Jolene Hii
Birthdays are bittersweet. Dina knows that better than anyone, as she taps her fingers onto the cold marble of the kitchen counter and readjusts the bandage on her forearm.
Tenth of June—the dreaded date suspended in between a departing spring descending into a ready summer. Where brisk winds dissolve into sweltering heat and branches of emerald. And where she, this year, is finally forced to abandon her fruitless attempts at resisting the inevitable course of adulthood.
Seventeen hit harder than a freight train last year, but in a good way—if that’s even possible. With it perhaps being one of the rare occasions in her life where she didn’t feel like each day was dragging her along like a wounded soldier. Yet she barely entertained the notion of a party—ditching the confinements of her apartment for a friend’s house instead. Sixteen, however, was tiresome in its lack of guests and thus, lack of gifts. Fifteen was too forgettable. And she’d much rather not recount the catastrophe that fourteen delivered.
Eighteen, now in just under 30 minutes, better not fall into that category.
The all-too-familiar rattle of heels on cold marble enters earshot and rips her away from her thoughts. She doesn’t greet the intruder, who is armed with two paper bags loaded with groceries.
“Are you not going to get changed?” her mother asks, the question drenched in a bottle of luxury perfume. Citrusy with a hint of passion fruit; not her typical choice of fragrance. Laura normally prefers more mature, refined scents that make your nose sting the second you inhale it, almost like a warning beforehand.
Dina ignores her. “How many people are attending?” she chokes out, throat sore and words rough.
Pause. “Just a couple of close friends and family. Your grandparents, your cousins, and your—,” inhale, “acquaintances, from school.” Exhale.
She says the word like it physically pains her.
There isn’t further exchange afterward, so Laura swiftly takes the initiative again. Words seeping of some strange coalescence bridging between restrained disappointment and stiff, unbridled worry.
“Do you need help changing your dressing?” she inquires, velvety pitch alongside an unspoken Why weren’t you more careful? lingering in her gaze. Her eyes are honey on a knife. Sweet, molten, sticky; sharp, threatening, unpredictable.
Dina glances at her neglected bandage once more. Her kitchen stool screeches backward as she positions herself back onto her two bare feet with one languid push—but her pulse is hammering and her heart attempts to erupt past her chest.
“No, I’m fine.”
Laura nods. Short-lived relief flashes over her features, but she gets it under control quickly—quietly.
—————————————
Four weeks ago, Dina found herself at the center of an accident. A car accident. One that occurred so rapidly the memories are still fuzzy, and every time she tries to recall it, all she sees are blurring flashes in the backdrop of inky darkness and dead silence.
Or, at least, if anyone screamed she didn’t hear it.
It was the wrong crowd, the wrong people that she should’ve known better than to associate with. In fact, she did know better.
But when you’re trapped in a cage—a gilded one, yet a cage nonetheless—anything is a tempting siren.
—————————————
It’s a minute until the dreaded party. Begrudgingly, she’s wrestled into what her family of banking tycoons—where the money flows through their veins and has for decades now—would consider more suitable attire. The seat at the head of the dining table (Brazilian Rosewood, carved thirty years ago, generational heirloom) is reserved for her father yet she, just for one evening, is allowed to occupy it.
On her left is her sister who wears rose-gold flats, ones that are the color of Dina’s dress. Dina, amongst many things, is nothing like Valerie. Valerie pays people to do what she wants with saccharine smiles and butterfly-like bats of her lashes. Dina doesn’t conduct such façades.
“Remember to make a wish.” Her sister, smiling so brightly it hurts, places a warm hand on her shoulder.
The cake that’s delivered by an elderly butler is pale, like the moon outside or the color of her cheeks. Cream roses assorted across the surface and gleaming pearls twinkling up at curious, peering gazes from all across the table. Her stomach churns, not because of the amount of frosting dumped on it, but rather the realization that it is a bitter goodbye.
Eighteen candles. Simple sticks made of wax that’ll probably melt onto the cake soon enough shouldn’t mean anything—and yet they mean everything. Each one setting alight is like a countdown. A steady clock that ticks all too excruciatingly slowly until it chimes as the final candle blazes.
Eighteen candles are a cruel farewell to a childhood that now exists solely in memories, where you stop questioning yourself and what you’re going to be in the future, but rather what you’re going to be now. Eighteen candles open new roads that are equally gritty yet refined. Ruthless yet benign. A goodbye and a hello all at once.
And Dina doesn’t know if she’s ready—if she’ll ever be.
The tip of the last candle envelops itself aflame and, even though she shouldn’t, she feels the weight of adulthood already on her shoulders—anchoring her down like those medieval dungeon chains with the heavy ball trailing behind.
“Don’t keep us waiting,” her mother states, lips tight. “Hurry now.”
Dina responds with a nod—more dismissive than anything.
Inhale.
Until all the oxygen is sucked out of the room and perhaps, maybe then, with enough air, her pulse will stop ramming itself so deafeningly in her chest. Eighteen once was only a daydream, eighteen now is a new reality that she’ll have to grasp in mere seconds.
Inhale.
Eighteen is old, eighteen is young. It’s plenty of time to figure your life out and set the course it’ll travel on, but then again, it’s not.
Inhale.
She’ll never have a childhood again. No more dollhouses and wooden horses. No multiplication tables at the dining table stained by tears of frustration, no more—
Exhale.
The candles extinguish—so rapidly she almost misses it with a blink—in one blow. And the applause and grins that encompass her from every end of the table are reassuring, if not a little disconcerting depending on who she looks at. A small smile of her own, surprisingly, blooms across her lips.
Eighteen is an arduous path ready to welcome her in open arms—cruel or forgiving depending on how it’s treated whilst it’s walked across. Eighteen may even be nothing. It may just be empty in the face of everything that she will encounter in the following years of adulthood, and all this worrying is misdirected.
But still, perhaps—with that meaninglessness—she can make it anything she wants.
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Jolene is a 15-year-old, Vietnamese-Malaysian writer. She has written as a hobby since she was about 9. She mainly enjoys books, films, and series about history—mainly of the Second World War period. Her favorite novel is Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak! Instagram – @jolene.hjx
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