: Chapter 19

The Past

Seven years ago

“Happy Birthday, June!” Diane cheers as Neil carries a cake to the dining table.

It’s a giant cake, three big layers, with fancy buttercream icing and pink flower accents and sixteen candles that blaze at the top. The words, Happy Sweet 16, Juniper, stand proud in yellow icing.

Avery claps excitedly as Neil sets the cake down in front of where I sit at the table, and Neil, Diane, and Beau start to sing “Happy Birthday” to me.

They’re all smiles and excitement, but my whole world feels like it’s crumbling down. Their love is so big and vibrant, and still, it can’t fill the hole my parents continue to dig. I thought maybe they’d come home this year—sixteen is a milestone, after all—but I should have known better.

I should always know better.

“Make a wish!” Neil says, Diane and Beau grinning behind him while Avery bounces on the other side of the table.

They’re all so good to me—even Avery’s big brother, Beau. At twenty-one, I figured he’d want nothing to do with a sixteen-year-old girl’s birthday celebration. But Diane told me earlier that he specifically canceled plans with Bethany and his friends just to be here.

I look up into his smile as I think about all the things I dream of. Of the life I want to have some day. I get lost in his deep brown eyes for more than a moment.

Gah. Why does he have to be so freaking hot?

It takes an insane effort to pull my eyes away, but I do, inhaling a large breath of air and blowing out my candles as I silently make the same wish I’ve made for the past five years. Please, dear universe…make my parents notice me and Beau Banks eventually fall in love with me. I know I’m young, so the timing is flexible on the second one. Thanks.

Smoke lingers, licking at my nostrils and giving me an excuse for the tears in my eyes. I dab at them softly and paste on a smile as they all shift into action.

Diane starts to cut the cake, putting large slices on her favorite bone-colored plates, and Avery hops up from her seat to grab a stack of gifts they had hidden somewhere in a closet. Beau snags some forks from the drawer, and Neil gets rid of the candles in the garbage.

“Open this one first!” Avery cheers as she shoves a pretty gift with a pink bow into my chest. “It’s from me.”

I grin at her, but I’ve just barely removed the wrapping paper when she adds, “Though, you’re probably going to have let me borrow it because I’m starting to have FOMO that I bought it for you instead of me. It was the last one available, too, so if you don’t love it, you can regift it to me, even.”

“Avery,” Diane chastises, but I laugh. Avery is as reliable as an old Buick with a much heftier price tag.

“What, Mom? It’s a cute bag.”

I open the white lid that has Chanel engraved in black on the top and uncinch the protective felt bag inside. I pull out a little Chanel clutch, holding it in the air as I take in the black leather and gold-chained handles. “Thanks, Avery. I love it.”

She frowns at that, and I laugh again. “You can borrow it whenever.”

“Yay!” she says with an adorable clap.

Avery hands me another gift, but this time, Neil’s and Diane’s names are signed in pretty handwriting on a little card attached to a navy-blue bow. Inside the orange box sits a beautiful silk scarf from Hermès and a pretty bangle bracelet that I know Diane caught me eyeing when Avery dragged us out for a girls’ shopping trip last weekend. But also, beneath the scarf and bracelet sits a fresh copy of Pride and Prejudice.

A soft sheen of tears covers my eyes, and a dab of pink heats the center of both my cheeks. It’s not the gift itself, but the thought behind it. It’s the fact that Diane noticed. That Diane knows me this well.

“Thank you so much,” I say, clearing the ball of emotion out of my throat. “I love them.”

“I knew you would.” Diane winks at me and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “A mother knows when her girl is eyeing something she loves. Plus, I thought maybe you’d want a new copy of your favorite book. The old one is looking well-loved but tired.”

My old copy of Pride and Prejudice, the one I’ve had for years, is definitely showing more than a little wear and tear these days. Just last week, I had to Scotch tape the spine just to keep the binding from falling apart.

Avery sets two more gifts down in front of me. “These got delivered to the house this morning.”

Both boxes are huge, and I hate myself for reading the cards with each of them, hoping for something new, but I can’t help it.

Happy Birthday, Juniper.

Hope you have a great day!

Love,

Dad

Juniper,

Happy Birthday, darling.

Can’t wait to take you out to celebrate when I get back from Antigua next month!

Love,

Mom

My heart plummets to my shoes as I pretend to enjoy opening the gifts and seeing what’s inside them. Each item costs more than the next, and my head feels like it’s going to spin off my neck by the time I’m done.

Thankfully, Avery’s excitement over my dad gifting me the limited-edition Hermès Birkin bag overshadows the utter devastation I’m feeling on the inside. She means so much to me, has changed my life so much for the better, seeing her happy is almost as good as feeling it myself.

This is the third birthday in a row that neither of my parents has been home to celebrate with me. My dad is on a summer-long vacation in the South of France with some twenty-five-year-old supermodel named Callie whom he just started dating. And my mother is on an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru.

I guess I should be glad they at least remembered today was my birthday, but the fact that my dad’s card is in the pretty handwriting of his assistant Shirlene tells me he’s probably too busy with Callie to even know what today is.

It’s all shit. Just utter and total shit. But it’s the story of my life.

The closest thing I have to a family are the four people in this room. Hell, Diane and Neil are more like parents to me than my mother and father have ever been. And it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

Avery is still obsessing over the Birkin bag my dad got me, and I’m just about to dive headfirst into a piece of my birthday cake when “You have one more gift to open” is whispered into my ear.

Instantly, goose bumps roll up my arms, and I look over my shoulder to meet Beau’s smiling eyes.

“But you’re going to have to come outside for it,” he adds, and my hands are just about shaking as I take the napkin off my lap and set it down beside my plate of uneaten cake.

Avery is too busy begging Neil and Diane for the latest Birkin bag to notice Beau’s and my departure from the table, and for that, I’m grateful. The level of tail-wagging I’m doing right now needs no more of an audience.

Beau innocently grabs my hand as we walk out the doors that lead to the terrace, and my heart jumps straight into my throat.

“Follow me.”

Beau is holding my hand. Beau Banks is holding my hand!

On the inside, I’m a vibration plate, but on the outside, I’m somehow managing to play it cool. At least, I think I am. With the speed my spirit is exiting my body, I should have an overhead view soon.

He lets go of my hand to grab his paddleboard and oar that rest on the white-picket-fence gate at the entrance to the beach path, and I fend off disappointment with everything I have.

“Happy Birthday, Juni,” he says, and I furrow my brow in confusion. I don’t see anything to go with the sentiment, and the last thing I want to be is a ditz who can’t figure out her gift, but even at the risk of crippling embarrassment, I have to ask.

“Thanks, Beau. Um…I don’t want to be rude, but are you supposed to be holding a gift when you say that?”

He laughs, but it’s not at me. My delicate, crush-ridden psyche is eternally grateful. “Yes, I should be. So, I understand why you’re confused. But the gift is this… I’m going to make your paddleboarding dreams come true,” he says and puts the board in my hands. “Consider today your first lesson, and this is now officially your board.”

“What?” I question, my voice a little hoarse to my own ears. Beau’s board is incredibly important to him, which makes this gift deeply personal. “Are you serious? You’re giving me your board?”

He nods, and the upward bow of his lips can only be described as the most perfect smile I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Straight teeth, plush flesh, and a genuine almost-dimple deep in the tan of his cheek.

For the past few summers, whenever Beau is home from college, I’ve watched him and his buddies surf and paddleboard on the daily out of pure personal torture. The muscles, the laughter, the skill—his version of it is addictive. On the tenth day of avid attention from me, Beau asked if I wanted to learn. Without a reason to be watching otherwise, I told him yes to the paddleboarding but passed on the surfing.

At the time, it was an excuse, but the more I’ve watched him, the more I’ve actually wondered if it might be fun.

And he remembered.

I didn’t think it was possible with the way I was feeling earlier, but this is officially the best birthday I’ve ever had.

All thanks to Beau Banks.