The notification came in at 1:53. It's her birthday. Wish her well.
She's been dead since October. The app doesn't know that. The app has her smiling in a little circle and a counter that says she'd be turning 27 and a blue button that says Say happy birthday, like it's that easy, like I could just type into the dark and have it land somewhere.
I tap her name. I shouldn't. Her page is exactly the same. People are still posting on it, miss you every day, gone too soon, the same six phrases everyone reaches for, and underneath all of it the machine just keeps her there, evergreen, available, active in some timezone that doesn't exist anymore.
At 2am the difference between gone and just not answering gets very thin. That's the part that gets me. Not that she's dead. That the phone makes it so easy to pretend she's only ignoring me.
I close it. It'll ask again next year. It will always ask. Somewhere in a server she has a birthday forever and I'll be the one who keeps getting older around it.
I don't say happy birthday. I just sit with the little circle, still smiling, waiting for an answer I'm not going to give.