Darren had shelled out the big bucks for a weekend on a yacht for my friends and me. I invited fifty kids to the party, and some of their parents attended as chaperones, too. “For mingling and networking purposes, although making sure no one gets pregnant is also a priority”—Pam had giggled plastically, feeling blue-blooded like the people of Todos Santos for a hot minute. I was dating Emery back then, and I remember how triumphant she’d felt. She even went back to letting me calling her Mom.

It was the year when, for the first time, I skipped visiting my dad’s grave and placing the Kit Kat we used to share every morning on his tombstone.

It was the first and last year I truly felt normal, accepted, and popular.

Now, for my twentieth birthday, I decided to go back to the basics and celebrate by munching on a Kit Kat bar in my room, reading a book that Mrs. B had loaned me.

I opted for not leaving my room, since I didn’t have a shift at Café Diem today. Pam and Darren texted me their banal happy birthday wishes. Their messages remained unanswered.

Hannah slid her annual birthday card under my door, and Mayra called. I answered, but only because she monitored my moves so closely, I was afraid she was going to tell Darren and Pam I wasn’t making progress and they would insist on upping my sessions with her.

Bane hadn’t called, and I tried not to let it affect me. I tried, but I failed.

At 9:00 p.m., I was already in my bed, my face buried in Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught. I thought I heard something—a soft thud. I looked up from the page. I’d been stuck on the same paragraph for half an hour, because my mind kept on drifting toward Roman. How I’d let him drag me back into the world too quickly, too recklessly, and he hadn’t even bothered to wish me a happy birthday. I listened closely to the silence. Nothing. My eyes dropped back to the page.

Click.

I glanced at the window. The usual oak tree stood there, staring back at me. I flipped a page, knowing I should pay more attention, and that the juicy part was unfolding in front of my eyes, when…

Click.

This time I stood up.

Click. Click.

I paced to the window, climbed on the window seat on my knees, and yanked my window up, slanting my gaze to the back of our garden, which was overlooking Mrs. Belfort’s maze. I saw a shadow of a man standing under the tree. His face was turned down, and he was wearing a ball cap. But the stance, height, and attire seemed familiar: Cargo pants and a faded black surfer shirt with holes in it.

“Roman?” My eyebrows collapsed into a frown.

“You asleep?”

His voice in my ears felt like a sweet promise, and that’s when I realized how much I’d missed him. How much I’d needed him to acknowledge my existence today, of all days, even though most time, I didn’t want to remember I was still alive.