BEFORE I COULD HELP IT or prevent it, it was my birthday.

I was awoken with the scent of pancakes and a soft kiss on the cheek from Eliot and sure, it was nice—lovely, even. But it wasn't enough.

I'm afraid nothing will ever be good enough for me because I'm now an adult and I've already peaked. I'm as washed up as a bottle on the seashore and time won't stop and let me ever catch a breath.

I'm an adult.

I'm officially an adult and it feels so weird to say—which is why I don't. I don't want to say the words out loud because then that makes it true. It makes this life I'm living an actual reality. And that's horrifying.

"So, how's it feel to officially be an adult?" Eliot asks me as he taps his hand on the steering wheel of his car.

Great. I thought.

I didn't respond, I'm not sure why but I think it's because I'm hoping he'll take the hint but when he repeats it, it's obvious that's not how he's taken it.

I hum. "Terrifying."

He laughs, nodding his head in agreement. He's nineteen; he's had a year and a half longer to deal with the existential crisis phase I seem to be having. "Well, how does it feel to be the birthday girl?"

I wasn't expecting the question.

My head turns to look out the window, at the world passing by as I think. It doesn't feel good at all. I can't stop reminiscing on my childhood and how I'm supposed to feel—how I would've felt just last year.

I shake my head, shrugging. "I don't know. The same."

Birthdays start losing their significance when no one celebrates it. I had been tired of sneaking a cupcake into my room late at night with a candle lit by the cigarette between my teeth and left to blow it out with no one but myself in the dark.

Eliot reached over and rested his hand on my thigh--which I hadn't even realized was bouncing up and down with anxiety.

"Everything'll work out, Mari." he says with the sweetest of smiles and I feel warm and fuzzy inside because it feels like he can somehow read my mind like the superhero he is.

THE PARTY WAS SMALL. AS I ONLY wanted my closest--and only--friends. Eliot, Festus, and Lissy surrounded me and it was more than enough. Festus had just insisted they sing happy birthday and as they finished, I couldn't help but laugh as Eliot draped his arm over me and squeezed me tight in his embrace and pressed a rough kiss to the top of my head.

Soon enough, the sound of the popping champagne cork echoed through the room, signaling the beginning of our intimate celebration. Bubbles of excitement filled the air as Eliot raised his glass and made a toast to me and our relationship and many more years together. His arm remained still around my collarbone as he grinned from ear-to-ear. "To this gorgeous woman," his breath grazed against my ear. "and to many more years of her. Happy Birthday."

Though we were all teenagers in college and probably shouldn't have champagne, Festus insisted. And I was never one to turn down champagne.

As the merriment continued, sweet melodies of a familiar song drifted in from the radio Festus turned on in the corner of the room. Eliot gently tugged at my hand, leading me to the center of the room. He was awfully ridiculous when trying to dance with his two left feet, but with the way he was beaming at me, I couldn't help one of my own from forming on my face.

He pulls me to him with his arm securely around my waist, and all I can do is laugh. I can't remember the last time I laughed. But I did. I laughed and I couldn't stop and it was possibly the best gift I could have ever received.

"You know, I've missed that laugh." Eliot says, a smug smirk on his face as if he's the one to take all the credit for it. Honestly, he is.

Eliot's eyes held something of a depth of emotion as well as goofiness and utter softness that made my heart flutter. He was so good at having complex feelings but still always radiating with goodness.

He presses his lips to mine and it's all-consuming, the best feeling ever. The best present. The only thing I'd ever want to put a halt to my streams of laughter.

It was in that effortless embrace--in the way his arms were messily wrapped around me yet kept me protected and secure--that I felt an unspoken promise, a commitment that went beyond the boundaries of any silly teenage relationship.

I MIGHT HAVE HAD ONE TOO MANY DRINKS. It'd been a while since I last had actual alcohol that wasn't red wine from a box, and honestly, my tolerance had been so low that just three--or five--glasses of bubbly champagne had me drunk out of my mind.

Lissy and Eliot were chatting up a storm in the kitchen but Festus was sitting with his hands clasped between his legs as he sat hunched over on the couch. He was visibly sad, but I was honestly too drunk to notice.

I plopped down on the couch from behind him, startling him a tad as my head laid against the side of his bicep.

I didn't tell Festus enough, but I truly did appreciate him. We'd had an on-and-off friendship/rivalry thing going for a few years, but above all else, we were friends now and that's all that really matters to me.

He looks down at my drunken arm slung sloppily over around his bicep and my cheek sinking into it as well. "You're awfully touchy tonight, hmm? Too much to drink?"

I laughed, my heavy eyelids slowly fluttering and allowing my brown eyes to meet his. But when I actually looked into his eyes, I could see an unfamiliar sadness and I was at a loss for how to figure it out--much less aid him.

"You know, I really appreciate you. I'm like... so grateful for you, you know?" I slurred out, not meaning to repeat words but I was just entirely out of my own mind.

He chuckled, swiping his tongue against his bottom lip. "Oh yeah?"

I nod, but I notice the bottle of beer in his hand and it's pretty clear something is bothering Festus Creed if he's drinking a $12 beer bottle over a glass of 1986 champagne.

"W-why are you so sad?" My lashes fluttered with the slow movement of my eyelids.

He doesn't look at me, and it appears as though he's fighting a battle with his own self. He appears as though he's going to answer me, but he doesn't actually follow through with it. "You should cut back on the glasses. You'll regret it in the morning."

He's avoiding my question entirely but honestly, all I want to know is why he's being so stubborn and what is actually wrong.

My brows furrow as a loose-sounding chuckle slips past my lips. "Since when do you care about my... well-being?"

He takes another swig from his beer, it leaving his lips wet as he clenches and unclenches his jaw, his brown eyes finally looking back at mine. "I've always cared, Mari."

But he doesn't give me much time to process the statement because he stands up and goes to the opposite side of the room and all I'm left to do is to wonder what the hell he means by that.