CHAPTER ONE
MAEVE
Monday, December 13th
Cedar Grove’s campus library is always empty an hour before closing, even during finals week, because most students prefer to study in their dorms. Not me—I love how quiet the library is at this time, with only the dim glow of the lamps perched at each wooden table. It smells like dated carpet and books, but it brings me comfort, which I need to mentally prepare myself for the four finals I have at the end of the week.
That and the large-sized latte sitting next to the disarray of textbooks I have open on the table, waiting for me to pay attention to them.
The sun is setting, there’s only one other person in here sitting at the other end of the table, and the heat from the vent above wraps around me like a warm blanket. This is my happy place and has been for the past four months. When I’m not in class, I’m either here or at the fitness center, running on the treadmill in hopes of distracting myself just enough.
Anything to occupy my mind is welcomed with open arms these days.
My phone rings loudly, echoing through the empty library and making the only other person in here twist their head toward me, which has my entire body practically shrinking in embarrassment. The photo of my mom wearing an LED light therapy mask pops up on the screen; she hates that picture, but it makes me laugh.
Okay, maybe not every distraction is welcomed.
“Shit,” I mutter, quickly fumbling to answer it as I shoot the guy sitting at the opposite end of the table my best attempt at an apologetic smile. His eyes quickly avoid mine as he looks back down again, and I press the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hi, honey,” she says. “How are you? How’s studying going?”
“I’m good, Mom,” I assure her in a hushed voice. “Yeah, I feel good.”
“That’s so great, Mae. I can’t wait to hear all about it at Christmas. When will you be coming home for break?”
Christmas break.
Shit.
How am I supposed to even begin explaining that I want to go home but don’t have a way to get there? That my only ride was Landon, my ex-boyfriend, but I had finally ended things with him after months of emotional and… I can’t tell my mother that. I’m not sure I’ve fully processed the relationship for what it was myself, even after all these months. I can’t tell her the truth, not yet. No matter how badly I want to escape this campus and flee home. To flee from all the places that reek ofhim. I need it now more than ever.
My eyes sting with the threat of tears, but I swallow them down.
“About that…” I sigh. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it home for Christmas this year.”
“Maeve.”
“I know,” I say, my eyebrows furrowing as the guilt weighs heavily in my stomach, “but I don’t have a car and all the flights are booked up for the holidays. I’ve checked. There’s no way for me to get there.”
“You already missed Thanksgiving.” The sadness in her voice is prevalent, and this time, I can’t stop the tears from blurring my vision. I don’t want to make her any more sad than I have this past year; it guts me to disappoint her like this. “What about Landon? He can’t bring you?”
No, I want to say.I missed Thanksgiving because I wasn’t ready to explain to my family that I had dumped the guy who had won them over with his charm, just like he’d won me over once. That I dumped him after months and months of…
“Honey?”
I must’ve been quiet for too long.
“He can’t bring me either, Mom.”
Now she’s the one who’s quiet, and I can’t stomach the guilt that’s bubbling hot inside my gut. Here I am again, fucking things up because that’s what I do. Landon instilled that so far into my brain, there’s no way I could possibly forget it.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, “but I have to go. I have to study. I’ll…talk to you later, okay?”
“Wait, Mae, what if I get your father to look into flights? Maybe he can find something for you?—”
“I’ve looked, Mom. Nearly a million times.”
“Okay,” she says defeatedly, and that’s the nail in my coffin. I feel like the worst daughter on the planet. “I love you, sweetie.”
