Because I’m feeling the rage build as I walk out of my last class of the day and still haven’t heard one word from my family. I won’t take this lying down; I’m not about to be Sam in Sixteen Candles. I may be laid-back, I may fade into the background, but for my own parents to forget my twentieth birthday?
No fucking way.
As I walk through campus, the sunlight streaming through the massive oak trees dotting the quad, my pulse notches higher with each ring of the call I just dialed.
“Oh, Taya, hi!” Mom sounds cheerful but distracted when she picks up.
“Hi.” If my tone conveys my attitude, Mom is oblivious.
“How are you, sweetheart? Did you have a good day of classes?” she asks, chipper as ever.
With every passing second that she doesn’t mention my birthday, my ire ratchets up to the next level.
“It was fine. Anything you might want to say?” I’m being totally childish, but it’s my right to be at this point.
A pause. “Hm, I’m not sure. Was there something you want to talk about?”
There is a commotion in the background, and I can hear my sister whining over something.
“Listen, Taya, I have to go. We’re packing for a flight. It was unexpected, but Kath got invited to—”
“So, per usual, I am an afterthought.” My voice is so hard, it could cut the phone line.
Blood pulses in my eardrums, my fingertips tingle as that hot/cold, prickly sensation spreads over me. Tears dot my vision and that crushing devastation of being utterly let down pins my chest.
“Taya, what are you talking about?” Mom is incredulous, and I can tell she wants to rush me off the phone.
“It’s my freaking birthday, Mom. You live forty-five minutes away. But instead of coming here to see me for the first time at college since I started my sophomore year, you’re going to some bullshit for Kathleen that could be done on another day.”
I start to sniffle and realize just how absolutely hurt I am. Just once, I want someone to pick me. I want to be thought of beforehand, have something special planned for me, or just be the first thing on someone’s agenda. Is that asking too much? How many times is my heart going to have to break when my hope supersedes reality?
“Oh, oh gosh. Taya, I’m sorry. Shit, I didn’t … this meeting is important though, your sister—”
“Has taken up every inch of space and love since she got on that stupid horse!” I scream, not caring who hears me as I walk into the student parking lot. “That meeting is important? What, so my birthday is chump change? You know you missed it last year, too? And for my eighteenth one, I got a cake in a hotel lobby bar because Kathleen had a jumping competition in Toronto. Or how about the time you canceled my fifteenth birthday party a week before because Kath had some competition in Spain? You want to talk about important? I guess I’m not to you.”
With that, I jab the “end call” button with my pointer finger and promptly begin to shake. Sobs shatter through my chest and thank God, I make it to my car and heave myself inside before dissolving into a full-blown breakdown.
It was always coming to this. Generally, I cry it out with Bevan or Amelie, but this feels deeper. There is nothing that can make you feel more hurt than personal, emotional neglect when it comes to your family. It tears you apart on a soul level, and those cuts might scar over, but they never mend.
And especially when you take this kind of neglect over and over again, with the emotions being so pent up, there is no choice but for the fuse to blow after a while. With each interaction, with each time I’m left feeling like they couldn’t care less about me, I get marginally angrier. Marginally more upset. Marginally more confused and hurt.
Until all of those little instances stack up and come crumbling down on my head.
Even though my friends and Austin were wonderful this morning, having me blow out a birthday cupcake and promising an even bigger celebration tonight, there is nothing that smooths over the fact that my parents forgot about my birthday.
That they have been forgetting me for years. Almost my entire lifetime.
That’ll teach me to ever stand up for myself again. It’s like the world has labeled me the person who isn’t granted attention and slaps me down to reality when I try to reach for any.
Because even when I try, for just one moment, to speak up and put myself first, it doesn’t work.
So much for this being a wonderful birthday where I feel more comfortable being me than ever before.
It looks like another year of playing second fiddle to everyone else around me.
29
Austin
There is something about Upstate New York when it begins to warm up.
The winters here are brutal and unforgiving, but once that passes, everything turns green and vibrant. The air starts to smell like summer, and it reminds college students of all the shenanigans we can get up to when the sun turns hot.
I take a drink of the beer I brought out onto the porch of our house, everyone else still out at classes. Talcott is barely visible on the hill above, the crest that watches over everything in this little town. The weather is finally mild enough to sit outside, and that’s what I’ve been doing as I work on a paper that’s due as a final grade in a few weeks. I can’t believe graduation is rushing up at us, like water rising from somewhere you can’t see. It could sweep me away, or I’ll learn to swim.
Mostly, I’ve just been people watching. It’s hard not to from out here, and since it’s two p.m. on a Friday, most of the students who live on Prospect Street are out in their front yards, drinking and playing lawn games. Shouting matches start over Can Jam points, and the girls across the street are tanning with a sprinkler on as they sip out of champagne glasses.
At the house next door, I spot the mailman, and he’s stuffing a package and some letters into their box at the bottom of the driveway. Lazily, I get up from the bench on our front porch and walk to the bottom of our driveway to meet him so he doesn’t have to put the mail in our box.
“Hey, how are ya?” I ask jovially, raising a hand as he pulls up.
“Not too bad, considering this place is starting to thaw out.” The mailman searches the box on the seat next to him and pulls out a bundle of envelopes. “Have a great day.”
I take them and nod. “You too, thanks, man.”
Rifling through the stack, I’m reminded of the last time I did this. When I found Taya’s letter. It seems like ages ago, but the words my friend spoke last week still stick with me. Is she expecting more? Will she always? Do I even care about that?
I’m in love with her. That’s what matters most.
Tonight is her birthday, and I told her I’m going to successfully get her into Stars Bar even though she only has a fake ID. I got her a birthday present, this book all about the Russian language, which I hope she’ll love. But the thing I want to give her most tonight is me.
I’m going to take the plunge. Commit. Tell her I love her. I’m ready. Scared as hell about the future, but ready. I’d rather jump off the cliff than stay standing here and never know what could have been. Or worse, lose her.
With that on my mind, I almost pass over the envelope addressed to me. But then I catch the name of the company, the parent who owns WQNH, and my heart is in my throat.