Seven Years of Us, One Year of Me Chapter 08

Seven Years of Us, One Year of Me Chapter 08

On New Year’s Eve of the second year, I was home alone.

I made dumplings and opened my laptop to write a social media post.

Title: The Second Year.

The photo was of a newly blooming pot of lisianthus on the windowsill.

I had grown one more pot that year.

White ones.

I wrote about the year.

About getting a new job and meeting new coworkers.

About learning to cook, though the food wasn’t very good.

About running by the ocean on weekends and getting very tan.

About passing a milk tea shop one day and seeing a sign at the entrance that read, New thirty-percent sugar drink recommended.

I stood there in a daze for a long time.

Then I bought one.

It tasted pretty good.

I wrote about organizing my old phone one day and finding the album called “1.”

I deleted it.

I didn’t look through it a second time.

While I was writing, my phone rang.

Adrian West sent me a message.

Happy.

Only one word.

I looked at it for a long time.

I didn’t reply.

I kept writing.

At the end, I wrote:

Before, I thought “the second year” sounded very far away. Now that I’m standing inside it, it doesn’t feel like much. Life is lived one day at a time. As you keep living, the first year passes. As you keep living, the second, third, and fourth years will pass too. Someone once told me there would be a third year, a fourth year, and a fifth year. He didn’t do it. But I can.

After I posted the article, the comments quickly passed a hundred.

Someone said, Happy second year!

Someone said, Your writing is even better than last year.

Someone said, Flowers you plant yourself bloom for you. Years you live yourself are happy for you.

I read them one by one.

Then I turned off my phone.

Outside the window, someone was singing.

It was far away, and I couldn’t hear it clearly.

I poured myself a glass of water.

I raised the cup and tapped it gently against the window glass.

“Sloane Bennett, happy second year.”