I woke up one Thursday morning, looked at the calendar. Oh, I thought, It’s February twentieth. I forgot about my own birthday. I hadn’t really forgotten it- my mom was asking what cake she should buy me just a day before- but I hadn’t thought about it much. Sixteen, whoa.

“Good morning,” I said to my parents, stumbling out of my room.

“Happy birthday,” they greeted me, phony smiles upon their faces.

I walked to school in the subzero cold, icy winds assaulting my face. Stomach empty, hands cold. I fucking hate this bullshit.

Every period made me feel emptier and the fact that it was my birthday seemed to only make it worse. Stress made my body ache, while piles of school work hit my already broken body like sacks of bricks, over and over again. Over and over again, the incessant chatter of people I hated all around me, the slams of locker doors, the arrangement of plans, slapping footsteps against the white-tiled floors.

Bland gray walls with clocks stared at me through every class, the teacher’s words hitting my ears but not my brain. It was silent up there, too silent, until it became too loud. It was broken, clearly; thoughts that didn’t make sense, overly-emotional feelings that dissipated quickly to be replaced by… Nothingness.

It was all empty space until it was too much.

During lunch hour, I hid in a bathroom stall, scratching the word fuck into the stall door with a pencil, over and over and over again.

Like everyday, the bell went off and two-forty-five. I stalked home wearily, Frogs by Alice In Chains murmuring from my walkman. What a sucky birthday, I thought. What an awful day to turn sixteen.

I walked inside. No one home, so I headed straight for the phone. I called Gia, an old friend of mine, and she answered the phone after a long minute of silence.

“Hello?” Her familiar voice answered, a voice I hadn’t heard since August.

“Hi, Gia. It’s me, Layne… Remember?”

“Layne! Hi! Now, why haven’t you called me sooner?” She laughed just like she used to and added, “Like, what a bitch!”

“Sorry, uh, life’s been crazy,” I said, nostalgia really hitting me. “It’s my birthday, by the way.”

“What? Happy birthday! Sweet Sixteen, right?”

“Yeah, do you wanna hang out? I was thinking of catching a bus back into town, if you wanted to hang out.” I have to get away, I thought, I need to get away.

“Really? Of course, I wanna hang out. I haven’t seen you in months. Remember when we’d hang out every single day?”

“Yeah, good ol’ days… Well, I’ll see you in about an hour, I guess. Oh,” I added, biting my lip, “Any alcohol? Or any pot?”

“Yeah, of course, babe, it’s your birthday! We gotta celebrate accordingly. Just come by my place, okay? See ya.”

“See ya.” I hung up, grabbed my purse, wallet, keys, and wandered down to the bus station. Same bus station where I’d come back from Peter’s party, same bus station where I’d left for Sovernon.

I pulled my jacket’s hood up over my face, staring out the window as the bus began down the highway. It was actually very convenient that I had a job, because I had three week’s worth of wages.

I leaned my head against the condensation-covered window. My eyes were empty, and I thought, this is what it must feel like to be dying. Soul, vacant; heart, heavy; mind, numb. Nothing ever mattered, anyway.

The tuna-scented bus rolled into my good old hometown, but it didn’t spark any joy. Only nostalgia for days long gone, never to be relived again.

After stepping off the bus, I trudged through the slushy-snow streets of familiarity, nearly getting hit by a car as I crossed the road to get to Gia’s place.

I stopped by the sidewalk in front of her driveway, remembering the time I’d fallen off my bike there, a stray rock cutting deep enough to give me a scar on my knee. A rock seemed to fall into the pit of my stomach then, and hot tears pricked at the edges of my eyes.

I brushed the feeling away and the empty-space returned, and I headed up Gia’s driveway to knock on the front door. My friend since forever swung open the door, and she looked the exact same: dark-tinted, tree bark-coloured skin with a gaunt face and head full of brown curls, skinny limbs hidden by baggy clothes, and eyes more blue than mine.

Gia pulled me into a hug. “Fucking finally! I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

We headed down the creaky plywood staircase into her large, beige basement- our hang out spot of choice since age eleven.

“Hey, can I put on some music?” I asked her, feeling for the CD I’d hastily put in my purse before I left. Of course, I had to show off The Paranoids for my old friend.

“Go ahead, yeah.” Gia bent over a red drinks cooler and popped open a bottle.

I put on the CD I loved so much, and cracked a smile. “Gia,” I said quietly, “My boyfriend made this.”

“Wait, holy shit, what’d you say?” Her bright eyes flew open wide as she flopped down onto the beige couch that was the same shade of beige as the walls and carpet.

I ambled over to the cooler and grabbed myself a drink. “My boyfriend made this. He’s a singer.”

“Back up a second, your boyfriend? And- a singer? Layne!” Gia was grinning, and let out a manic giggle. “Seriously?”

I sat down on the couch, taking a long drink of sweet alcohol. “Yeah, his name’s Wyatt, and yeah, he’s a musician.”

“I might have to go over to Pleasant Grove, then!”

“Nah, he doesn’t live there…” I sighed. “He lives seven hours south, sadly.”

A gasp escaped her mouth. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. And, uh, he’s kinda like five years older than me.”

Another dramatic gasp. “Seriously? Oh my God, Layne, you’re dating a twenty year old musician who lives seven hours away from you?”

“Yeah…” Another gulp of my drink. “Yeah, but I really like him.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic about that, babe. Are you…. Sure?” Her voice rang with something like worry, maybe.

“What? Of course I’m sure. I love him.” Defensiveness hit me, and I added cruelly, “You wouldn’t get it, obviously.”

“Jesus, okay…” She leaned back, nodding her head to the music. “He’s a pretty good singer, I must admit.”

“Yeah, he’s really talented.” I gulped back the rest of my drink in one go, and jumped up for another as the dizziness hit my head like joy.

“He doesn’t… Layne, babe, he don’t hurt you, do he? He doesn’t, like, force you to do shit, or anything? He’s a nice guy… Right?”

I shot her a cold glare as I sat back down. “He’s the nicest guy in the world, he doesn’t do any of that. He loves me, and if that’s so hard for you to accept-”

“Whoa, chill, I was just makin’ sure, ‘cause twenty-year-old musicians ain’t typically dating sixteen-year-olds just ‘cause they like ‘em, right?”

My head, which was starting to fill up with bubbly lightness, told me to tell her, “Well, I kinda lied that I was turning eighteen, not sixteen.”

“Oh, come on, Layne, that’s just…”

“It’s a fuckin’ lie, yeah, but I love him, okay, so shut the fuck up,” I snapped, my frown deepening.

“You got the birthday blues, or something?” She asked as she took a sip of her drink, her head still swaying to the music.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You’re actin’ funny, are you okay? Like, you can talk to me if you-”

“No, thanks, I’m fine.” I chugged back more of my drink, the alcohol burning the back of my throat while my body got light and my head got filled with helium and  cherry soda fizz.

“Oh, alright.”

She began to tell me about everything that was happening around town since I’d left, retelling every detail like she’d kept a written report of things to tell me. Someone got pregnant, some party got too wild, someone got busted, et cetera. It was nice listening to her talk and I realized that I’d been acting like a total bitch to her, for no reason at all.

We put on some Nirvana after The Paranoids finished, Bleach was on immediately- Gia’s favorite Nirvana album, of course. Both of us were drunk by the time Paper Cuts blasted out of the stereo like a wave of actual nirvana.

We giggled and talked about whatever, I can’t even remember. It felt just like the good old days for a fleeting few moments.

Until it took a turn for the worse.

Gia and I drank more and more, especially me. Because, well, it was my birthday. I was only celebrating, like any sixteen-year-old. The music roared along with our voices, empty bottles collected on the beige table. There was a collection of CDs on the table, I remember that, along with a large pocket knife and an empty tissue box.

Everything was shifting before my eyes, nothing could focus, and at one point, I threw up into a beige trash can. Bubbles exploded in my head like fireworks- no more feelings yet no more empty space. Just pure, pleasant bubbles, dizzying my mind.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking and the pocket knife was in my loose fingers- “Wanna… Wanna see somethin’ cool?”

Gia giggled, her head bouncing up and down to the screaming music.

A scream came out of nowhere, louder than the music, and suddenly- dark, scary blood leaking all over me, all down the left sleeve of my flannel shirt, all down my left hand, and down my fingers, all one, two, three, four of them.

My drunken thoughts were too slow. Wait, four?

And then Gia was screaming, screaming, “What’d a fuck? La-a-a-a-ayne, what’s a fuck’s wrong with you?” And then, “Hospitall, hospital, you ain’t got that finger on ya!”

Flashing lights, red blood on gray snow. Stop signs flew past, red and green slid all along my vision. More screaming, staggering into a hallway. Bright white light. Bile flowing up my throat, falling out my mouth, more blood.

No feelings, no empty space, just a lot of blood.