Chapter 1 #2
I gave her the abbreviated version while sitting in my car trying not to start crying again.
Corporate restructuring, budget cuts, Derek's financial betrayal that had left me completely broke and unable to make rent.
The whole pathetic story of how someone with a good job and nice apartment had ended up homeless and unemployed three fucking weeks before Christmas.
"That son of a bitch," my mother said with unusual profanity that made it clear she understood exactly who was responsible for my financial situation. "Holly, sweetie, Derek didn't just break up with you—he committed theft. You should press charges."
"I should do a lot of things," I said wearily, because legal action required time and money I didn't have. "Right now, I just need to get out of the city while I figure out what comes next." Where comes next. Chicago had been my home for a while now. I was used to it. I had friends here, admittedly, I hadn’t seen or spoken to them since Derek decided he hated them, and I’d decided I’d rather spend time with him than going out to bars with them. Was that all part of his master plan? To isolate me and then steal from me, leaving me with nothing and no one? I wouldn’t put it past him right now.
"Of course you can come home," Mom said immediately, her voice taking on the kind of maternal efficiency that suggested she was already mentally preparing my childhood bedroom. "Your room is exactly as you left it. Your father will be so excited—you know how he misses having his girl around."
His girl. As if I wasn't a grown woman who'd been living independently for a decade, paying my own bills and making my own decisions and generally adulting with reasonable success until Derek had systematically destroyed my financial stability while I'd been naive enough to trust him.
But right now, being someone's girl sounded infinitely better than being a jobless adult with nowhere to live and no money to fall back on.
"I’ll set off tomorrow, early morning," I said, doing mental calculations about gas money and drive time.
It's about sixteen hours if I leave early and drive straight through. It’s lunch time now, so if I can get back to my apartment, pack up the rest of my shit, load it into my car, eat my weight in Thai food and sleep for a few hours, the 3 AM start might not sound so bad.
"Don't you dare drive sixteen hours straight," Mom said with immediate maternal alarm. "Holly, that's dangerous. Stop halfway, get a hotel room, drive safely."
"Mom, I just want to come home. I’ll be fine. I’ll stop and rest and have a pee break and food, okay?" I said quietly, knowing I can’t afford a fucking hotel room, because admitting the extent of my financial devastation was humiliating even to the woman who'd given birth to me.
“Holly, just be safe, okay. This isn't the end of the world. It's just a detour."
A detour. Right. A detour that led straight back to my childhood bedroom with the Jonas Brothers poster I'd never taken down and the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that teenage me had thought were sophisticated interior design.
After hanging up, I sat in my car for another few minutes, processing the reality that I was about to drive cross-country to move back in with my parents because my life had imploded so completely that I had no other options.
"A detour," I told my reflection in the rearview mirror. "A detour back to Vermont where everyone will know you as Matt's fat little sister who used to have opinions about everything and apparently still can't manage her own life."
My reflection didn't argue, which was probably for the best.
The drive back to my apartment took exactly twelve minutes and involved more Christmas decorations mocking my misery from every street corner.
Chicago in December was beautiful when you had money and job security and holiday plans.
When you were unemployed and homeless, all that festive cheer felt like salt in an open wound.
My apartment building looked the same as always, which was somehow offensive given that my entire life had changed in the space of four hours since I’d left it this morning.
The eviction notice was still taped to my door like a scarlet letter advertising my financial failure to anyone who walked past.
Inside, my studio apartment was already mostly packed into boxes and suitcases. I'd been preparing for this possibility all week, hoping I wouldn't need to actually follow through but unable to ignore the mounting evidence that Derek had screwed me over more thoroughly than I'd initially realized.
The packing had been depressingly efficient, mainly because I'd learned during college and various post-graduation moves that most possessions were ultimately replaceable and that attaching too much emotional significance to material objects was a recipe for expensive storage unit bills when you couldn't afford storage units in the first place.
I had one suitcase left for winter clothes appropriate for Vermont December weather, my laptop for job searching, and enough personal items for however long I'd need to stay with my parents while I figured out how to rebuild my life from scratch.
Everything else was either being donated to charity, abandoned to whatever happened to apartments when people moved out owing money, or packed into my car like I was a refugee from my own bad decisions.
I folded my professional wardrobe with extra care, running my hands over fabrics that had cost more than I should have spent but had made me feel powerful and confident during job interviews and client presentations.
The navy blue blazer went on top of the stack, a promise to future me that this was temporary, that I'd need power outfits again soon, that this setback was just that—a setback rather than a permanent redefinition of my professional trajectory.
The black dress I'd worn to the company Christmas party last year, where I'd networked with potential clients and felt like I was exactly where I belonged professionally.
The navy suit that had been my lucky interview outfit, the one I'd worn when Pinnacle had offered me the position that had just unceremoniously ended.
The collection of blouses and blazers and perfectly tailored pants that had comprised my confident-professional-woman uniform—all of it cut to flatter my fuller figure and make me feel powerful. And none of it was needed right now.
I swapped it out with a box of casual clothes, carefully folded and packed like artifacts from a life I might or might not return to, depending on how quickly I could figure out my next move and whether that next move involved staying in Chicago or starting over somewhere else entirely.
Looking around my apartment, it looked like a crime scene, if crime scenes involved too much takeout Thai food and the kind of systematic organization that occurred when someone with control issues was forced to make rapid major life changes while processing comprehensive emotional devastation.
With a heavy sigh, I went about transferring the boxes I was taking with me downstairs to load up the Honda.
After two trips, I was sweating like it was ninety-degree weather and not thirty degrees.
But I still had more to do. I was focused.
I was determined and I wasn’t going to cry again because this was just a detour.