December
CAMDEN KENT
"So...your birthday's coming up," Harry said, standing beside me to watch me do my makeup. I always thought that was cute. "The 18th, yeah?"
"Mhm," I leaned in closer to his bathroom mirror to dab my concealer under my eyes.
"How is that, anyway? Having a birthday so close to Christmas?"
I capped my concealer in exchange for a chubby stick of blush. "What do you mean?"
"Well, like...did you get double gifts when you were a kid and stuff? Or did you do Christmas-themed birthday parties?"
"Oh," I laughed at the thought. "Yeah, no, my parents didn't really do the whole 'gifts for Christmas' thing, and I never had birthday parties growing up. I think it was just too much work for them."
His brows pulled together as I glanced at him, tapping my blush in with two fingers. "Wait, what? You never had birthday parties?"
Indifferently, I shook my head. "I don't think I had a birthday party until I was already in college."
It took him almost a full minute to silently comprehend that, and I guess maybe it was strange, but I don't know. Did every kid in the world have extravagant parties growing up? Surely I couldn't be the only one who missed out on that experience.
"Okay, so then...what did you do for your first official birthday party?"
As I thought back to the memory, I cleared my throat and pulled out my tube of mascara. "Well, I guess it wasn't really a party for me specifically, but Kayla and I went to a party at Brandon's frat house on campus and I just got really drunk. It wasn't bad, but I could've done without the hangover the next day, to be honest."
He blinked at me as if he was once again trying to understand what I was saying. "So your boyfriend couldn't have thrown you an actual birthday party instead?"
Shrugging, I said, "I think maybe he would have, but the frat party fell on the same night and he had no choice but to go to it. I'm not sure if you guys have the equivalent of fraternities and sororities here in the UK, but they take that stuff seriously in the States, so...yeah, he didn't really have a choice. We were also really hungover for the rest of the weekend, so it's not like I wanted to do anything else anyway."
"And what about all the other years you two were together? Didn't you say you dated all through college?"
I hesitated then, picking up on his apparent concern on the whole subject. "Yeah, but I don't know. I guess because I never had birthday parties growing up, it just wasn't a thing for me even when I got older, so I didn't feel entitled to having a party or anything. Like, not having a party was my normal. You know what I mean?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, watching me coat my lashes in mascara. I was about to ask him if he was upset when he muttered, "Not really. That's kinda fucked up."
"It's seriously not a big deal at all," I chuckled, trying to lighten his mood, "it's literally just another day–"
"It's not really just another day," he argued, surprising me with the slight clipped edge in his tone. "You're supposed to have a cake with candles to blow out, and you're supposed to have a gift to open even if it's something stupid, like socks, and you're supposed to have your friends there getting drunk while they celebrate with you."
"But I didn't have any friends," I laughed again, and it was genuine. "I mean, Kayla would text me happy birthday, and Brandon would usually buy me dinner even if it wasn't on the exact day. It's not like I lose sleep over it."
