Chapter 3: Birthday Wish
The fire had sunk to a deep crimson pulse, its heat a distant warmth against the cooling night. The laughter from their earlier foam-drenched wrestling had settled into a comfortable silence, broken only by the lake’s gentle sigh against the shore. The moon, a sharp silver coin, had climbed higher, bleaching the color from the world and painting everything in monochrome.
Carol stretched, arching her back with a soft groan. The movement was pure, unselfconscious grace. She rose from the log and stepped into the center of their circle, the moonlight caressing the lines of her body. She planted her feet wide, fists on her hips, chin lifted to the stars. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, and her breasts, full and proud, seemed to defy gravity. She held the pose, a statue of potent, unapologetic womanhood.
Wil snorted, a warm, fond sound. “Oh, for god’s sake, Conners. You’re almost thirty. Still doing the Wonder Woman thing?”
Carol didn’t break character. She turned her head slowly, a sly grin playing on her lips. “It’s not a ‘thing.’ It’s an ethos.” She dropped the pose and in one fluid motion, closed the distance between them. Her hands found Wil’s waist, cool and firm on the pale skin. She pulled her close, their naked bodies pressing together from chest to thigh. Wil’s breath hitched.
“You’re just jealous you can’t pull off the golden lasso,” Carol growled, her voice a low vibration against Wil’s ear.
Wil’s hands came up to rest on Carol’s shoulders, not pushing away, but holding on. “I’m more of a Harley Quinn girl, myself. Chaos is more my style.”
“Chaos, huh?” Carol’s grin widened. She dipped her head, her nose skimming the line of Wil’s jaw. “I can work with chaos.”
A comfortable cough came from the logs. “If you two are about to re-enact Themyscira, maybe take it to a tent,” June said, though her eyes were bright with amusement. “Some of us are trying to contemplate the heat death of the universe.”
“Buzzkill,” Wil sing-songed, but she relaxed her grip, allowing Carol to step back.
The moment broke, but the energy it created hummed in the air. Sky stood up, her body a slender silhouette against the moonlit water. “I’m still all sticky from the beer. I need to rinse off.” She started towards the lake, then paused, looking back at them. “Who’s coming? Last one in is a rotten egg.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.
Wil was the first to follow, sprinting past Sky with a whoop, her red hair a banner in the night. They heard the twin splashes, one clean, one clumsy, followed by shrieks that were half shock, half delight.
Carol looked at June and Rae. “Well?”
June sighed, a theatrical, put-upon sound, but she was already standing, brushing imaginary dirt from her thighs. “The microbial content of that lake is probably fascinating.” She walked sedately towards the water’s edge.
Rae hadn’t moved. She sat on the log, elbows on her knees, watching the dark water where the others had vanished. Her expression was unreadable, the sharp lines of her face hardened by the moonlight.
“Rae?” Carol’s voice was softer now.
“I’m good,” Rae said, her tone final. “I’ll keep the fire company.”
Carol didn’t push. She just nodded and walked to the lake, leaving Rae in the circle of dimming light. The water was shockingly cold, a gasp that stole her breath as she waded in. The silty bottom oozed between her toes. Around her, the others were already acclimating, their bodies pale blurs in the black water. Sky was floating on her back, staring at the Milky Way’ sprawling brushstroke across the sky. Wil was dunking June, who came up sputtering and laughing, her dark curls plastered to her head.
They drifted together, treading water, the cold sealing them in a silent, shivering pact. The world was reduced to this: the vast, star-dusted sky above, the deep, unknowable water below, and the four of them in between.
“Do you ever think about just… staying?” Sky asked, her voice quiet. “Like, not going back to cars and Wi-Fi and… Liams.”
“All the time,” Wil murmured. “My studio has this weird smell of turpentine and defeat. This is better.”
“It’s not sustainable,” June said, but it wasn’t a rebuttal. It was a lament. “The entropy of the system is inevitable. Real life always intervenes.”
Carol listened to them, the water lapping at her chin. She watched the lone figure by the fire. Rae had stood up and was pacing the edge of the light, a restless shadow.
Then, without a word, Rae stopped. She pulled her tank top over her head, then stepped out of her shorts. For a moment, she stood there, fully revealed in the fire’s glow, her body a compact, powerful outline of lean muscle and sharp angles. Then she walked, with purpose, down to the water.
She didn’t run or shout. She waded in, her movements swift and efficient, until the water reached her chest. She stopped a few feet from the group, her piercing blue eyes scanning their faces.
“Water’s cold,” she stated, as if reporting a mechanical fault.
“Yeah,” Carol said, a smile in her voice. “We noticed.”
Sky swam over to her, the water rippling around them. “Took you long enough.”
Rae shrugged, a tight, jerky motion. “Had to think.”
They fell into a comfortable silence, the five of them suspended in the dark water. The initial shock of the cold had faded, replaced by a strange, buoyant warmth that came from the inside out. The moon painted a shimmering path across the lake’s surface, leading from their bodies to the infinite horizon.
Rae was the one who broke the quiet, her voice lower than the lake’s whisper. “I got my final discharge papers last week. From the reserves.”
The admission hung in the night air, weighty and significant. No one responded immediately, allowing the words to settle.
“How does it feel?” Carol asked finally. “To be done?”
Rae was quiet for so long they thought she wouldn’t answer. She looked up at the stars, her gaze distant. “It feels like someone finally turned off a loud, humming machine that’s been running in the background for years.” She let out a long, slow breath. “The silence is… fucking loud.”
Wil moved then, drifting closer until her shoulder brushed against Rae’s. A simple, solid point of contact. Sky did the same on her other side. June and Carol closed the circle, until they were a loose, treading cluster of bodies, surrounding her.
The circle held for a long moment, the water’s chill forgotten in the warmth of their shared silence. Rae’s shoulders, tense before, seemed to drop an inch as she glanced at each of their faces in the moonlight. A faint, almost imperceptible nod was her only thanks, but it was enough.
“Okay,” Wil said, her voice cutting through the quiet with a soft splash. “Enough deep stuff. My toes are pruning.” She turned and started wading back toward shore, breaking the circle with a purposeful stride.
The others followed, their movements stirring the placid water into rippling circles that chased each other to the shore. They emerged onto the cool grass, water streaming from their bodies and pooling at their feet. The night air was a gentle shock against their wet skin.
Sky grabbed a stack of towels from a nearby log, tossing them to everyone with a practiced ease. “Birthday cake time,” she announced, her voice bright and purposeful. “I’ve been dreaming about that buttercream all day.”
They gathered around the revived fire, Rae silently adding a few more sticks to the flames. The light caught the droplets on their skin, making them shimmer as they dried themselves. June retrieved a large, slightly lopsided cake from the cooler, placing it carefully on a flat stone near the fire.
The cake was adorned with a single large candle shaped like a ‘2’ and a ‘9’. Sky lit it with a brand from the fire, and the small flame joined the dance of the campfire. “Okay, everyone!” she chirped, clapping her hands together.
Their voices rose together, singing Happy Birthday, a slightly off-key but heartfelt chorus that echoed into the woods. Carol watched the flame flicker, its light wavering in her green eyes. She took a deep breath and blew, the candle extinguishing with a whisper of smoke.
A chorus of cheers and claps erupted around her. “Make a wish!” Wil yelled, nudging her shoulder.
But Carol’s smile was tight, not quite reaching her eyes. She stared at the smoke trail dissipating into the dark.
“You okay, Conners?” Rae asked, her voice low. She was leaning against a log, watching Carol with a mechanic’s assessing gaze. “You look like you just wished for a root canal.”
The others fell quiet, sensing the shift. Carol wrapped the towel tighter around herself, though not for modesty. It was a reflexive gesture of containment.
“It’s stupid,” Carol said, shaking her head. She picked at a bit of icing on the cake’s edge. “Just… turning thirty. It’s messing with my head.”
“Welcome to the club,” June said dryly. “The existential dread is complimentary.”
“No, it’s not just the number.” Carol’s gaze swept over them, over the fire, the lake, their naked, easy forms. “This. All of this. It feels… finite.” She struggled to find the words. “My career is taking off, which means more responsibility. Maybe a move. And you guys… you’ll all have your own things. Promotions, partnerships, babies.”
She let out a slow breath, the weight of the future pressing down. “I’m afraid that soon, weekends like this won’t be possible anymore. That real life is just going to swallow this whole thing up.”
The fire crackled, swallowing the silence that followed her words. It was Rae who moved first, shifting her weight off the log to crouch near the cake. She picked up the knife, her calloused fingers stark against the pristine plastic handle.
“Everything’s finite, Conners,” she said, not looking up as she began cutting precise, even slices. “Engines, stars, good times. The trick isn’t crying about the odometer, it’s about enjoying the drive while the engine’s still hot.” She slid a gigantic piece onto a paper plate, heavy with frosting, and handed it to Carol.
“Yeah, but the drive gets complicated,” Carol countered, accepting the plate. The sweet, sugary smell of the buttercream seemed to accentuate her sudden melancholy. “It’s not just about fun anymore. It’s about mortgages and retirement funds and becoming… responsible adults.”
Wil snorted, grabbing her own slice. “Being a ‘responsible adult’ is a scam invented to sell us beige furniture. Look at us.” She gestured around the circle with her fork, a blob of frosting clinging to her chin. “We’re naked in the woods eating cake. I’d say we’re winning at adulthood.”
“Wil’s not entirely wrong,” June added, adjusting her glasses. “The societal timeline is a construct. There’s no law that says fun has an expiration date.” She paused, taking a delicate bite. “Although, biologically, our collagen production is indeed declining. It’s all downhill from here, epidermis-wise.”
A laugh burst from Carol, sharp and surprised. “Thanks for that, June. Really cheers a girl up.”
“I’m just providing the data,” June said with a shrug, but a small smile played on her lips.
Sky set her plate down and stood, stretching her arms overhead in a fluid, yogic arc. The firelight danced over the toned lines of her stomach. “You’re thinking about it backwards, Carol.” Her voice was calm, a counterpoint to the crackling fire. “This isn’t something you’re losing. It’s something you’re building.”
She moved behind Carol and placed her hands on her shoulders, her thumbs finding the tight knots of tension there. “These weekends aren’t an escape from real life. They are real life. The most important part.” Her fingers worked into the muscle, firm and knowing. “The promotions and the mortgages are just the stuff we do to be able to have this.”
Carol exhaled, letting her head drop forward slightly as Sky’s hands eased the weight she’d been carrying. The warmth of the fire on her front and the pressure of Sky’s touch on her back rooted her to the moment.
“Sky’s right,” Rae said, her voice a low rumble. She’d finished cutting the cake and was now leaning back, watching the flames. “I spent years in a structure that told me what mattered. This,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the group, the lake, the sky, “this is louder.”
Wil licked frosting from her fork with a satisfied smirk. “So we make a pact. No matter how old and wrinkled we get, we do this. Even if we have to sneak out of our retirement home.”
“I’ll be the one hot-wiring the shuttle bus,” Rae added dryly.
The image broke the last of the solemnity. Carol looked around at their faces, illuminated by the flickering light—Wil’s mischievous grin, June’s thoughtful smile, Sky’s serene certainty, Rae’s steadfast gaze. Her tiny, fierce galaxy of souls.
She took a large bite of her cake, the buttercream overwhelmingly sweet and perfect. “Okay,” she said, her voice firming up. “Okay. But if we’re doing this when we’re eighty, I’m still charging the enemy foxhole first.”
“We’d expect nothing less, Wonder Woman,” Wil said, raising her own cake slice in a toast.
They ate incontented silence for a moment, the only sounds the crunch of gravel underfoot as someone shifted position and the endless whisper of the lake. The vast, star-drenched sky no longer felt cold and distant, but like a ceiling protecting their small, glowing room in the woods.
Carol felt the truth of their words settle into her bones, quieter and more lasting than the fear. It wasn’t about freezing time. It was about building something sturdy enough to withstand its flow.
It was about building something sturdy enough to withstand its flow. The cake was gone, the plates a greasy stack by the fire pit. The silence that settled over them was thick and comfortable, woven from shared history and the night’s unspoken truths. Sky stretched, her spine cracking softly, and leaned her head against Carol’s shoulder.
“You know,” she murmured, her voice a sleepy hum, “you blew out the candle, but you haven’t actually wished yet. You got that look.”
Carol smiled into the dark. “What look?”
“The ‘I’m-solving-a-problem’ look,” June chimed in from her log, not opening her eyes. “Your brow furrows just before you volunteer for a supply run through a briar patch.”
“It’s true,” Wil giggled, lying on her back in the grass and tracing constellations with a pointed toe. “So? Out with it. What does the great Carol Conners wish for?”
Carol leaned back on her hands, her skin cool against the dewy grass. She tilted her head up. The sky was a vast, black ocean, the stars sharp, cold pinpricks of ancient light. She let her gaze drift across the Milky Way’s smeared brilliance, past the familiar shapes of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia, into the deep, unknowable black between the galaxies. The immensity of it should have made her feel small, but instead, it felt like an invitation.
“Okay,” she said, her voice quiet but clear. “I wish the five of us could go on an adventure. A real one.” She paused, letting the idea hang in the air. “I wish we could go on an adventure in space. And I wish we could be naked the whole damn time.”
The silence that followed was profound, broken only by a pop from the dying fire.
Then Wil burst out laughing, a loud, delighted cackle that echoed over the water. “Fuck yes! No spacesuits! Just us and the void!”
“The thermal regulation alone would be a nightmare,” June mused, her scientist’s brain instantly engaged. “But the psychological implications of zero-gravity without restrictive clothing… fascinating.”
Sky squeezed Carol’s arm, her radiant smile visible even in the dim light. “I love it. No Lululemon, no sports bras, just… floating.”
Rae, who had been quietly sharpening a stick with her pocket knife, snorted. She looked up, her blue eyes glinting. “Of course. Because what every deep-space mission needs is a bunch of naked, menopausal women arguing over the thermostat.” She shook her head, a slow grin spreading across her face. “Fucking Conners.”