Chapter 5 – Chrissy
Chapter
Five
CHRISSY
By the time I got home, my skin felt too tight for my body.
The lobby in my apartment building smelled like old carpet and burnt popcorn.
My ground floor apartment wasn’t much better, to be honest. It was quiet, dark, and cold from the drafty windows I still hadn’t gotten around to sealing.
I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I just kicked off my heels, dropped my bag on the kitchen table, and stood there like I forgot what I was supposed to do next.
I could still hear Granny Irene’s voice in my head from a good day months ago.
You don’t have to carry it all, baby girl.
God, I wanted to believe that.
I pressed my fingertips to my temples and rubbed slow circles, trying to chase off the headache that had been building since lunch.
The guilt sat heavier, not just from the overdue bills or the forced smile I’d worn all day like armor, but from the way I’d left her there.
Confused, drifting, and alone in that antiseptic room while I ran back to my apartment to get ready to face tomorrow, and yet another day at a job that barely covered the costs of her medical care.
I exhaled through my nose and moved on autopilot, pulling the mail from my purse and dropping it in a messy stack beside my bag.
That’s when I saw it again… the envelope with my name hand-written on it.
It was cream-colored and a heavyweight paper.
There wasn’t a stamp or a logo on the envelope.
There was only Chrissy scrawled across the front in spidery, deliberate cursive handwriting that looked like someone had taken a painstaking amount of time writing my name with an obscenely expensive fountain pen.
The handwriting was masculine, but unfamiliar.
I stared at it like it might tell me who’d sent it, which was an insane thought to have.
I didn’t remember picking it up, and I didn’t remember who gave it to me, or how it ended up on my keyboard at the office this morning, before I left for Bay Minette. I hadn’t thought twice about shoving it into my bag with the rest of the junk mail from my mailbox and the ‘in’ tray on my desk.
But now? Now it was the only thing I could see, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, the sight of it made my pulse skip.
I reached for it before I could talk myself out of opening it.
The paper was thick. Smooth. The kind you didn’t buy in bulk. The kind that cost too much for a message that meant nothing.
I turned it over. There was no return address, no seal, just a thin strip of glue and the faintest scent of something floral… bergamot, maybe. Or memory. I hated that it made me hesitate.
Then, because I was always too curious for my own good, I slipped a finger under the flap and tore it open.
Inside, there was a single sheet of folded card stock with no real explanation and no letterhead to tell me who’d sent it. There were only four things written in that same looping script:
817 Stonewood Lodge Rd.
Room #18
December 11 – 20
Arrive at 6:00 PM Sharp
And beneath those four cryptic lines, perfectly centered in the middle of the page, was a sticker with a QR code on it.
There were no names and no real instructions. Neither was there a ‘congratulations’ or an enticing brochure full of marketing buzzwords. It was just… information, plain and stark and — quite frankly — more than a bit unsettling.
I stared at the code for a long time.
It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t from a client… it couldn’t be. It wasn’t from a vendor, either. If it was, there would be clear branding.
It definitely wasn’t from my family. They didn’t care enough to send a paper invitation.
No, my parents just had Alice call me and give me my marching orders via voicemail, thinly disguised as them ‘wanting to see me for the holidays’.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. They could easily make the effort to cross town and visit me at my apartment any given day of the week, but they never did.
I turned my attention back to the paper in my hands. No one at Granny Irene’s hospice would be this cryptic.
“Well… that’s suspicious as fuck,” I muttered under my breath as I stared down at the QR code.
I should’ve thrown it away. God knows I’d thrown away less suspicious things before, but my fingers were already moving. Reaching for my phone, I tapped in my passcode and opened the camera.
I held it over the QR code, tapped the link when it popped up on screen, and watched as the website loaded to a simple black background with white text. The design was simple, elegant, and restrained.
One line of header text stared back at me:
You’ve been selected to play the Game.
My stomach flipped.
Below that, in smaller text:
Seven sinful nights. Nine women. Nine men. Eighteen perfect strangers all playing a Game that only one will win. Only one aim: don’t fall in love with the wrong person on our little Christmas retreat.
If you can follow the rules, you win.
If you can’t...
It didn’t say what happened if you couldn’t. It just gave me two buttons and one choice:
Accept
OR
Decline
I didn’t touch anything… not yet.
But the part of me that couldn’t breathe lately? The part drowning under bills, grief, loneliness, and the constant weight of holding everything together?
That part whispered yes with a yearning that made my chest ache.
My finger hovered over Accept, but I didn’t press it. Instead, I scrolled, looking for ‘fine print’, or terms and conditions, or anything that made sense of what the hell this actually was.
At the bottom of the screen, in tiny gold script, I found a question:
What do I get if I win?
I tapped it and a black box expanded across the screen with a single number inside. I blinked, shook my head, and then I blinked again, just to make sure I hadn’t misread it.
$750,000
The zeroes stared back at me and I shivered.
I covered my mouth with one hand, breath catching in my throat as my heart pounded hard against my ribs. It didn’t say if it was split into monthly payments, taxed, or tangled up in loopholes, but I didn’t need details.
I needed that fucking money, and I was willing to do whatever it took to win it.
That amount of money would clear every hospice bill I owed.
Every late fee. Every debt. I could put Granny Irene in a better room at the nursing home.
I could afford to take time off work and spend as much time as I wanted with her while she was still alive.
I could make sure she never felt alone again for the rest of her life.
I could finally breathe if I won that money.
The number was downright obscene.
I wasn’t stupid. Nobody gave away that kind of money without strings attached. Fair enough, but God, I’d already destroyed so much of myself to survive… I didn’t know how much of me was left to give.
What would be required of me if I won?
I wasn’t ready to hit Accept, but I wasn’t walking away from this kind of opportunity, either.
I stared at the number until my vision blurred, then I closed the site.
Not out of rejection, but out of self-preservation, like if I looked at the number for too long, it would burn a hole through me.
I set the phone down, then picked it back up half a second later.
I didn’t call the hospice. I didn’t text my best friend. What I did instead was call my parents.
The phone rang three times before my mother answered, her voice clipped and tight like she was waiting to be disappointed.
“Chrissy?”
“Hey, Mom,” I said, my tone soft and apologetic. “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be able to make it to Christmas this year.”
Silence stretched on the other end of the line. I could practically hear her blinking.
“It’s work,” I added quickly. “I have to attend a professional development retreat, and if I don’t do it, I could lose my job.”
Another beat of silence. Then, coolly: “We’re your family, Chrissy. You should be spending the holidays with us, not working on Christmas.”
“I know I should, Mom,” I said, and I meant it. But I also meant the part I didn’t say out loud: Why would I come? You’ve never made me feel like I was good enough. You’ll just dote on Alice in front of me and pick apart every life choice I’ve ever made.
“I’ll come for New Year’s,” I offered. “We’ll do something together then, just us.”
She sighed, like that somehow made things worse.
“Your father will be disappointed.”
He already is, pretty much every day where I’m concerned, I thought.
“I’ll call him later and apologize,” I said. “Love you.”
I hung up before she could reply and sat in the quiet of my apartment with the taste of guilt and freedom warring on my tongue.
The truth sat in my chest like a secret:
I wasn’t doing this for them. I was doing it for Granny. And maybe — for the first time since I could remember — I was doing something for me, too.
I still didn’t press Accept. Not yet.
Instead, I stood up and crossed the room, opening the hall closet like that made this whole thing less real. Like I was just planning a week away, not walking blind into something anonymous and sensual and unspeakably strange.
My suitcase was in the back corner, tucked behind an old box of court transcripts I couldn’t bring myself to shred. I pulled it out, dusted off the lid, then hauled it into my bedroom and set it on the edge of the bed.
Then I opened my dresser drawer and stared at the folded clothes like they might tell me what the hell I was supposed to wear to an event that seemed to be weirdly exclusive and hush-hush.
What do you pack for seven nights in a place with no names, only one aim, and no promise you’ll walk out the same?
I started tossing things into the suitcase.
Skinny jeans. Leggings. The black sweater that clung too tightly at the waist but made me feel like a woman, not just a mediator with an overstuffed tote bag. I folded it slowly, methodically. Pretending like this was normal… like I wasn’t about to risk everything on a random stranger’s dare.