Happy Birthday

EMBER

“Happy birthday to you,” Gracie said, raising her glass of champagne toward me. “I hope all your dreams come true this year.”

“Thank you.” I smiled, clinking my glass against hers. We had completed our trek to New York and moved into our loft that week. It was all finally starting to feel real, and it was thrilling.

Neither Gracie nor I had ever been to New York before, but it was turning out exactly like I thought it would. Both of us had seen enough movies shot there and read enough about it to know what to expect, but what books and movies couldn’t possibly convey was the electric atmosphere in the city.

It didn’t smell great, and our loft was a little smaller than what we had imagined, but I was already falling in love with the city. Waking up here on my birthday and knowing I was going to be calling it home for the foreseeable future was incredible. It really did feel like a new beginning where anything was possible for the year that lay ahead. An eternal optimist, I was no