I looked up with a tired half-smile. “Please define ‘ready.’”
Klarissa dropped into the nearest chair and gave me that look.
The one that didn’t need words. The one she’d perfected over the years. The one that slipped straight through the cracks of my armor.
Then she softened. “Oh… I forgot. Sorry, boo.”
“It’s okay.”
My heart pinched, and just like that, the memories trickled in quiet, cold, and heavy.
It had been three years since I lost my mom, and two years since I lost my baby due to a stillbirth; back-to-back December heartbreaks that stole something from me I still hadn’t gotten back. Christmas hadn’t felt like a holiday since… just noise, lights, and reminders of everything I didn’t have anymore.
Klarissa reached out and touched my hand. “Please tell me you’re planning on doing something exciting for Christmas?”
I shrugged. “Not for Christmas… but I’m going up to the cabin tomorrow.”
She nodded slowly, already knowing exactly what that meant.
My ex-fiancé, Bryce, and I had purchased a cabin together back when life still felt like it was expanding instead ofcollapsing in on itself. After we broke up, we worked out an arrangement with the cabin: we’d split the year into thirds.
No arguing, no confusion, and no chance of running into each other unless God himself arranged it.
That year, December just happened to land in my rotation.
In two years, Bryce and I had never run into each other, never crossed dates or mistakenly showed up at the same time… but I’d be lying if I said certain thoughts never crossed my mind.
Had I ever accidentally left something behind?Had he ever found it?Had he ever brought someone else there?Had they slept in our bed?Used our mugs?Moved through our space like they built it?
“That might actually be good for you,” Klarissa agreed, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I’d come with you if it wasn’t Christmas, if I didn’t have two small gremlins demanding matching pajamas and Christmas pancakes, and if my husband hadn’t invited his whole loud family over like I won’t be the one cooking, cleaning, and refereeing all day. Girl, I got more in-laws than patience.”
I cracked a tiny smile. “At least you have people you can hold close… cherish that. Oh… remind me to drop off the kids’ gifts before I leave. I gotta see their cute little selves too.’”
“Cute?” She snorted. “Girl, they’re chaos with dimples, and tax deductions with sticky fingers… straight-up sugar-coated destruction.”
We shared a light laugh.
Then she grew serious again, arms folded, wearing the unmistakable look of an auntie with a warning.
“Chess, I just don’t want you alone for the holidays… especially there. It’s too much time to think… and too much space for sadness to creep in. Besides, ain’t nothing up there but bears, bad Wi-Fi, and your thoughts. And you know your thoughts getloud when they’re bored. Seriously, who’s gon’ fight off a moose if one rolls up on you?”
I giggled. “I appreciate your concern, Klarissa, but I’ll be fine, boo. You ever heard the phrase, ‘if you see me fighting a bear, help the bear’? Do that. I’ll square up with a bear or moose and still have time to steep my tea afterward.”
Klarissa playfully rolled her eyes. “You got all that booty and boldness. Just remember, you can’t fight grief, mountain lions, and loneliness at the same time. If Bigfoot shows up and you disappear, I’m telling people you were on your way to meet a man named Jesus. And if I gotta do a candlelight vigil in the snow with your students crying and misquoting Maya Angelou, I’ma be pissed!”
I hollered.
Klarissa was the friend I didn’t even know I needed.We’d only been close for four years, but she showed up in my life like a divine drag-and-drop from God’s sassiest folder. She was the type to side-eye your sadness, snatch the grief out of your throat, and pop up at your door with lemon pepper wings, mini bottles of Patron, and a Bluetooth speaker blasting Beyoncé’s “Me, Myself & I.” Sis didn’t believe in seasonal depression; only seasonal reminders that you were still that girl.Thenshe’d wipe your tears, re-line your lips, and say, “You out here grieving like he was Santa and the dick was exclusive. Girl, he slid down everybody’s chimney last year. Get up.”
“Klarissa, I’ll be fine, girl. This isn’t my first rodeo. If there was one thing Bryce taught me, it was how to survive in the wilderness and mountains. Hence, why we bought a cabin.”
“Uh-huh.” Klarissa’s eyes narrowed. “I still don’t like the idea of you being up there by yourself around this time of year. Ooooooh… what about that guy? Mr. substitute? The one you’ve been seeing.”
I frowned. “Who, Adrian?”
I usually used my time at the cabin to disappear—no Wi-Fi, no social media, no expectations, just solitude, books, old records, and whatever I could throw together in the kitchen without judgment. I took hoodies, sweats, wine, and tea… not company and makeup. I didn’t go up there to live; I went up there to breathe.
“Yeah! Him!” she confirmed.
