JUNE 9th, 1991, OLYMPIA, WA

        "HAPPY BIRTHDAY REAGAN!" Shelli crowed enthusiastically. She wobbled into the living room from Kurt's boxy little kitchen, balancing a dish that held a frosted vanilla cake and setting it down on the coffee table. When she stepped back, she was beaming proudly.

"Wow," Reagan exclaimed, staring down at Shelli's creation. In shaky handwriting, she'd managed to spell out 'happy birthday' in electric blue frosting. Her handiwork was illuminated by rows of glowing rainbow candles, enough of them that there was an exact twenty-two. "You did good, Shell."

"Better than I could have done," Chris piped in. She was sitting on Kurt's couch besides Reagan, scratching at the thin band beneath her chin that was keeping her birthday hat securely on her head. "Ugh, Shelli, can we take these off?"

Chris gestured around the room. Everyone present at the party had donned a hat by the request of Shelli, who had splurged on party decorations for the occasion of Reagan's twenty-second birthday. She and Krist had driven from Tacoma and spent the day sprucing up Kurt's apartment with birthday streamers and confetti. It had been absolute hell trying to ensure that Kurt's menagerie of animals did not eat the plastic adornments.

"Not until she blows her candles out," Shelli scolded, clasping her hands together and turning her focus excitedly back on to Reagan. "Make a wish."

"Yes, please, for the love of god make a wish," Krist groaned as he too pulled at the party hat band pinching his chin and scruffs of days-old beard.

"Let her think about it!" Dave demanded. He was sitting on the other side of Reagan, second in charge to Shelli's lead on making sure the birthday party went smoothly. Together, they had lured Reagan into Kurt's place for the event.

"Are you guys seriously arguing about me blowing out candles?" Reagan said incredulously, looking around the room at her small gathering of friends.

"You do realize we leave for California tonight, right? We haven't got all day, woman," Krist pointed out, gesturing to himself, Dave and Kurt.

Kurt, who had been lounging on the floor beside the coffee table wearing a party hat of his own, lurched forward and blew the candles out swiftly. There was a sudden chorus of disappointed 'aw's.'

"Kurt, you shit!" Shelli cried defeatedly. She lunged at Kurt and slapped him across the head. "Reagan was supposed to do that!"

"Well, she was taking too long," Kurt said lazily, though he threw Reagan a sheepish smile. His eyes offered an apology, but Reagan smiled back at him, a reassurance that him stealing her birthday thunder was okay.

"I'm getting the lighter again," Shelli said. "We didn't even get to sing her happy birthday. We'll just re-do the whole thing."

"No!" Chris, Krist and Kurt all shouted at the same time, causing Shelli to flinch backwards.

"God, you guys are the worst birthday part hosts ever," she sniffed, taking off her own party cap and dropping it to the coffee table. Krist and Chris did the same.

"Do want a re-do on the candles?" Dave asked, taking Reagan's hand into his lap. He looked concerned, almost as if Reagan were turning two that day instead of twenty-two. To Dave though, these things still mattered — that is, if they mattered to Reagan.

"I'm alright. I think I'll live."

Candles weren't all that big of a deal to her on that day. The party alone had pleased her enough and she'd been touched that after a morning spent putting on a happy face for Kimberly and Richard while they served her a meager birthday breakfast, she was with her friends.

Dave had let it slip to Shelli at the beginning of the month about Reagan's birthday falling on the ninth. As loving as she was, Shelli wouldn't have let Reagan's birthday pass unnoticed, so she had coerced everyone into meeting at Kurt and Dave's place for celebrations. It was a small grouping, with Chris being the only outsider who wasn't directly involved with Nirvana, but Reagan thought that them inviting her had been thoughtful.

Growing up, she had hated all of the birthday parties that she'd ever had. The idea of them had always sounded entrancing, especially when she was still in elementary school, but she'd always ended up feeling overwhelmed at her own celebrations. It was the spotlight that she hated most. It was difficult for Reagan to cope with everyone's eyes being on her. She had learned that about herself early on in life, from that very first memorable birthday party at a local bowling alley at the age of five.

But, Shelli's idea of a party had turned out just fine by Reagan's definition. Reagan considered her guests to be her family and felt flattered that they'd agreed to acknowledge her even in the middle of their touring circumstances.

Dave, Kurt and Krist were slated to perform in Englewood, California the next night. The day before they'd done a show at Evergreen College, hammering out their performances on by one.

On the day of Reagan's birthday, their day off, they had planned to leave Olympia to get a head start on their drive. But Reagan's timing of her birth had thrown a wrench into their plans. If it hadn't been for her childish wish to see Dave on her birthday, Reagan probably would have told them it was okay for them to miss it. Secretly, she was grateful they hadn't.

He wasn't going to be gone for very long. That's what Reagan had told herself as she had prepared for the day to come in which Dave would leave, beginning a long stint of touring that would surely follow him for the rest of his life. This tour though was short — it was just a jaunt of the West Coast, taking up the majority of June before he and the rest of the band returned for the month of July.

If she couldn't live without him for a month, then she knew she was crazy. She would have definitely allowed Chris to slap her across the face if she dared to morph into a crying mess over one little leg of a tour.

"Let's open your presents while we eat cake," Shelli suggested. She sucked a dollop of icing off of her thumb as she messily served slices of cake onto paper plates, passing them around. Krist was already on his second helping by the time Reagan received her own piece.

"This is the part I hate," Reagan said under her breath. Opening presents was a strain for her. She always worried that she didn't show the proper amount of emotion when unveiling other people's well thought-out gifts for her.

"Hey, you're not allowed to hate anything on your birthday," Dave teased, nudging her with his elbow.

"I don't like that you spent money on me," Reagan told him, hushing her voice so that her chattering friends wouldn't hear. "You need to start saving for yourself. Don't waste a dime on me."

"You're ridiculous," Dave snorted. "I sign to a record label and here you are, telling me to save my money. You sound like my mother."

"Just looking out for you, Grohl."

"I believe you, Abner. And by the way, I didn't spend anything. You're getting another hand-me-down, if you were wondering."

"I'll go first," Chris announced. She stood up and fished something out of her pocket before handing it over to Reagan. "It's not much. Sorry 'bout that."

"A Meat Puppets cassette tape and a box of cigarettes," Reagan said aloud, laughing at the stacked cassette and carton of cigarettes that had been taped together and embellished with a stick on bow.

"I did good, right?" Chris grinned, propping her leg up on her knee and leaning back with a satisfied look on her face.

"Yes, though I really should quit smoking," Reagan admitted, pulling the cigarettes apart from the tape and shaking them in the air.

"I'll take them if you want," Kurt called from his spot on the floor. "And the cassette too, if you don't want that either."

"Get your own cassette," Chris warned, shielding Reagan's present protectively with her hand.

"Ours next," Shelli trilled, clapping her hands together and handing Reagan a square-wrapped package. "It's from both me and Krist. I'll give him the credit of picking it out, though."

Reagan tore apart the wrapping paper to reveal a book entitled "Magritte." The cover displayed an image of a man in a suit and bowler hat, his face obscured by a bright green apple.

"He's a French artist named René Magritte," Krist explained as Reagan examined the book. He spoke the name with a vague French accent. "He's all about surrealism. Some of his work reminds me of you."

Reagan flipped the book open and landed on a random page. An image appeared, showing a skyline of a red-roofed building with a hundred floating men surrounding it. All of them donned similar outfits to the man on the cover of the book.

"This reminded you of me?" Reagan laughed, though she found the art to be rather compelling despite its oddity. In a way, it bared resemblance to the sort of eclectic creations that Kurt seemed to favor.

"Yes, but in a good way," Krist assured her. "Read the book a little more and you'll see. You're going to be a Magritte expert once you finish it."

"I'll take your word for it," Reagan grinned. "Thanks you guys. It's really cool."

"Here's mine," Kurt said. He slid what looked to be a jewelry box across the coffee table. Reagan caught it in her hands, wondering momentarily if Kurt had actually gone out and gotten her jewelry. She uncapped the box's lid and was almost relieved to see that he had not in fact gone above and beyond for her. Inside the box was a chain meant for a necklace, except instead of a charm dangling off its end, there was a series of broken off doll arms that showed signs of having been removed manually.

"Well," Reagan said, hooking her finger under the chain and lifting Kurt's invention into the air. "It's definitely different. Thanks Kurt. I like it."

No one seemed remotely fazed by Kurt's choice in a birthday gift. Even Chris, who had yet to really get to know the lead singer, seemed accustomed to Kurt's use of shock value as she lit up a cigarette. Krist was the only one who bothered to comment on the unusualness of the necklace.

"You know, a necklace with a pretty little butterfly on the end or something like that would have sufficed," he said. The look on his face did not match the condescending way he had phrased his remark.

"It's art," Kurt clarified. "It's not supposed to be a necklace with something stupid like a butterfly on it. Reagan knows that it's art. Right, Reagan?"

"It's totally art," Reagan agreed, giving Krist a mocking, baffled look. "How did you miss that part, Krist?"

"Oh yes, how could I forget," Krist said sarcastically. "It's the latest trend in modern surrealism. Cobainism, if you will."

"Dave, are you giving her your gift now or later?" Shelli called out as she began to collect the dirty paper plates around the table.

"Later," Dave said. "It's not that big of a deal."

Reagan turned on the couch, angling herself so that she could give Dave a very apprehensive look. She was unsure what to make it of his stance on her supposed gift and couldn't decide if what he'd said was a good or bad thing.

"Why later?" she asked.

"You want it now?" he challenged, taunting her with a devious looking smile. She guessed for a moment that his gift might have lingered in the domain of something sexual, but knowing Dave, he would have tried harder than that on her birthday.

"I can wait," Reagan decided. "Later is fine."

"Not too much later," Krist reminded them. "We've got to leave here at some point. Don't forget."

They all spent the rest of the evening cleaning up, or at least doing their very best to tidy up what had been added to Kurt's already present mess. Kurt was the only one who was permitted to sit on the couch, plucking at his guitar while he watched television. His mind was elsewhere as he stared ahead of himself, absently touching each string and leaving his fingers there for longer than a passing moment. Reagan got the idea that he was consumed with the tour that he and the band were responsible for completing.

Chris left after a round of goodbyes, promising Reagan that they would hang out plenty while Dave was gone. Shelli and Krist stayed, though they went outside for a small stretch of alone time before they had to part ways. Reagan had almost forgot that she was not the only girl saying goodbye to a significant other that night.

An hour passed before Dave finally tickled his hand against the palm of hers, signaling that she ought to follow him to his room. They left Kurt out on the couch, still working over his guitar with his eyes trained thoughtlessly on the television. Once they were in Dave's room, he shut the door and flipped only his nightstand lamp on. The effect casted a faint yellow luminosity across the room.

"So do I get my present now?" Reagan asked him, smirking as he rounded the corner of his bed. He looked up at her.

"Yes, now you can have your present," he teased. She expected him to pull something out from under his bed, or maybe reveal a hidden item from his closet. Whatever it was going to be, she anticipated that it would be wrapped and well-prepared for her on that night. What she hadn't predicted was Dave merely going into the corner of his room and grabbing the neck of the black Fender that he'd played in front of her on the very first day she'd come over. When he walked back up to her, he outstretched the guitar towards her. She froze.

"What?" she asked stupidly, looking back and forth between the guitar and Dave.

"This is your gift," he stated simply. "One of the first guitars I ever bought for myself. Here. Take it."

"I'm not taking that," Reagan said, shuffling her feet backwards away from the guitar. "That's yours. I know you love that guitar."

"There will always be another guitar, Reagan. Come on, take it. You've been practicing on it for months anyway."

"Dave . . ."

He sighed in frustration and took one of the hands Reagan kept glued to her side, forcing her palm open before he stuck the neck of the guitar in it. With his own fingers, he made sure that hers were wrapped tightly around the guitar so that she felt the strings pressed into her skin.

"Babe, take the damn guitar. I want you to have it. You're already too fucking good at the drums, so hey, maybe I can deter you towards another instrument before you actually beat me at my own game."

"You're crazy," Reagan whispered. She glanced down the body of the Fender. It had seen its better days, harboring a scattering of dents and scratches, but she knew what it meant to Dave. For him, giving the guitar away was the equivalent of a child giving away one of their prized stuffed animals.

"I know. But I won't regret this," he promised.

He put his hand on the small of her back, moving close so that their faces were inches from each other. Reagan couldn't will herself to look away from him. She continued staring into his eyes, searching for a hint of regret as he passed along one of his most trusted outlets into her hands. No matter how hard she scrutinized his dark irises, she saw nothing except evidence of how much he loved her.

"Happy birthday Reagan. I love you."

________

They were being deliberately irresponsible. Reagan knew that and she chided herself on it in the back of her mind, knowing that Dave should have been preparing himself to walk out the door and head to California. But as midnight neared, she couldn't find the will or even the ability to formulate her thoughts in order to tell Dave that he needed to leave with his band.

After Dave had gifted her his old Fender, they had immediately interlocked themselves against each other, kissing every available space of skin they could find and stripping their clothes away. Selfishly, Reagan had been waiting for that moment to come all night. Dave had looked good in his jeans and baggy t-shirt, as good as he always looked. But yet, knowing it was her birthday and that she held the right to get whatever she wanted made him a thousand times more desirable than normal.

She straddled his lap, bearing her weight down as she rolled her hips against his. He was sitting up too, both of his arms clutched around her midsection as he balanced her movement on top of him. They were tangled in his sheets and given the conditions of the room without a fan, they had worked up a sweat. Reagan could feel a damp sheen on Dave's face every time she went to kiss him.

She let out a small whimper, dazed by the euphoric, aching sensation of feeling him inside of her. It was something that she'd never get tired of no matter how many times they slipped into their same routine of having to have each other as much as they possibly could.

"Again," Dave whispered against her lips, lifting his hand so that he could curl his fingers into her hair. When he tugged ever so lightly, she gasped with pleasure. She knew what he was talking about. He was looking to go for another round.

"Don't you . . . have to leave," she managed to get out, still guiding her hips in slow, circular motions.

"Not yet. Not now," he said back quickly. He was just as longing as she was to hold on to the last few minutes they had together. He wasn't ready to say goodbye yet.

"This will be the third time," Reagan admonished him. She felt him tilt his face up so that he could kiss along her jaw and neck, nicking his teeth gently against her skin.

"All we're doing is making up for the time that I'll be gone," he reasoned.

"That's good enough for me."

"Then I want you to come again."

He moved his hands so that they gripped her hips, digging his fingertips into the curve of her bones and pulling her harder against him. She moaned in response, but strangled the noise into silence. As far as she knew, Kurt and Krist were still in the living room.

They continued on like that, moving in synchronicity against each other while closing their mouths around panted gasps. Reagan felt a flutter in her lower stomach, a signal of what was about to happen. Dave was certainly good at drawing this kind of exercise out — although he'd been satisfied after their first session of togetherness, his stamina was everlasting.

Reagan's felt her vision grow fuzzy and she whispered Dave's name, shakily touching her hand to his neck. But before she could succumb to another wonderful explosion of sensation, there was a loud pounding on the wall.

"Stop! Fucking! Each other!" Krist yelled, his voice muffled by the barrier of drywall. "We've got to go Dave!"

"Ignore him," Dave directed, squeezing Reagan tighter around her waist. He was out of breath and determined to end his night with her on a high note.

She tried to re-focus on Dave and only Dave, but the pounding noise came again.

"I will bang on this wall all night!"

Reagan and Dave both sighed simultaneously, detaching themselves away from each other. That inkling, climactic feeling that she'd had had faded as soon as she'd heard Krist's voice. There was no use in trying to get it back, not in light of Krist's warning. And it was true — the band did have to leave.

They dressed quickly, Reagan watching Dave out of the corner of her eye as he gathered his minimal baggage. She wondered how much she'd miss him, and if this new extent of distance would feel different now that she was so deeply in love with him. Somewhere in her gut, she trusted that nothing would change between them.

Dave hastily led her out of his bedroom door, handing her her birthday present on the way out and ignoring the knowing looks that Krist and Dave were shooting their way. Everyone was headed outside towards the van, Reagan trailing behind and holding her newly gifted Fender as she watched the back of Dave's head, wishing she could have fastened his feet to the floor so that he'd never leave.

It all happened quickly, much too quickly for her liking. Dave's things were thrown haphazardly into the van with the rest of Nirvana's things and Krist and Kurt climbed inside it. Dave turned around to yank Reagan closer, kissing her firmly and whispering another 'I love you.'

She barely registered what she said back, but she felt her lips mumble something to the tune of 'I'll miss you.' He slipped his hand into her hair, kissed her forehead once and then leapt inside the van and closed the door. Reagan glanced at her car, parked on the street and swallowed. She had a feeling that the drive home would feel much longer than usual.

As they drove away, she watched them until they disappeared, standing alone with Dave's guitar in one hand and her keys and other presents in the other. It was pitch black outside, but she could hear the van's radio and the rumble of its engine as it rounded a corner and vanished from her sight.

The whole time, she thought of a picture perfect memory of Dave's face, already beginning her mental countdown of when she would see it in person again.