Chapter 4
four
“You only live once.”
It was something about what Josh had said—“Life’s short”—that hit me in a strangely familiar way. Not just because it was true, but because I’d heard it before.
It sounded almost exactly like the motto I had given myself when I left the suburbs for the first time at nineteen, dragging a rolling suitcase, stuffed with too many pairs of plaid pajama pants and three different holiday sweaters I couldn’t bear to leave behind.
I was determined to make the most of everything.
To say yes. To show up in a way I hadn’t all throughout high school or before that, when I was just trying to make it by.
Although, if I was being honest, I thought Gina had said it first.
She was always ahead of the times.
She was also the one who had guilt-tripped me into coming back home with her for Christmas during our first year of college, even though I’d been looking forward to having the shared dorm room all to myself.
I had planned on a quiet week with bad TV, stolen cafeteria snacks, and finally catching up on sleep.
But then Gina had called, laying it on thick in a way that she knew would get to me.
“My mom’s making her homemade peppermint bark. You know, the peppermint bark. The one you single-handedly ate an entire tin of?”
That was the bait.
Then came the guilt.
“You’re basically the more emotionally stable daughter my mom wishes she had. Are you seriously going to rob her of that joy?”
I should’ve. I really, really should’ve.
Because when I showed up on the Huttons’ doorstep, trailing behind Gina with a weekend bag slung over my shoulder, the wide-eyed surprise on Mrs. Hutton’s face told me everything I needed to know.
No one had told her I was coming.
“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Gina squealed when I shot her a look sharp enough to cut tinsel.
Her mom recovered quickly though, pulling me into a warm hug that smelled like cinnamon and confidence. “Brielle, sweetheart! You’re here!”
Her dad barely looked up from the newspaper, but he nodded once. “Good to see you, Brielle,” he said in that calm, always-unbothered way of his that made it feel like I’d never left.
Once I was inside, the house fell into that familiar rhythm. Gina caught everyone up on school gossip while I helped her mom ice sugar cookies in the kitchen, careful to make mine look better than Gina’s just to annoy her.
Mrs. Hutton asked about my classes and whether I’d picked a major. I told her I was still committed to English.
“But you don’t want to be a teacher?” she asked, tilting her head. She passed me the bowl of frosting.
I shook my head. “Not in the slightest.”
“Huh,” she said, as if she couldn’t quite compute that.
It seemed like a common response I was slowly getting used to.
Later that evening, we curled up on the couch to watch a Christmas movie. It was one of those older ones, where the characters rediscover the “true meaning” of the holidays, which always boiled down to some combination of family, forgiveness, and falling in love under twinkle lights.
I was halfway through a mug of hot cocoa when the front door blew open and the film was immediately paused.
A gust of freezing winter air swept through the house. Two men stepped inside, wrapped in dark coats and layers, boots thudding on the tiles.
I didn’t need to see their faces to know one of them was Josh.
Dropping the bags, Josh yanked his beanie off the top of his head. His puff of hair was slightly longer than the last time I had seen him when he was home this past summer.
“Ah, they made it!” Mrs. Hutton stood from the couch and raced over to them. “Oh goodness, so glad you guys got in before the storm.”
“There’s a storm?”
The second gust of wind, sending the door slamming behind them and sealing us off from the heavy snowstorm, was enough for Mrs. Hutton to cock her head to the side sarcastically.
“Just a small one.” She wrapped her arms around her son before looking behind him toward the second person in tow. “I thought you were bringing Lauren.”
Josh shook his head, lips pressed together in answer. He wrapped an arm around his friend I recognized from when he had brought him back home last year and the year prior for Thanksgiving and once during summer break when we all went to the beach. “I brought Nick. Don’t make him feel bad.”
“I already have a complex,” Nick joked. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Hutton.”
Mrs. Hutton welcomed them inside, similar to how they had welcomed me and Gina, with a gentle hug and directions on where to put their duffel bags and loads of laundry he had also brought home with him. “It’s so good to see you both.”
The couch was full, as Gina was passed out with her head lolling over the arm.
Looking for a seat, Josh’s eyes flicked around the room before landing on me. He cleared his throat and gave the smallest of shrugs before sinking down onto the couch beside me.
“Hey, Bri. Long time no see.”
“Merry Christmas, Josh.”
“Merry Christmas,” he echoed, the corner of his mouth tugging up.
Conversation picked up again as if no time had passed.
The parents asked about the drive, finals, and how they were adjusting to life after fall semester.
It was just as they had been with Gina earlier.
Josh, in typical fashion, relayed the events of the last few weeks with exaggerated flair, tossing in jokes that made his dad chuckle under his breath and his mom swat at his knee with a playful, “Joshua.”
Nick chimed in now and then with quieter updates, but eventually excused himself, muttering something about an early morning.
As the room settled into a quieter rhythm, Gina stirred beside me, rubbing her eyes. “Bed?”
We said good night to everyone before heading upstairs.
“Sorry about that,” she murmured as we reached the bathroom.
“About what?”
“My brother.”
I frowned, toothbrush halfway to my mouth. “What’s wrong with your brother?”
She gave me a look. “You know. Just … him. Bursting in like a hurricane. Classic Josh.”
“Says the dramatic art student,” I teased.
She grinned and bumped her hip into mine. “Hey.”
We brushed our teeth side by side, the way we had at every sleepover since we were twelve, and crawled into the bed we used to pile into with popcorn bowls and high-school crushes on our minds. The lights clicked off. Gina fell asleep within minutes, her breathing evening out.
I lay there, the blanket tucked under my chin, staring into the dark.
The house had gone mostly still—save for the faint murmur of voices and the creaking of stairs as everyone slowly made their way to bed. I kept my eyes shut, willing sleep to take me, but it didn’t.
It never did when my thoughts got like this. Restless. Wandering.
Thirty minutes passed. Then an hour.
Quietly, I slipped from the bed, pulled on thick socks, and crept down the stairs.
The kitchen was unchanged—just as I remembered it. But somehow, after only a few months away, everything felt older. Smaller. The ghosts of past holidays still hung in the corners, in the way the chairs creaked and the thermostat buzzed.
I filled a glass of water and paced slowly, back and forth on the cold tiles. I didn’t realize how much time I’d spent in this house over the years—escaping my own mostly. Back when my grandmother still sort of recognized me and then later, after the house fell into silence altogether.
I hadn’t just been Gina’s friend. I’d been the stray they let stay.
A soft flicker of light caught my eye from the living room.
Still up, Mr. H?
I shuffled closer and peeked around the corner. I stopped.
Not Mr. H.
Josh was stretched out on the couch, resting against a pile of mismatched throw pillows. An animated movie played on the screen, something I vaguely recognized from childhood. He looked … different like this.
Softer. Calmer. Or maybe just less guarded.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low, not startled.
I blinked, caught. “I just came down for some water,” I said, holding up my glass as proof.
He nodded, his eyes returning briefly to the screen. “Can’t sleep?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s been evading me lately.”
His gaze flicked back to me, pausing just a second too long on my ridiculous pajama pants—the candy-cane ones that were way too long and puddled around my ankles. Still, he didn’t say anything.
“If you want to sit …” he offered, patting the spot beside him. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
I hesitated, then stepped forward and lowered myself onto the couch.
For years, I’d dreaded moments like this—just me and Josh in a room.
My heart used to thud like a bass drum in my chest. My hands would get clammy, and I’d develop this terrible habit of licking my lips over and over again until they felt raw.
It was like a reflex I couldn’t stop—some weird way to keep myself from blurting out, You’re the coolest person I’ve ever met, and I think about you way too often.
But we hadn’t done much talking back then. Mostly orbiting. Avoiding. Pretending not to notice the weird electricity whenever we did make eye contact for longer than five seconds. Even if I was the only one who must’ve felt it.
In spite of that, Josh was the one who had talked me off the ledge when I nearly bailed on going out of state for college.
Gina had been at rehearsal, and I was sitting on their front steps, trying not to cry. Josh came home from school early, found me there, and stayed.
He didn’t say much. But what he did say stuck.
“I get why you’re scared,” he’d said. “But you don’t get to stay small just because it’s comfortable. You’ll regret it.”
And he had been right.
He always had this way of saying things like that—like they weren’t a big deal, like he wasn’t changing my life slowly, permanently.