Author’s Note: The arrangement I have written about here, according to floriography, is one of everlasting love and friendship, remembrance and nostalgia, innocence, and gratitude. It is also, according to me, very strong smelling. If you ever find yourself at dinner with yourself, be kind. And pay attention to the flowers.

‘Shall we?’ she says, in a sweet kind of affectation, a familiar voice. We all nod, the three of us, and place our hands either side of our cutlery, palm to palm. It is always here that I expect the table to shake, for someone in a white bedsheet to appear from one of the corners of the room and warble around us, but it has not happened before, so it cannot happen now. No crystal ball, just conversation. I have been here three times before and it is always the same.

She always goes first, the youngest. That was me once. ‘Five years. First time!’. We mutter customary welcoming statements. ‘Thank you. This is very cool.’ She speaks well, better than I remember. It strikes me every year how much she does not know about what will happen to her. I never know how much I should tell her.

‘I’m next? Ten years. Hello.’ We say hello back as the focus moves clockwise. ‘I can’t believe I looked like that. We looked like that, I guess.’ Ten looks at Five as she says this, whose ears blush. We all laugh wryly, because of course this is said every time.

‘Fifteen. Hi.’ Fifteen leans forwards on their elbows. ‘Happy to be here – still be here. Almost wasn’t.’ They shoot me a look as they say this. Ten and Five are none the wiser. 

‘Yep. Twenty. Hello,’ I find myself saying. I must be parroting what I have heard before. I don’t feel I am the most senior member of the room, but I know that I must be. I know how I looked at Twenty when I was Five, Ten, Fifteen: every flash of admiration and fear that passed behind my eyelids. I try my best to be relaxed, approachable, cool. ‘Thank you all for coming. Though I suppose you don’t have a choice, do you?’ More laughter, good-natured yet painful. 

We remove our hands from the circle and clap. At our joint efforts to stay alive. The applause has never sat quite right with me, though I do suppose it is something to celebrate, isn’t it? Life? I can’t deny it is a great way of marking the passing of time; going for dinner with myself. Five may not feel the same now, but she will by the time she is sat in my seat. For now, I let her drift off into the sprigs of rosemary in front of her. It is past her bedtime. 

Fifteen taps me gently on the elbow. ‘You look tired.’ 

I know they mean nothing by this, but it does still sting. ‘Thank you?’ 

‘I’m worried about you.’ 

‘You’re worried about me? Don’t you think you should focus on yourself?’ Fifteen looks at me sideways. 

‘I get it. Sorry. I’m trying to give you a good future, really I am. But seriously, don’t worry about me. Things get better over time.’

‘So it doesn’t carry on?’ 

‘Well, for a bit. Goes in and out, like.’ There’s no point in lying to them. ‘But you don’t need to be worried about me. I’m fine.’ 

‘I don’t like it when you do that.’ 

I forgot how forward I used to be. ‘What?’ 

‘Brush it off. You’ve seen everything I’ve seen too. Experienced everything I’ve experienced.’ One of the petals falls off of the lilac in front of Fifteen and floats through the space between us. 

‘Like I say, it gets better over time.’ 

Fifteen isn’t looking at me anymore. They stare over at Ten, who is picking the petals off of the baby’s breath systematically, the white dust scattering into the curve of her dessert spoon, occasionally blown gently by the out-breaths of a snoring Five. 

I feel the need to say something. What has been said before? 

I latch on to the memory and say, ‘I know.’ Fifteen looks back at me, red-eyed, smiling that little half-smile that tips their mouth downwards. I’ve never seen it from the outside. 

‘Yes, you do. How does it feel? The last supper.’ 

‘I never feel like I’m getting older. I feel like a child still, when I’m with you guys. Us. You’ll never feel like an adult. I don’t think I look like an adult, really.’ 

‘You don’t. It’s good to know I’m going to stay at this height forever.’ Ten has finished picking at the baby’s breath and has clearly resorted to making quippy comments to occupy herself. Fifteen gently smacks her on the arm. 

‘You can’t be scared of it, though,’ I say. ‘No use in that. The dinner happens every five years. You just need to keep turning up. Yeah? Especially you.’ I point at Ten. 

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ 

Silence, punctuated only by Five’s soft breaths. 

Fifteen speaks, eventually. ‘Stop destroying the flowers.’ Ten puts down the zinnia she had honed in on as her next target. It lays in front of her, untouched, glowing red. 

The snow that fell from the baby’s breath is carried on a breeze and gets caught in our hair. It sticks on Five’s eyelashes, and flutters there with every sleepy eye movement. I don’t think I’ve ever looked so peaceful. I love her. I let her sleep.