eight.
I always thought my parents were being dramatic. My mother was an actress, and I always assumed her unwillingness to age could be attributed to working in an industry where the first sign of a wrinkle usually meant you were done with.
It wasn't until I woke up on my thirty-sixth birthday that I got it. Aging fucking sucked.
It wasn't because I had some wrinkles around my eyes when I smiled or because my back would kill me if I stretched it the wrong way. All day, the only two numbers that ran through my mind were thirty-six and twenty-two.
Thirty-six.
Twenty-two.
I contemplated tearing the cheerful Happy birthday! Sign that had made its way over my office door down. Thirty-six.
But, I was trying to be better. Less of the old grump I had been known for being these days. Mostly, I kept it up because I figured Bella would get a kick out of it. Twenty-two.
There was a gentle knock at the door. She opened it without hesitation, with a bright smile that immediately faded when she looked at me.
"Why so grumpy?"
She slid a caramel frappuccino across my desk, taking the iced coffee that was ninety-percent sugar that was waiting for her.
"I'm just… not a big fan of my birthday," I admitted. I also had to admit it didn't seem so horrible now that she was in front of me. Twenty-two.
Eventually she sighed. "I'll take down the sign."
My head cocked to the side. "That was you?"
Thirty-six. I was thirty-six. She was twenty-two. She should have been more upset than I at my age. I was now closer to forty than thirty. I was nearly old enough to be her father.
"I paid the morning janitor to put it up before you got in."
I stared at her. Counted the twelve freckles across her nose to cut into the constant 'thirty-six, twenty-two' mantra stuck in my head.
It wasn't something I ever realized, not something I knew I really cared about.
But I wasn't sure the last time someone went out of their way, so far as to paying off a janitor, to celebrate my birthday.
My parents threw parties and I got gifts. But it was all standard stuff. Stuff I was more than happy for, because they remembered my birthday and took me to dinner. But the last time someone thought it through? Made a plan? Wanted to do something outside of the ordinary for my birthday?
I spent the rest of the day trying to figure it out. My best guess was my twenty-first birthday.