Maybe madness.
Maybe hope.
Maybe the fact that this is the first December in years where I don’t feel like I’m simply enduring the season rather than living inside it.
The man at the lot had raised an eyebrow when I pointed to the tallest tree in the back row, fat branches, deep green, easily six and a half feet tall. I’m five-three on a good day. My apartment ceilings barely clear eight feet. The tree definitely didn’t fit through the stairwell gracefully.
But I wanted it. Not the plastic kind either. A real one. One with sap that sticks to your fingers and needles that scatter across the floor like nature’s confetti. The scent alone was enough to make something in me unclench. Like I’d inhaled amemory of being ten years old, standing beside my mother while she strung popcorn and cranberries and hummed along to some old record.
He’ll be out by Christmas. December twenty-third. Two days.
I dragged the tree up three flights of stairs, anyway, muttering under my breath the whole way. I scraped my knuckles on the doorframe and got pine needles tangled in my scarf. My neighbor from 4B opened her door at one point and blinked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Bit late for that,” she said with a laugh.
“Never too late,” I answered, breathless, and kept wrestling the tree around the landing.
By the time I shoved it through my doorway, my arms were shaking, and my hair looked like a squirrel had nested in it. But I didn’t care. I set the tree in its little red stand, tightened the bolts at the base until it stood tall and proud, and stepped back. It felt… right. Even a little magical. Like I’d invited something warm into a room that had been holding its breath for too long.
I decorated slowly. One ornament at a time.
Glass balls, tiny, knitted stockings, a few star-shaped cutouts I made as a kid that somehow survived two apartment moves and a breakup. The lights were last. Warm lights, soft yellow, not the harsh blue-white ones. The kind that makes a room look like a memory, like something softened around the edges.
And as I worked, as each light blinked on, I kept thinking:
What if he comes?
Notwill he.Notmaybe he won’t.Just—what if?
What if he really does show up on my doorstep?
What ifI open the door and he’s standing there, a little unsure, a little bruised from life but free? What if everything we’ve written—every quiet truth, every hesitant line—finally steps out of paper and into the world?
I tried not to imagine too much. Tried not to picture him too clearly. It felt dangerous somehow, to build someone out of ink and longing. But every time I hung a new ornament, his voice, his words, echoed softly in my chest.
You’ve been the only clear thing in a fog of months.
And my heart, traitorous as ever, whispered back:Same.
After the tree, I baked. Because Christmas apparently brings out the domestic in me. Or maybe I needed something else to do with my hands besides obsessively re-reading his last letter. Cinnamon rolls seemed appropriate. Soft dough, warm spice, icing that melted into the swirls. I burned my tongue; of course, I never wait long enough. I ended up eating three in rapid succession like a gremlin who’d never seen food before.
I wrapped the rest in foil. Some went into the freezer. Some I set aside on a plate, as if he might walk through the door at any moment and I’d be able to offer him something warm. Ridiculous. But I didn’t throw them out.
When the apartment fell quiet again, the only sound was the soft ticking of the radiator and the faint hum of the fridge. I curled up on the couch with his last letter in my hand. I’d read it so many times that the paper was starting to soften at the folds.
December 23rd.
I’ll be out by Christmas.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope.
My eyes lingered on the last lines.
I won’t show up unless I believe I’m something worth finding.
But if I do…
Would you still want me to?
