I wake up to the annoyingly loud beeping of my alarm and my first thought is that I need to change the sound. 

The second is noticing how incredibly shitty I feel. I am very hungover right now. 

I got invited to a dorm room party at the last minute and I had to attend, even if I should have been doing homework. Not because I have issues with saying no like Cali claims. I just went because I’m a nice person that likes to support my classmates. 

I grab the glass of water I cleverly placed on my nightstand the night before. I silently thank my past self and raise the cup to my lips before realizing very quickly that it’s not water that’s in that cup. 

Coughing and hacking, I rush to the bathroom to wash whatever that was out of my mouth. 

Yup, random cups on your nightstand is never really a good idea. Good thinking. 

I wash my face in an attempt to wake myself up and look into the mirror. Beads of sweat and water cover my face. Small dark circles can be spotted under my eyes and my hair has several knotty clumps. But my face isn’t the part of the mirror I’m focusing on. It’s the space right above it, occupied by a series of white digits. 

02171999

I repeat the numbers several times to myself in an attempt to try to figure out what they mean. They seem familiar, but I’m not sure why. 

The rest of my morning routine is spent thinking about the numbers. Taking a shower, brushing my teeth, picking an outfit. All of it is spent deciphering the meaning behind the numbers that float above my head. I try saying it in different ways: each digit individually, as one large number, adding spaces in different spots, seeing if the number changes and noticing what caused it to change. 

One time the number represented how many burritos a person had eaten in a lifetime, which is really obscure. I never would have discovered what it meant if I hadn’t eaten a burrito that day and seen the number go up. But this number seems to be immovable so far.

I’m in the middle of making breakfast for me and my roommates when it hits me. The number is a date. Two digits for the month, two for the day, and four for the year. It’s not just any date though, it’s my birthday. Today, the numbers are birthdays. 

And I’m sure there’s a reason that today I’m seeing birthdays. The universe never just shows me things at random. There’s always a reason for what the numbers mean. Someone’s birthday is today. It has to be that. And I’m the one who is going to be wishing them a happy one. That must be what the universe wants. 

“Hey,” says a groggy voice from behind me. Cali. And the numbers above her head match the ones of her birthday. I break into a small smile. Good to know that I was right.

“Are you feeling as shitty as I am?” She asks and sits at the small table we have in the kitchen. 

I take in her appearance. I didn’t know it was possible, but she looks worse than I did this morning. Her dark curly hair sticks out in ways I’ve never seen it do before. She has a few strands stuck in her mouth and her glasses are sitting crookedly on her nose. She’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing last night, but they’re twisted and crumpled in ways they shouldn’t be.

“I don’t know,” I say, turning back to the eggs I’m scrambling. “If you feel as shitty as you look, that might be a little hard to match.”

I hear an overly dramatic gasp that’s promptly followed by the thunk of a shoe hitting the back of my head.

“I’ll have you know that me looking like this is your fault.”

“Oh really?”

“Yup,” Cali says. “If you didn’t suck up to Nolan and drag me to his dumb party, I would be looking like my usual radiant self.”

I roll my eyes at her. “You know you enjoyed it.”

She smiles. “I did. But did you?” Her smiling face melts into an expression of concern.

I’m taken aback by her question. Of course I had a good time. I’m the party person on campus. I mean, sure, sometimes I find parties to be a bit of a hassle or I just want alone time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have fun when I go to them. 

“Yeah, of course I did. It was great. What makes you say that?”

Cali looks at me with an expression I can’t quite comprehend. It makes me feel nervous or intimidated. Like she’s psychoanalyzing me. She is a psych major after all. Those people are wizards.

“You just looked a little out of it, I guess,” she says casually and shrugs. Something tells me that I did a little more than ‘look out of it’ for her to call me out. 

“Really?” I ask, challenging her.

She stares me dead in the eye, her lips forming into a smirk. “Yeah, you looked bored or tired or… like something else was on your mind. Or someone.”

My cheeks suddenly feel very hot. 

“So it is a someone then? Hm.” Cali leans back in the chair and makes a show of looking at her fingernails. “I wonder who,” she says, her voice light and without care. I can tell she cares a lot though, more than she’s trying to show right now. And she knows a lot more than she’s willing to let on too. Cali is like that. She’s smart and she knows a lot. But she likes to pretend she doesn’t. It gives her an edge. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, regaining my composure. 

“Of course you don’t,” she says. “You rarely do.”

Ouch. That one hurt. But I suppose it’s payback for my original insult to her. 

“Touche,” I say and slide a plate of eggs with greens toward her. 

She grabs the fork and immediately starts digging in. If there’s one thing I know about Cali, it’s that she loves food. So she’s usually distracted from whatever she was originally focused on when presented with it. 

My second roommate, Alec, enters the room soon after. Either he smelled the food or heard Cali’s very loud and aggressive eating. He, too, looks like a mess. That seems like a common theme here. 

His dirty blonde hair is buzzed on the sides, but has grown out on the top. It looks nice when styled, but now it’s sticking out in all sorts of weird directions. It’s definitely not a good look for him. His stubble has grown a little out of control and now looks more like a patchy beard. 

“What time is it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes as he sits down at the table. 

“Almost eight,” I say and slide another plate of eggs towards him. “Do you have a class today?”

“Not until eleven,” he says in a yawn.

“Good,” I say. I bring my own plate of eggs to the table and sit down with them. “You’ll need time to fix… that.” I gesture to his person. 

“Thanks,” he says flatly, mouth filled with eggs. “What about you?”

“I have a class at nine,” I say between mouthfuls. “But I’m going early because I need to talk to my advisor. Cali?”

“I’ll go with you,” she says, spewing eggs. Alec and I both lean back so we don’t get chewed egg all over us. Cali is also known for being very messy. She’s not exactly the best with manners. 

“Okay, well I’m leaving in ten, so you might want to start getting ready because–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I look like shit. We’ve been over this." She stands up from the table and delivers an over exaggerated wink before disappearing into her room. 

"Don't forget to clean up your plate," Alec yells at her. She’s not going to, but he still feels the need to remind her. In the end, Alec always does Cali’s chores. The rest of us are usually pretty good at keeping tidy. 

The fourth member of the room must have left early to go somewhere. She's the earliest bird out there, so if she's not walking around now, it means she's not here.

Of course, I could probably ask Cali if I really wanted to know where she is. The two are always talking or texting in some form. 

I gather my things and am about to leave when Cali stumbles out of her room, hopping on one foot to put on her other shoe. 

“We’ll need to take a quick stop on the way to the university,” I say to Cali once we’re on the sidewalk. 

“Where?” She asks, still doing up her belt. How she’ll manage to maintain a job in any professional capacity, I’ll never know. 

“Here,” I say, stopping in front of a local bakery shop. 

It's a cute little thing. I've passed it many times without ever actually going in. There’s a large glass window covering the front of the store, allowing me to see the earthy colors decorate the inside. A few tables and sofas line the shop. They’re arranged in a way that makes the room feel large, despite its smaller size. I can smell the freshly baked goods from here. Something about the design makes it feel cozy. It draws me in. 

“A bake shop?” Cali says, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

“I need to grab something. It’ll be fast.” 

I open the door to the bakeshop. It dings in response. A warm face welcomes me and asks if they can get me anything.

“Do you have a small treat that most people would enjoy?” I say. “It’s for someone’s birthday.”

They pull something out that both smells and looks heavenly. I buy the sweet and make my way back outside where Cali stands arching an eyebrow. 

“What?” I say, even though I already know why she’s looking at me like that. 

“That was random,” she says as we continue walking. “But still appreciated. Let’s dig in.”

I pull the treat away before she can demolish it. “It’s not for you.”

“Then who is it for?” Cali asks, a smile creeping on her face. “Is it for–”

“No, it’s not,” I say firmly. Although it could be him. I don’t know who’s birthday it is. I hope it isn’t his though. I’m not prepared for a conversation with him yet.

“Then whose is it?” 

“It’s for someone’s birthday,” I say. That’s the least suspicious response I can give. 

“Whose?” Cali says.

“You’ll just have to see,” I say and give her a small wink that causes her to groan loudly. 

We arrive at the school shortly after. I hope it really is someone’s birthday today. Otherwise I’ll look pretty awkward carrying a pastry around all day. 

Cali tugs roughly on my sleeve and points to someone. “There’s Etty!”

I look in the direction of her gesturing to see our fourth and final roommate. She’s walking next to someone and laughing. But it’s not just any someone she’s standing next to. Cali seems to recognize this too because she looks at me and wiggles her eyebrows. 

Cali, because she feels the need to point out the obvious, whispers a phrase just loud enough so I can hear. A phrase that makes my face feel hot. A phrase that makes my heart beat just a little quicker. 

“And there’s Noah.”