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THIRTY
the night of nights
pt. 1
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THE CONCEPT OFCHANGE had always been foreign to me. In daily life, your body is constantly transforming, day by day, minute by minute... Yet when you look through the lens of your camera, or scrutinize each pore in the mirror, those changes are invisible to the naked eye. Never could I pinpoint the exact moment when I realized I wasn't a child anymore—each look in the mirror still felt like me throughout the years. My bratty childhood melted into awkward teen years of gangly limbs and orthodontist visits.
Then, I blinked, and I was battling the raging current of adulthood despite parts of me still wanting to remain safe on the shore. It wasn't until I studied pictures with the sensation of nostalgia threatening to throw me overboard that I realized just how much I had reinvented myself.
My birthdays had always been hit or miss. When I was young, it was easy to indulge in my desire to look and feel like a princess. My father didn't hold back, that was for sure. Despite his efforts, my mother's raging volatility threatened to ruin my celebrations, and I had developed a defeatist attitude about planning birthdays. Trips to the beach sufficed, where the sun's warmth couldn't be sucked away into Zara's vacuum of doom and negativity.
I looked in the mirror now, the bittersweet aftertaste of nostalgia heavy on my tongue.
My mom's hair stylist hovered around my head, applying finishing touches to my look. My dark hair was slicked back, and appeared almost damp. The polished appearance of my hairdo complimented the sultry shadow on my lids. The blue of my irises had never looked brighter against the dark backdrop of the eye makeup.
Leaning in to the mirror, I dabbed at the corner of my lip, ensuring my signature red lipstick was applied perfectly.
"I swear by this formula," Randy Peppler gushed, promoting his product with all the passion that made him what he was today. "It won't budge, not even if a special someone tries to mess it all up with a birthday kiss." He winked.
He laughed, jovially, handing the lipstick to his makeup artist. "Enjoy your day, Sienna." Randy squeezed my shoulders. His expensive cologne hung in the air surrounding him as he strutted away.
I hadn't seen Isaiah yet. I fought the urge to smile when his name popped into my head. He wasn't making my tendency to detach easy on me, that was for damn sure. With every passing day I felt my airtight seal loosening, years of pent-up emotion leaking onto the floor. I woke up this morning to a giant bouquet of roses and a smaller one in the shape of a bear, accompanied with a handwritten note in the shitty handwriting that I had slowly become fond of.
