“Bye Riley,” she calls over her shoulder, opening the door wider.

“M-mom,” I stammer, but it’s a barely whisper. I try again, louder, stronger, my shoulders squared. “Mom!”

She turns around, her eyes already mid-roll. “What is it, Riley?”

I clear my throat so she can’t hear the sob fighting to escape. “It’s my birthday.”

Her eyes narrow, just for a moment, before she says, “Shit. It is too.”

I lean against the wall because standing seems impossible. Not because I’m drunk—if you can even call it that—but because her admission to forgetting my existence has made me weak.

“There’s probably a cupcake in the fridge.” She forces a smile so pathetic even I feel sorry for me. “I know how much you love to make wishes,” she says, throwing in a full-blown eye roll just for extra emphasis.

Great.

She’s forgotten me and she’s mocking me.

Sighing, she closes the door and then walks with rushed steps toward the kitchen. “We have to be quick. I have a client at the salon first thing.” I follow behind her, my palm against my temple to stop the pounding.

I wait for her to go through the contents of the fridge and once it’s closed, I lean against it. Hastily, she opens and closes the drawers looking for what she needs and when she pulls out a packet of candles and a lighter, I almost smile. Almost. Because I used to believe in the power of wishes.

Unlike the other kids I knew, my mother wasn’t into birthday parties, which is probably why I didn’t care too much about parties, guests, balloons, games, or even cake. It was the moment my cheeks would warm from the heat of the candles. I’d close my eyes, suck in a breath, and then I’d release it with the strength of my one and only wish.

Today, there are no gifts, no guests, none of it.

Mom forces a lonely cupcake under my nose.

A single candle.

And I can see it in her eyes… they used to be filled with sadness, the same as mine. Then the sadness turned to frustration, even anger at one point. Now, they’re back to matching mine. They’re consumed with loss. It’s a justified emotion because she has lost me.

And me? Well, I’m just lost.

She just doesn’t know how much.

“Make a wish, Riley,” she says through a smile faker than the eyelashes she’s currently batting.

I return her smile, just as fake. “Go on,” she says, and I sense her patience fading.

Another justified emotion.

I blow out the candle just to make her happy—but I don’t give up my wish. Not yet.

“I’ll be home late.” Mom eyes me one last time, from head to toe, her gaze pausing for a beat on the bottle of Boones Farm wine still in my hand—the one she supplied me with. “You got everything you need, right?”

I roll my head against the fridge and face her, returning her pathetic smile from earlier. Then I grip the neck of the bottle tighter and lift it to my heart. “I got everything I need right here.”

For a second, her features drop and her eyes seem to soften. Like she sees the girl I used to be, the girl she loved, the girl who loved her back. Her posture stoops. Her chest rises. Her breath releases. But her feet stay put. “I’ll see you tonight,” she says, and then moves to place a kiss on my forehead.

My eyes drift shut at the only piece of affection she’s shown me in over a year. “Bye, Mom,” I whisper.

And then she’s gone, exiting the kitchen and slamming the front door shut behind her.

I bring the bottle to my mouth and take swig after swig until there’s nothing left, all while I listen to her car start and then reverse out of the driveway.

Stupid, I tell myself, rolling my eyes and pushing off the fridge. For a second, I thought she’d come to me. Notice me. See my pain. Try to remove it like other mothers would. But she didn’t. It’s fair, I convince myself, because it’s been over a year since the “accident.” And while the sun rises and falls and the world moves on, I’m still there—stuck in my endless goddamn nightmare.

I pick up the discarded cupcake from the counter and relight the candle.

Then I close my eyes and finally let the tears fall. I inhale a breath, hold it for as long as my lungs can handle, and then I let it go.

My wish?

I wished I’d never lived to see my twentieth birthday.

Three

Dylan

I didn’t bother trying to get back to sleep. I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I went out to the garage, praying it was the one room in the house Dad and Eric had left untouched. It was exactly how I’d left it before I moved away to college. My truck was there, covered with a huge cloth shielding it from the dust. So was the engine Dad had bought me for my sixteenth birthday—something we’d worked on together.

I flicked on all the lights and removed the cover, then sat in the driver’s seat and got reacquainted with my one true love. I ran my hand across the dash and rested my cheek on the steering wheel. “I missed ya, girl,” I whispered, then laughed at myself because I might possibly be insane.

When the sun started to rise I stepped out of the garage and brought the smaller engine parts with me, tinkering away in the semi-light of a new day. I’d spent months doing that exact thing, only now I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder, jumping at every sound.

The sun came up, the birds chirped, neighbors woke, and slowly, people’s lives started over again.