I hadn’t told Ophelia that my birthday was today. I was turning twenty-eight. Was that old or young? I didn’t know. When I was twenty-three, I wore heart-shaped stickers on my face. When I was twenty-five, I fell in love. I only drank tequila and pineapple juice, as if that said something important about me. At twenty-seven, I grieved and made bank. I felt tired when I pictured it, twenty-eight years contained in my body, an overstuffed carry-on. At the same time, it seemed like a sexy number, rounded and lush. Young for a writer, old for a gymnast, the perfect age for a bartender or anonymous fuck. I would throw away my flavored condoms and start reading about Bitcoin. I would buy satin sheets and retinol creams and carbonated water. I’d be sleek but fun, poised but game. I would dance with my eyes closed alone in a bar. All my shirts would be see-through, chopsticks in my hair. I couldn’t ever be embarrassed. From now on, I’d sleep naked with the windows ajar; that felt very twenty-eight. I took comfort in remembering what Simon had said, his eyes wet with meaning: You’re still so young!