Clara’s—printed on a fake ID I bought years ago—is sometime in November, and really, I only use it when a clerk talks me into signing up for a rewards program at a store so I can save forty cents. I don’t need a birthday for any other reason. Joe pays me in cash. Before him, Bryan at the restaurant did. And before Bryan, there was Lisa at the salon where I worked as an assistant in Chicago, rinsing foils and prepping clients for blow outs. Any landlord I ever had never cared so long as I paid six months of rent upfront.

It’s not that I’m hiding from anyone. It’s more that I’m hiding from myself, or who I used to be.

But today, it’s Parker’s birthday. That doesn’t mean much either. No one has wished me a happy birthday since I turned seventeen. That was Fitz.

He also happens to be the first—and likely the only—person to say it to me today.

FITZY

Happy birthday, Montgomery.

I rub the sleep from my eyes as I type a response.

I can’t believe you remembered.

Fitzy

Nothing about you is so easy to forget.

I roll my eyes, pushing up on my elbows and scrolling upward in my thread with Fitz. It’s a long list of I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to offend you, I just wanted to help that began to come in two days after the Super Bowl.

I was over it. But I left him on read for three days to mess with him. And since then, it’s been a soft back-and-forth once a week or so.

Fitzy

I want to send you something. Can have it delivered later this morning if you give me your address.

Depends on what you’re sending.

Fitzy

Depends on how big your freezer is.

I call him.

“I thought it was your birthday, not mine. What a gift.”

After sliding out of bed, I stretch as best as I can with the phone still to my ear. “What does my freezer have to do with what you’re sending? Is it a body? Because I doubt I’d get a presidential pardon. Dad would send me right to prison.”

The thought of calling my family for anything—let alone help—is laughable, and Fitz agrees, chuckling. “No. But I’ve missed a lot of birthdays and a lot of cookie cakes. Did you know they still make those? The kind Honey used to buy.”

Anything Honey produced in the kitchen should’ve been discarded in a hazardous waste bin, so I never minded her outsourcing my birthday cakes. In fact, the cookie cakes she bought from the grocery store bakery were always my favorite.

“I didn’t.”