Chapter 1 #3
Only one person made their grand entrance that way—my best friend, Klarissa. She was also a professor in the English department and believed in dramatic entrances, the way other people believed in deadlines.
“Happy end of the semester, bestie!” Klarissa exclaimed as she struck a dramatic pose in the doorway, as if it were a national holiday. “We made it without failing a student out of spite, cussin’ out a dean, or throwing hands in a faculty meeting. If that ain’t growth, I don’t know what is!”
She strutted into the room with her oversized tote sliding down her arm and a venti coffee in hand. Klarissa’s lipstick was still perfect, even though she’d been teaching all morning. That girl didn’t believe in fading lip color or fading energy.
I chuckled. “Hey, boo. I knew it wouldn’t be long before you showed up.”
“You know I had to come check on my girl! Sitting up in here looking all smart and fine like you didn’t just carry this university on your back for sixteen weeks straight!”
Klarissa kicked the door closed with her heel, dropped her oversized tote onto my desk, and unbuckled one shoe like her end-of-the-year contract had officially expired.
“My professionalism tapped out at exactly 11:59 this morning,” she said, leaning against a student’s desk with a sigh.
“I had one last email in me, and I used it to tell the registrar that if they lose my office hour log one more time, I’m mailing it to them in glitter and vengeance.
” She raised a brow and pointed at me. “But how are you feeling, friend? You ready for this break?”
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 of collapsing 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 get loud 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 only seasonal reminders that you were still that girl.
Then she’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.
I scoffed. “Girl, no. We’ve only been talking for like five months… and barely at that. It’s not that serious with us; trust me.”
Klarissa’s brow lifted. “All the more reason you should take him along! He’s your ‘Mr. Good Time’ so go have a good time!
It’s Christmas time, Chess—the season for cookies, carols, spiked cocoa, and decking halls…
not going down heartbreak rabbit holes! You deserve a break from grief!
Get you some ‘ho-ho-ho’ holiday healing… emphasis on the ho!”
I laughed. “Klarissa!”
“I’m just saying… God gives good gifts, sis, and a fine man in thermal clothes ready to love on you might be one of them! Open the door! Don’t block your blessings!”
I chuckled, then shook my head. “Klarissa, I can’t take him to the cabin. We can enjoy each other’s company anywhere else—other than my house. But the cabin? Hell no. Bryce would probably kill me.”
Klarissa raised both hands like I was the one being dramatic.
“This is your month for the cabin, though, so how would he find out? Are you planning to snitch on yourself? Then again, knowing you, you’ll post a fire pic, forgetting the mirror reflection, and end up showing his Timberlands and PlayStation in the background. ”
I playfully rolled my eyes, and she got even messier.
“Chess, you know how I feel about you and Bryce; I want to see y’all back together more than anything.
But let’s be real, sis, it’s been two years.
That ninja done fucked somebody by now… probably two somebodies…
maybe three if the holidays got lonely. Men like him don’t sit on the bench that long unless they’re injured.
For all you know, he done already took a whole Snow Bunny up there.
There might even be a fresh pair of size 7 UGGs in your closet right now, a pink toothbrush on your sink, and a barely-used Bath & Body Works lotion labeled ‘his boo’s bag.
’ A girl probably done had her crusty little white toes on your bear rug too, pretending she likes nature and shit, talkin’ ‘bout, ‘Wow, babe, this view is everything!’”
I wheezed. “Okay, okay!”
Klarissa had a point. Maybe Bryce wasn’t living like a monk. Maybe he’d moved on, laughed again, and loved again.
Klarissa stepped closer, softening her expression.
“Chesteria,” she said quietly, her voice dipping into that tone she only used when she was about to speak straight to my soul.
“All jokes aside, life is short, boo. You’re beautiful, smart, and kind.
You walk around this campus pouring into everybody else and don’t even realize how empty you are.
Your mom would hate seeing you tuck yourself away like this.
She’d tell you that grief is real, but so is living, so is joy, and so is you deserving something good again. ”
Klarissa’s voice wavered, but she held steady.
“And your baby…” she took a slow breath. “She’d want more for you than pain, hiding, and surviving the holidays with clenched teeth. That child would’ve wanted you laughing and loved, not walking through life feeling like you owe the world silence.”
I looked down at my steady and calm hands, hiding how much they trembled inside.