Chapter 2
Hailey
Asingle peppermint candle and endless cardboard boxes. That’s our holiday aesthetic this year.
Mariah Carey belts high notes from Maddie’s Bluetooth speaker while I tape another box shut. It’s like I’m wrapping up my life, one box at a time. Packing paper crackles under my knees.
“I can’t believe we’re packing up our apartment this Christmas instead of putting up a tree,” Maddie says, twirling a roll of bubble wrap like a baton. She’s wearing red flannel pajama pants and a glittery headband that says MERRY in crooked glitter letters.
“Remember the tree from freshman year?” I grin. “Technically a fern with a single string of lights.”
“And an angel cut out of a cereal box.” She snorts. “DePaul’s finest dorm décor.”
I glance around our living room, now empty.
Naked nails where our gallery wall used to be, a wrapped couch with its throw pillows stuffed in a trash bag, the coffee table buried under a mountain of my labeled boxes.
H: KITCHEN (FRAGILE). H: BOOKS (HEAVY). H: CANDLES (TOO MANY).
The last one earns me a side-eye from Maddie.
“You have a candle problem,” she says.
“I have a coping mechanism,” I correct, sniffing the peppermint like it can steady me. “It’s a proven fact that your olfactory senses are the best for memories anyway. Every time I smell this now”—I smile at her—“I’ll think of you, in this moment, yelling at me about having too many candles.”
She laughs, plopping cross-legged beside me, and starts wrapping mugs, narrating each like an auctioneer. “Lot one: the snowman who lost an eye in the dishwasher. Lot two: the mug that got me through the Great Burnt Pumpkin Incident.”
“Never forget,” I deadpan, both of us bursting into laughter remembering that crazy incident.
We fall into our usual cadence of laughter, randomly singing along with the radio and talking endlessly about the memories we’ve made living together.
Just like we’ve been doing since the tiny studio we rented right after graduation.
That place had a galley kitchen so narrow you had to choose between opening the fridge or breathing.
We ate ramen off the cardboard box we used as a table and watched the El rattle by like it was our personal soundtrack.
“Two apartments, three jobs, nine IKEA meltdowns,” Maddie says, winding bubble wrap around the snowman mug like a scarf. “All with my ride or die.”
My throat tightens. “Don’t start now,” I scold her, not ready for the waterfall of tears I know I won’t be able to stop once they start.
She nudges my shoulder. “You’re allowed to be excited and sad at the same time. It’s called being a complex, layered woman.”
“I feel like I’m more of an ‘emotional train wreck,’ but sure.” I sit back on my heels, taking in the scuffed baseboards, the walls in a sage-green paint we spent weeks picking out, and the window seat where I sat on my computer, applying for this dream job in Denver that I’ve recently landed.
Two years here together. That’s what Maddie and I had.
But before that, it was years of dorms and then the two starter apartments, but this place made us feel like adults.
Like we had finally made it. We had real furniture we bought with money from our real jobs.
Late nights, fueled by wine, dancing in our socks, bad dates recapped like post-game analysis, Sunday pancake rituals, my first coding contract accepted at this kitchen counter.
It’s wild how much life fits into a small space when you’re not paying attention.
Maddie’s smile turns soft. “Your new place is going to be perfect. Denver’s going to lose its mind over you, I can tell you that. Those mountain men aren’t gonna know what hit them when you pull into town.”
“Bold of you to assume Denver is ready for my candle budget.” I force a breathy laugh. “You, meanwhile, will be living your best Chicago life in an apartment that doesn’t have a haunted dishwasher that randomly decides to dump ten gallons of water onto the floor in the middle of the night.”
“RIP to the ghost of plates past,” she says solemnly, then brightens. “Also, my new building has a gym and a rooftop. So be prepared when I come to visit next summer and I’m ripped and hot. I’m going to become intolerable.”
“You already are.”
We bump shoulders, smiling. The song changes to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and something in my chest tilts. We both go quiet, listening to the song we’ve heard a million times before.
“I’m proud of you,” she says, barely above the music.
“I’m proud of both of us,” I whisper. We look at each other for a second before we each lean in for a hug. “We spent all those years as little girls dreaming and talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. We never thought about the fact it could mean us moving away from each other.”
We hold each other for a few more seconds, and I pull back just in time before the tears start to flow.
“Okay. One last pass through the closet, then we order dinner.”
“And open the emergency bottle of cabernet,” she declares.
“Now you’re speaking my love language.” I stand, shake out my hands, and tell myself the ache in my ribs is just the peppermint candle hitting too hard.
“How are you going to live without Sal’s Gyros in Denver? Oh yes! He gave us extra feta!” Maddie announces, while I open the emergency cab and pour it into mismatched stemless glasses we never returned to our friend Claire after her Friendsgiving.
“To new chapters,” Maddie says, raising her glass.
Two sips in and my shoulders already start to loosen. We shovel fries into our mouths like raccoons, music still low in the background. The apartment has that hollow sound now, the echo you get when walls are bare.
“So,” Maddie says, mouth full, “logistics. When we roll into Denver, Cole is meeting us at your building. He’ll park the truck in the loading zone and bully the concierge into giving us a cart.”
I blink. “Are you sure it’s okay? And he’s… free that day? I hate asking him to help. I know moving is the worst. Should I pay him?”
Maddie snorts. “No, he’d refuse anyway. He’ll say something like ‘just pay me in pizza,’ and then he won’t even take the pizza. He’s annoying like that.”
“I can’t believe he’s the one coming to help.
I mean, I can, but also…” My words stall because the last version of Cole I have saved is high school bad boy.
The only guy in school to have a real tattoo, the smirk that made girls trip over their biology binders, a whisper of a scar on his cheekbone that no one could confirm the origin of.
Maddie swallows and grins. “You’re thinking of the chaos years.”
“Maybe.” I play it casual, dunking a fry in tzatziki. “Didn’t he get kicked out of school?”
“No, just suspended. Senior year he was suspended for a week after his arrest.”
I almost choke. “Arrest? How do I not remember that?”
“Relax, it was just juvenile, sealed, blah, blah. He was seventeen and a hot mess. He and those idiots he hung out with thought it was a good idea to race down Lakeshore at midnight. He’d just gotten his motorcycle, you remember the black one?
Tattoo, too. Our mom cried. Dad yelled. He spent a weekend in juvie and came out with a shaved head and an even worse attitude, if that’s possible. ”
I nod, an image of him starting to resurface.
Cole showing up with a buzz cut and a black eye.
At the time, I hadn’t realized it was because he was in juvenile detention; I probably didn’t even know what that was.
“God, I still can’t believe he had a tattoo in high school.
I remember everyone thinking he was such a badass for it. ” I laugh.
“I can still hear my mother sobbing when she saw them for the first time. He started with the compass on his forearm after that whole mess—‘point me somewhere better’ or whatever. Then a few more. He hid them from my parents for, like, a year. Hoodie season was his favorite.”
I lick tzatziki from my thumb, heart doing stupid little hops. “All the girls had a crush on him. You know that, right?”
Maddie laughs, tipping her head back. “Hailey Simpson, you had a crush on him.”
Heat nips my cheeks. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She smirks affectionately. “Every girl did. Even Mrs. Gallagher from algebra got weird when he asked to borrow a calculator.”
I roll my eyes so hard they nearly exit my skull. “Fine. He was… visually educational and instrumental in my sexual awakening.”
“Gross.” She cackles. “Anyway, after the suspension, things got worse for a minute—skipping class, fights with Mom and Dad. Then he got popped for something dumb. He was trespassing at the old steel yard—and the judge basically told him to get his life together or enjoy state-issued décor.”
I go quiet, the fries cooling in my hand. “I remember hearing he left.”
“He did. The day after he turned nineteen, he tossed whatever fit in a duffel and drove west. Colorado was supposed to be temporary. He went out there for this job on a framing crew with our uncle’s friend.
But it stuck. He got stubborn in a productive way.
Learned the trade. Got certified. Saved every dime. He’s been there since.”
I let that settle. The bad boy postcard I kept in my head starts to fade, replaced with something steadier I’m having a hard time even picturing.
Maddie wipes her fingers and takes another sip of wine. “He’s not the guy people gossiped about anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time.”
“Do you miss him?” I ask softly.
“Every day,” she says, then shrugs. “But I’m proud of him.
He’s a good man now.” Her voice softens like she’s flipping through specific memories.
“If he says he’ll be there to help, he’ll be there.
He’ll carry the heaviest stuff without making you feel weak about it.
He’ll fix anything that breaks. He’ll make sure no one tries to take advantage of you. ”
“He doesn’t have to do all that.”
“He wants to, trust me. He’s always loved being helpful. Besides, at least now you’ll know one person in Denver.”
We finish the gyros and drain the glasses, letting the comfortable quiet stretch. Snow starts to drift outside our window like little fairies in the streetlight.
I am excited for Denver, for this amazing new job and a new life, but the thought of leaving my entire world behind in Illinois has me wishing I wouldn’t have spent so much time growing up, wishing to be older.
It’s after midnight when the apartment finally quiets. The music’s off, the candle’s burned low, and Maddie’s breathing has evened into soft little snores on the air mattress we’re sharing in the middle of the living room.
All of Maddie’s furniture’s gone, our keys sit in an envelope by the door, and everything else that made this place ours is sealed away in a stack of boxes labeled with a Sharpie.
I roll onto my side, unable to sleep. I unlock my phone, maneuver to the photo album, and slide my thumb across my phone screen, flipping to another photo.
It’s Maddie and me in matching ugly Christmas sweaters from a party five years ago.
There’s another of the two of us holding take-out containers on the floor of our first apartment, and one that’s a group shot at the lake last summer, our hair wild from the wind and our smiles the kind that come easy when you think everything stays the same forever.
The snow outside has finally stopped. I tuck my phone under my pillow and stare at the ceiling, tracing the faint outlines of the shadows. Tomorrow we’ll wake up, load the car, and start driving west. A new job. A new city. A version of me I haven’t met yet.
I take one last deep breath of peppermint and cardboard and whisper into the quiet, “Here goes everything.”