What little I remember of my tenth birthday smells faintly of chlorine and tastes like cartons of sugar. I remember the vibrant fuschia, green, and turquoise bikinis—the most stylish pieces we could get our hands on. Mine was a shade of purple reminiscent of artificial grape-flavored candy. I had tried to forget my grandmother’s exasperated comments weeks earlier about how girls’ swimsuits had begun to shrink every summer. That was the last time I had been so excited to show off a new bikini. My friends and I set out to turn the pool into a miniature ocean, thrashing arms and legs and pool noodles until water spilled over the sides and fake waves crashed over our shoulders.

Stepping out of the pool, we were greeted with soft rainbow-striped towels, though the late August sun began to dry our skin the moment we left the water. We left puddles throughout my backyard and tracked wet footprints across the hardwood floors. Sprawled out on the ground, hair dripping and brittle from chlorine, we ate slices of pizza the size of our faces and sipped from plastic cups of sparkling lemonade. I downed cup after cup as if I had gone days without water; as if there wasn’t enough sugar in the world to satisfy me.

Back then, it felt like my birthday was little more than an excuse to drink excessive quantities of sparkling lemonade. My mom bought it in big glass bottles from Trader Joe’s and reserved it only for special occasions. After waiting impatiently to open a bottle, I always savored the bubbles lingering on my tongue. My birthday cake slathered in sickly sweet frosting paled in comparison. Sometimes I wondered just how many cups of powdered sugar you could add to buttercream until it stopped tasting like anything but sugar.

When I turned thirteen, lemonade was the last thing on my mind. I left behind the birthday cakes from the bakery down the street in favor of homemade banana cake with salted dark chocolate ganache. Too many pool parties made me eager for something new. I was perfectly fine with staying on land. I had began to tire of the same views of the coastline everywhere I went—not to mention the fact that the feeling of drowning stuck with me every day throughout the past year of school. For once, my birthday fell before school started. I spent the day laughing with my friends, trying to forget that eighth grade was starting. I just wanted to stay on dry land.

On my sixteenth birthday, I sent my dad to three different stores to find sparkling lemonade. I had spent the morning getting ready for my party, but it didn’t feel right. I felt like crying all day. I nearly burst into tears early in the afternoon when I couldn’t shake the feelings of heaviness. Eventually it seemed like only sugar and bubbles could make things better. I poured two cups of powdered sugar into my stand mixer, tasting it in the air when I set the mixer to medium speed. I added two more cups to make the perfect overly sweet buttercream, dyed pink with raspberries.

I sat with friends on a towel on the beach, a speaker nestled into the sand playing soft melodies in the background. We sipped sparkling lemonade from small glass bottles, damp from the melting ice in the cooler. I slowly drained my bottle, letting bubbles coat my tongue and savoring the lingering flavor of tart lemons. I hoped it wouldn’t be the last time.

By Maya Page

Visual by Nessa Uy