She pauses, taking stock of how she feels, then nods. "I think I'm okay," she says. And if she isn't, if she has to retreat again, she will.

"Just don't try to make me eat any cake," she warns, giving him a look before she loops her arm through his. "So forty, huh?" She remembers being in her early twenties and thinking that forty was so old, but now, only twenty-seven herself, she's realized making it to forty will be a gift.