Page 86 of Can't Help Falling

“Baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and salad.”

“That explains the carrot.”

“What carrot?” Tyler looked down at the carrot he still clutched in his hand. “Oh. Right. I guess I should go put that in the salad.”

Fin watched him go and went to sit on Kylie’s bed and help her finish packing. At dinner, they talked about the school trip, about the soccer game they were all going to next week, about Fin’s birthday—

“Your what?” Tyler demanded.

“My birthday,” Fin said calmly, a little mystified at the cloud of energy that had descended over Tyler’s head like thick, soupy weather.

“It was really fun,” Kylie cut in. “I didn’t mention it, Ty? Mary closed down the store early, and Via came over. It was just us.”

Tyler’s eyes snagged on Kylie’s face, and Fin hoped he could tell just how important it had been to Kylie to have been included in Fin’s birthday celebration. And though Fin usually didn’t celebrate, she’d had to admit that Mary had thrown her a really good party. It had been fun.

Some of his soupy energy abated just a bit, but she could tell that Tyler had feelings about said birthday.

After dinner, Kylie had homework, so she hugged Fin, thanked Tyler for dinner and disappeared back into her room. Fin rose and automatically started putting extra food in Tupperware, her standing at one counter and him kitty-corner. They were a foot apart, but she could feel him there. It wasn’t heat exactly. It was more like a static disturbance. Her energy was touching his energy. It was a prickling awareness that cat-walked itself up her spine. She used to feel this all the time. Tyler’s energy mixed with hers. Until the baseball game when she’d severed it like she was deadheading an errant daisy.

But right now? In the kitchen, a delicious tension between them, she was feeling it again, even with his back turned to hers.

Is it coming from me? Or from him?she wondered, her pulse racing backward as she tried to keep her breath steady. Was she the only one putting out vibes? She couldn’t tell. Not over the bongo of her own noisy heart.

“When was your birthday?” he asked, quasicasually. She felt him turn to her. “So that I don’t miss it again next year. Put some of that in a small Tupperware for Kylie on the bus tomorrow, please.”

Fin quietly, calmly, boxed up a lunch for Kylie and then turned to face Tyler, who was still facing her, carefully watching for a reaction.

“You’re mad I didn’t invite you to my birthday?”

“I’m not mad,” he said, his brow battening down in confusion. “I’m kind of hurt. I thought we were friends.”

“And birthdays are a measurement of friendship to you?”

“Well, hiding a birthday certainly says something about the level of friendship two people have.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Believe it or not, but my issues with birthdays have nothing to do with you. I...don’t celebrate my birthday usually. Mary found out about the date and threw me a very small surprise shindig at the store. If you have issues with the guest list, take it up with Mary.”

She turned back to the Tupperware and realized she had no more food to put away. She started carting empty dishes to the sink, stepping around him and holding her breath. There were straight-up goose bumps on her forearms at this point.

“Why don’t you celebrate your birthday?”

Fin dunked the plates in the soapy water and reached for a sponge, sighing, knowing he wasn’t going to let this go.

“It lost meaning for me as a kid because I never celebrated with my mother.” Fin sighed again, knowing she was embarking on a sad, pathetic story and wishing she didn’t have to. “She didn’t know the exact date of my birthday. I was a home birth and it actually took a long time for her to report my existence to the state. By the time I actually had a birth certificate, she couldn’t remember the exact date I’d been born. But she thought it had been January and she knew I was an Aquarius. So, January 26th it was. Like I said. Celebrating just seemed arbitrary to me. Cue the violin. Preferably a tiny one.”

There was silence behind her. She waited for the sympathy. The requisite hug that she was going to have to grit her teeth through and pretend that his nearness didn’t melt her knee joints and his pity didn’t make her skin crawl.

But all that came was a firm squeeze to her shoulder. “That’s an awful story. Jeez. Terrible. But it’s also beside the point. Because at some point, you have to realize that birthdays aren’t about you, they’re about the people who love you getting to show you. But you know what? You’re a birthday novice. So, I’ll let it slide this year. Prepare yourself for next year, though. January 26th. Okay.”

She heard a scratching sound and turned in time to see him adding her birthday to the calendar that hung on the wall on the far side of the kitchen.

She blinked. An unexpected, stinging tension gathered at the top of her nose, spread to her eyes. He was adding her to his calendar. Making sure that he wouldn’t forget her birthday for next year. Because it was important to him that there was a day celebrating her.

She watched, his back turned to her, as he carefully wrote out her name.

She had the strangest feeling that even though he was writing her name, he was signing some sort of contract. In some grand, cosmic way, he wasn’t just jotting down a date to remember, he was signing Fin into his life. Her name, in bold blue ink, was a casual reminder to himself to celebrate her next year. She watched as their friendship went from a few shaky months of growth to suddenly, at least, lasting another year.

She realized, watching him cap the pen he hung on a neat string next to the calendar, that she’d been picturing their relationship as a hallway with a door at one end. She’d known, in her pessimistic heart, that that door was locked up tight. Once they got to that door, there’d be nowhere else to go for them. Relationship over. She’d thought they’d reached that door at the ball game last spring. But Kylie’s presence had somehow telescoped the hallway a bit farther. Fin and Tyler had kept walking. Fin had assumed they were going to reach the door again at some point.

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