The last of the birthday balloons had deflated overnight, sagging against the living room wall like exhausted partygoers. Turning eighteen felt anticlimactic—no sudden wisdom, no cosmic shift,just another morning with toothpaste smeared on the bathroom mirror and the same old cereal bowl waiting in the sink.
"You look weirdly disappointed," her best friend Marco said, slouching against the kitchen counter with a grin. He’d crashed on the couch after the party, as usual. "What, did you expect a marching band? Confetti cannons?"
She flicked a cereal chunk at him. "I don’t know, maybe a little fanfare? Like, a scroll from the universe saying ‘congrats, you’re officially allowed to make terrible decisions now.’"
Marco snorted, catching the soggy projectile mid-air and flicking it into the sink. "Pretty sure that’s called alcohol. Which, by the way" He rummaged in his backpack and tossed her a mini-bottle of peach schnapps with a sticky label that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOSER in smeared Sharpie. "There’s your fanfare. Drink it slow unless you wanna puke in my shoes again like sophomore year."
The peach schnapps tasted like liquefied candy, syrupy and artificial, but it warmed her throat in a way that made her feel reckless. She swirled the bottle, watching the liquid cling to the glass. "So," she said, aiming for casual and missing by a mile, "what’s the first terrible decision I should make?"
Marco raised an eyebrow, then smirked. "Oh no. You’ve got that look."
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Marco laughed, the sound low and knowing. "Wait, let me guess—this is about that checklist you made in Mrs. Ruiz’s biology class, isn’t it? The one with ‘get laid before college’ circled like, twelve times?"
The schnapps bottle slipped in her grip, nearly toppling onto the linoleum. "You remember that?"
Marco's grin widened, fingers drumming against the countertop. "Duh. You left it in your notebook when you lent it to me during finals. Highlighted and everything—like some kinda teenage bucket list manifesto." He leaned forward, elbows on the counter, suddenly serious in that way he only ever was for three seconds at a time. "But you actually wanna do this? Like, now?"
The kitchen clock ticked louder than it had any right to. She traced the condensation on the schnapps bottle with her thumb, sticky and slow. "Not right now. But... soon. Before orientation week. I just—" A laugh hiccupped out of her, nervous energy with nowhere else to go. "I don’t wanna be the weirdo in the dorm who doesn’t know how anything works, you know?"
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