Chapter 2
Two
HOLLY
Early Start
My gaze shifted to the couch, eyeing it up, wondering if it had enough change to buy a takeout cup from the vending machine downstairs.
I trudged to the couch, shoving my hands into the crevices, fishing for any forgotten change.
My fingers brushed against cold metal, and I pulled out a handful of coins, counting them quickly.
Enough for a single cup, at least on my way out.
Ignoring the couple of boxes that were still piled up that I was leaving behind, along with the bits of furniture I’d purchased over the years, I got dressed in navy blue sweatpants and an oversized hoodie over my oversized tee.
Slipping my sneakers on, I picked up my bag and shoved my phone and charger into it and grabbed the last bag to haul downstairs, the change jangling in my hoodie pocket like a taunt. Spend me and then you’re broke.
True. But I still have my fourteen bucks and the stash of cash in my wallet that I kept for gas. Luckily, as if I knew, I had filled up a few days ago and hadn’t really used much going to work and back.
I took one last look around the space that had represented my independence, my adulthood, my proof that Holly Winters could make it on her own in the big city without relying on family connections or small-town safety nets.
The empty room echoed with the ghost of my ambitions and the sound of my heels clicking across hardwood floors during the confident years when I'd thought I had everything figured out.
"Well," I said to it. "At least I'll be home for Christmas."
And if that wasn't the most pathetic silver lining in the history of silver linings, I didn't know what was.
Shutting the door on my life as I knew it, I made my way downstairs and out to my packed-out car.
It was pitch black, and I looked nervously around as the snow started to fall.
Shoving my last bag on the passenger seat, I slid behind the wheel and revved the engine a few times to get it warmed up.
My old faithful car gave me the goods, and I smiled and patted the steering wheel. “Good girl,” I murmured.
Locking the doors, I flicked on the radio and sighed as Christmas music blared out.
I turned the volume lower, more for background noise, so my thoughts didn’t consume me.
Maybe going home for the holidays wasn't the worst thing that could happen to someone who'd forgotten what unconditional love and support felt like.
With one last, lingering look up at the building that had been home, I gave it a small wave and set off, hoping to get as many miles as possible underway before rush-hour started in a few hours.
The first two hours of driving were the worst. Chicago's early morning traffic was surprisingly heavy, even at 6 AM, and my car made concerning noises every time I accelerated past fifty miles per hour.
The check engine light flickered like a malevolent Christmas decoration on my dashboard, and I found myself having one-sided conversations with my Honda.
"Come on, baby," I murmured as we merged onto I-94 East. "Just sixteen hours. You can do sixteen hours, right? We've done road trips before."
The car responded with a slight shudder that could have been the wind or could have been imminent mechanical failure. I chose to interpret it optimistically.
By the time I crossed into Indiana, the sun was starting to rise, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that would have been beautiful if I weren't currently fleeing my life in complete professional disgrace.
The Christmas music on the radio was starting to feel less mocking and more.
.. well, still mocking, but in a gentler way.
Like the universe was acknowledging my situation but suggesting that maybe Christmas miracles were still possible for people who'd had their lives completely imploded by lying ex-boyfriends and corporate restructuring.
I made my first stop at a gas station outside Gary, Indiana, not because I needed gas but because I desperately needed caffeine and a bathroom.
The vending machine coffee cost $1.50 and tasted like it had been brewed sometime during the Clinton administration, but it was hot and caffeinated and exactly what my severely limited budget could handle.
Standing in the fluorescent-lit gas station convenience store, counting out quarters for a package of store-brand donuts, I caught my reflection in the security monitor.
Even in my comfort clothes, I looked... well, I looked like someone who was handling a crisis with reasonable dignity.
My hair was pulled back in a messy bun that was intentionally stylish rather than accidentally disheveled, and my figure looked good even in loose-fitting clothes.
"At least I look like someone who has her life together," I told my reflection, which seemed skeptical but didn't argue.
The gas station clerk, a woman about my age with tired eyes and a Santa hat, gave me a sympathetic smile as I paid for my sad breakfast with exact change.
"Long drive ahead?" she asked, probably recognizing the look of someone who was traveling out of necessity rather than choice.
"Very long," I confirmed. "But I'm going home for Christmas, so that's something."
"Home's good," she said with the kind of certainty that suggested she knew something about the value of family safety nets. "Safe travels, honey."
Back in my car, I programmed my parents' address into my phone’s GPS and tried not to think about how the estimated arrival time kept getting later every time I stopped.
Sixteen hours of driving was going to turn into eighteen hours of traveling once you factored in bathroom breaks, food stops, and the general reality that my car wasn't exactly built for sustained highway speeds, if I didn’t get the pedal to the metal.
The donuts were terrible, but they were sugar and carbohydrates, which was exactly what I needed to maintain blood sugar levels during emotional crisis management.
I ate them while driving through Ohio farmland, watching the landscape change from industrial flatness to rolling hills dotted with Christmas decorations on farmhouse porches.
Every radio station seemed to be playing Christmas music, which created a weird soundtrack to my professional downfall.
Driving through rural America while Silver Bells played felt like being in a very specific type of music video—one where the protagonist was fleeing urban disaster to find redemption in small-town Christmas magic.
"This is not a Hallmark movie," I told the radio firmly. "This is just someone driving home because she's broke and unemployed and has nowhere else to go."
The radio responded by playing I'll Be Home for Christmas, which felt unnecessarily on-the-nose. I glared at it and gave it the bird, which made me feel marginally saner.
By noon, I was somewhere in Pennsylvania, and my gas gauge was starting to make me nervous.
I stopped at a travel plaza outside Pittsburgh, not because I wanted to spend money but because my bladder was demanding attention and my car was making new and concerning sounds.
The travel plaza was decorated like Christmas had exploded all over it—garlands everywhere, a massive tree in the food court, and enough holiday music to power Santa's workshop.
Families were traveling together, kids excited about holiday destinations, couples sharing road trip snacks and looking happy to be going somewhere together.
I sat at a table in the food court with a $2 cup of coffee and a bag of pretzels from a vending machine, watching other people's Christmas travel joy while processing my own comparative situation.
This should have been depressing, but honestly? It wasn't.
Maybe it was the caffeine finally kicking in, or maybe it was the gradual acceptance that sometimes life completely collapsed, and you had to rebuild from scratch, but sitting in that overly decorated travel plaza, I realized I was handling this crisis with more grace than I'd expected from myself.
My phone buzzed with a text from Mom: How's the drive going, sweetheart? Are you staying safe?
Halfway there, I texted back. Car is holding up, coffee is terrible but functional, Christmas music is everywhere. I'm okay.
We love you, came the immediate response. Drive carefully. Pot roast will be waiting.
Pot roast. God, when was the last time someone had cooked for me? Derek's idea of meal planning had been ordering takeout and expecting me to pay for it. The thought of my mother's pot roast, made with actual care and served with genuine love, made something tight in my chest ease slightly.
The second half of the drive was better than the first, mainly because I'd moved through the acute phase of crisis processing into something that felt more like strategic planning.
I had my parents' love and support, I had my education and experience, and I had enough stubbornness to rebuild whatever Derek and corporate restructuring had destroyed.
Plus, my car was still running and with a fresh tank of gas, which felt like a small victory worth celebrating.
I made one more stop in upstate New York, at a gas station that looked like it had been decorated by someone's grandmother—homemade wreaths, hand-lettered holiday signs, and a coffee pot that had been brewing since dawn but still tasted significantly better than anything I'd had all day.
The elderly man behind the counter rang up my gas and coffee with the kind of unhurried attention that suggested he had time to care about each customer's day.
"Heading north for the holidays?" he asked.
"Going home," I said, and realized that for the first time all day, saying it felt like a good thing rather than an admission of failure.
"Home's the best place to be at Christmas," he said with genuine warmth. "You drive safe now, young lady. Roads are getting slippery."
He was right about the roads. Snow had been threatening all day, and as I crossed into Vermont, it started falling in earnest—the kind of gentle, persistent snowfall that made everything look like a Christmas card but also made driving, especially in the dark, significantly more challenging for someone whose car's tires had seen better years.
But there was something magical about driving through Vermont in the snow, Christmas music playing softly in the background, the landscape transforming into something that belonged in a holiday movie.
The mountains were draped in white, farmhouse windows glowed warmly, and every small town I passed through looked like it had been specifically designed to restore faith in the Christmas spirit.
As I navigated the final winding roads toward home, I realized that my sixteen-hour journey had been more than just geographical travel.
I'd started the trip feeling like a complete failure at adult independence, and I was ending it feeling like someone who was temporarily regrouping before the next phase of her life.
The Christmas lights were twinkling on houses I passed, and there was something about the combination of snow and holiday music and the knowledge that I was almost home that made me feel, for the first time in weeks, like everything might actually be okay.
Different than I'd planned, certainly. But okay.
When the familiar sight of Everdale Falls's main street came into view, it felt like traveling backward through time to a version of myself I'd outgrown but might need to temporarily inhabit while I figured out how to move forward.
I saw the same coffee shop where I'd worked during high school summers, the same bookstore where I'd spent countless hours hiding from my problems in other people's stories, the same pharmacy where Mr. Henderson had worked since before I was born and probably would continue working until the heat death of the universe.
Even the Christmas decorations looked unchanged—oversized wreaths on every lamppost and enough twinkle lights to be seen from space, the kind of small-town holiday enthusiasm that had felt suffocating when I was seventeen and desperate to escape but now seemed charming in its reliability and commitment to seasonal cheer.
I turned onto Maple Street and felt my chest tighten as my childhood home came into view.
White colonial, green shutters, the wraparound porch where I'd spent countless summer evenings reading books and planning my escape to bigger and more exciting places.
It looked exactly the same, which was both comforting and terrifying.
At least something in my life was stable, even if that stability came with the emotional complexity of returning to the place, I'd been so eager to leave.
Mom and Dad were waiting on the front steps before I'd even parked, which meant they'd been watching for my headlights with the kind of parental dedication that was both touching and slightly embarrassing.
Dad jogged over before I'd fully turned off the engine, his face lighting up like I was returning from war instead of returning from spectacular professional failure and strategic life reorganization.
"There's our girl," he said, pulling me into a bear hug that smelled like his aftershave and home and everything I'd been too proud to admit I missed during my years of determined independence.
"Hi, Daddy." The childhood nickname slipped out automatically, and I didn't even care that I was twenty-eight years old and calling my father Daddy in public where neighbors could witness my temporary regression to daughter status.
Mom was next, wrapping me in the kind of hug that could solve most problems and at least temporarily heal the rest. She was wearing her favorite Christmas sweater, the one with the sequined Christmas tree that she'd owned since I was in elementary school, and she smelled like vanilla perfume and the pot roast they’d already eaten, waiting for me to roll up like an exhausted pigeon, a bit stinky and over-caffeinated.
"Welcome home, sweetheart," she said, holding me tight enough to communicate that this homecoming was wanted rather than just tolerated. "Everything's going to be fine."
Standing there in my parents' driveway, I almost believed her.
Some homecomings were definitely more complicated than others, but maybe complicated wasn't the same thing as bad. Maybe sometimes you had to travel backward in order to figure out how to move forward in a direction that actually made sense.
Maybe being Holly Winters, temporarily unemployed and living with her parents in Everdale Falls, Vermont, wasn't the worst thing that could happen to someone who'd spent the last few years being Holly Winters, successful professional woman of Chicago who'd forgotten what home felt like.
Time would tell, but at least I'd be well-fed while I figured it out.