My phone chirped before I had a chance to get in the shower. I snatched it up, already knowing exactly who was texting me. It was my hetero-life-mate, Trina. We usually didn’t go two hours without talking, so the fact that it had been almost twelve was highly unusual.

Did I use her as an emotional crutch? Maybe. But at least it was a co-dependent relationship. She needed me just as much as I needed her.

Ordinarily I would have asked Trina a billion questions about what exactly led her to believe that Ryan was into me, but I didn’t have the heart. At the moment, I was feeling too raw. In the privacy of ‘my room’ I dissected the conversation that Ryan and I had over breakfast.

The idea that someone would only be interested in being kind to me because of who my father was, irritated me. It was like a bug bite I couldn’t reach—a constant, uncomfortable reminder. The idea that Ryan might be interested in sleeping with me because of it was even worse, and somewhat creepy. Overall, Ryan’s curiosity about my relationship with my dad made me extremely nervous.

Sometimes I felt like I was so swept up in my drama with my parents that it was hard to have room for anything else. Having a nice, normal relationship seemed out of the question for me. Especially with someone like Ryan. Even if his proximity to the drama was merely incidental, he was too close to the fire not to get burned.

I groaned at the reminder. The whole reason that yesterday had sucked, aside from the fact that Mr. Fish (my betta fish) had died, or the whole ‘raining apartment’ thing, was because I tried to call my mom on my birthday and she’d brushed me off. Apparently spin class was more much important than talking to her only daughter on the anniversary of my birth. Her silence hurt like hell. It was like I wasn’t even her kid anymore because I was trying to have a relationship with my own father. She hadn’t so much as spoken to me in months.

Ryan’s guest shower was bigger and nicer than mine—not that either of those things was a huge achievement. My shower absolutely sucked. Just having adequate water pressure felt incredibly indulgent. When coupled with the virtually unlimited hot water, I was in sensory heaven.

I used my fifteen minutes of lathering, rinsing, and repeating to consider whether or not I wanted to take Trina up on her offer and try salvaging my birthday. After the disaster that was yesterday, it was hard to envision that my second attempt could be worse than the first. I had nowhere to go but up. Besides, as crappy as yesterday had been, some good did come out of it—I met Ryan.

Plus, you only turn nineteen once. Cancelling my birthday party last night had been a knee-jerk reaction to my fish dying and my mom hanging up on me. If I wasn’t careful, I’d knee-jerk myself right into never enjoying anything. I’d already gotten grumpy at Ryan this morning for reacting before I thought about things. He was probably just honestly curious about how weird my relationship with my dad was. It was objectively very weird, I could acknowledge that. I stood under the sprays, felt guilty, and resolved to enjoy my birthday, even if it killed me. I also resolved to apologize to Ryan.

When I got out of the shower, I felt stronger. Reinvigorated. I was a brand new, less grouchy, cleaner version of Rosie. I reached for my phone with newfound resolve.

My hands, which had been towel drying my curls, paused. Oh, right. The girl in the mirror stared back at me blankly. I had no idea what I wanted to do. The only thing I did know was that I wanted Ryan to be there. I’d been nothing but crappy to him and he’d been nothing but nice to me. Maybe if I invited him to my party would convince him that I wasn’t a total bitch.