the candlelight flickering across her face.
Her mother held up her phone to record.
Her father kept singing from the head of the table, half a beat behind.
Natalie stood just behind Emma’s left shoulder.
When the song ended, the room burst into cheers.
“Make a wish,” Ava said.
Emma closed her eyes.
She did not wish for money. Or love. Or success.
She wished for peace.
Then Natalie said, “Try not to make this one about yourself.”
Before Emma could open her eyes, two hands slammed into the back of the cake.
The force drove the entire cake into her face.
It was not a playful tap. It was not a soft shove for a video. It was violent, sudden, and full of Natalie’s weight.
Frosting filled Emma’s mouth and nose. Chocolate smeared across her eyes. Her chair tipped backward. Her arms flew out, reaching for balance that was no longer there.
The back of her skull struck the corner of the serving cabinet.
The sound cut through the room.
For one perfect, terrible second, no one moved.
Then Natalie laughed.
She laughed so hard she bent at the waist, one hand pressed to her stomach.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Your face.”
Emma lay on the floor, half-blind from frosting, trying to breathe. Pain rang through her skull in bright, metallic waves. Her ears buzzed. Something warm slid into her hair.
Ava screamed.
Miles began to cry.
Emma raised a trembling hand to the back of her head. Her fingers came away red.
Blood mixed with buttercream on her skin.
Her mother lowered the phone.
“Natalie,” she said, in the mild tone she used when someone spilled wine. “That may have been a little much.”
A little much.
Emma tried to sit up and nearly vomited.
Evan was the first adult to move toward her.
“Don’t touch her neck,” he said sharply. “Emma, stay still.”
Natalie stopped laughing long enough to roll her eyes.
“Oh, come on. She’s fine. People do this online all the time.”
“She’s bleeding,” Evan said.
Emma’s father stood slowly, annoyed by the inconvenience of gravity.
“Let’s not turn this into a whole thing,” he said. “It was cake.”
Emma looked at him through one eye, the other sealed with frosting.
“My head hit the cabinet,” she whispered.
“Because you threw yourself back,” Natalie snapped. “You always do this. You always make everyone feel guilty for having fun.”
There it was.
The old magic trick.
Natalie hurt someone, then became the victim of their reaction.
Evan ignored her and grabbed a clean towel from the kitchen. He pressed it carefully near the wound, not directly on it.
“She needs medical care,” he said.
Emma’s mother looked toward the children, then toward Natalie, then finally toward Emma.
“Maybe urgent care,” she said, as if negotiating with the injury.
Emma wanted to scream. She wanted to ask how much blood had to be visible before they stopped debating whether she deserved help.
Instead, she whispered, “Please.”
That one word seemed to embarrass everyone.
Evan offered to drive her, but Natalie said he was being dramatic. Her father finally took his keys from the bowl by the door with a sigh that made it clear he blamed Emma for the end of the evening.
Urgent care sent
