“Oh, I’m at the lab now. Just wrapping up some notes. What’s up?”

A brief pause has me straightening in my seat, waiting for something I can tell I won’t want to hear based upon our strange interaction thus far. “I want to talk Christmas with you.”

I don’t reply, waiting to see if she suggests her and Jameson coming out to visit.

“It would mean a lot to all of us if you came home, even if it’s only for a few days.”

If only it were that easy.

Her question doesn’t necessarily catch me off guard. My mom has recently been reaching out to me with the same request, but it always comes via email and voicemail since she has the uncanny ability to call whenever I’m in class. It has me thinking about home so much lately, I feel like I’m lapsing back into my old behaviors of when I first arrived in Delaware—when I spent too much of my days sleeping and avoiding people, food, and the outside world. I was glad we spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving still at Fitz’s mom’s, because Grandma Alala was relentless about teaching me how to make baklava so I could carry on the family tradition. It served to help distract my thoughts of Max and how he was celebrating his birthday this year. However, once I was back in my empty apartment, trying to get back into my routine, the thoughts and memories start nagging at me without prevail. “I’ll think about it,” I answer quietly.

“Just come home, Ace,” she pleads.

“Really, I’ll talk to Ben and see if it’s even possible.”

“Ace, I need my sister. I miss you.”

Tears well in my eyes and I silently count backwards from ten before releasing a shaky breath. “I’ll look into it.”

“You seriously need to get a couch, H.” Fitz’s complaint is delivered as he drops a pile of folded laundry on my dresser so he has room on the air mattress.

“I know, I just…”

“Don’t know if you want to stay?”

“No, I’ll be around for a while.”

“Your apartment says otherwise,” he says, looking around at my bare walls.

I shrug and grab my laptop to set up National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

“Seriously. Why aren’t we watching this at my place?”

“Because Li Dragon doesn’t deliver where you live,” I answer from the kitchen where I’m pouring two shots of whiskey into water glasses since I don’t have tumblers or shot glasses.

“I know, but your apartment is seriously depressing. Are you ever going to unpack the boxes in your living room?”

“Maybe it should be my New Year’s resolution,” I tease, handing Fitz a glass before moving around to the other side of my bed. There isn’t a lot that I brought with me. Other than clothes and some shoes, it’s mostly memories. Packing them had been a disaster. Each item seemed to make me cry harder than the last, and several hold no monetary value, like an old napkin stained with ice cream from the first time Max took me to Maggie Lou’s, or an old note my dad had written to me on a coffee filter that I had found in the pocket of a pair of shorts. I hadn’t known what to do with them. I didn’t want to chance leaving them behind and having someone throw them out, thinking they weren’t important, but there’s no way I can unpack them and look at them every day.

“Who called you this morning?” I bring my glass to my lips and look over at Fitz for a long second. “At the lab, you told someone you’d ask Ben if something was possible. If what was possible?”

I don’t understand why he’s digging. Fitz can be on the cusp of mean with some of his tactless questions and responses, but apart from the morning he forced me to reveal that my dad passed away, he is never this way with me.

“Why won’t you tell me?” His brown eyes round with anger and accusation.

“It was just my sister Kendall,” I reply, shrinking back.

“What are you supposed to be looking into?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you’re supposed to be my friend, Harper, and I can’t be your friend when you have all of these giant invisible barriers!” Fitz stands, looking too agitated to remain sitting.

“She wants me to come home for Christmas,” I explain quietly.

“Are you going?” he demands, angrier now that I’ve told him.

I shrug in response, not certain how to reply.

“You’re going home, Harper. Pack your fucking bags, talk to Ben, and go see your fucking family!” Fitz climbs off the bed and I remain seated, watching as he takes the few steps into my kitchen. His untouched glass slams against the laminate kitchen countertop and he grumbles incoherent words as he pulls on his coat. I question if I should stop him or just allow him to go. I know from my own experiences that sometimes there isn’t a right answer. However, Fitz, like me, seems to like space when he’s upset. It just sucks that it’s space from me that he needs when I already feel like I’m back on my downward spiral and he’s the only thing that’s been keeping my head above water lately.

My apartment door slams, making tears scratch my eyes. I snake my hand between my air mattress and the wall until I feel the cool, soft cotton. I wad the familiar T-shirt into a ball and bury my face into it. I’ve had this shirt since I went on my cruise last spring break. Max’s comforting scent had been my lifeline while we bobbed out at sea, yet now, as I press my face into the fibers trying to force it to provide me with familiarity, it gives me nothing. His scent has been gone for a while now, and as hard as I work to try and recall the exact way he smelled, I can’t. Even with draining my glass, I can’t recall it. Max is starting to finally fade like a shadow when the sun sets, really slowly stretched and then quickly disappearing.

I’m filled with unease and jitters the moment our plane touches the tarmac. As the others around me begin shuffling to gather their belongings, I power on my phone to verify that it really is only three in the afternoon. I’ll be in California for less than a hundred hours. I can manage this. I shoot off a quick text to Fitz to verify I have arrived and receive a text from him nearly instantly, wishing me luck and love. I know he’s still feeling guilty for his outburst a couple of weeks ago, and although I’ve told him that I’ve forgiven him, he still doesn’t seem able to forgive himself.

There is a small welcoming committee at the airport baggage claim. My mom, Jenny, and Kendall are all here to anxiously greet me. I smile at Jenny and Kendall, but refuse to make eye contact with my mom. Since July, when I moved to Delaware, I’ve only spoken to her a handful of times, and each of them has been shorter than the last. I’m pretty sure her uncanny ability to call while I’m in class isn’t coincidental.

The ride home is full of chatter between my sisters. They artfully ensure to fill every moment so as to not allow any awkward tension to settle. They comment on all sorts of surface topics like the weather and how they are always checking the forecast in Delaware. Jenny fills me in on Lilly, and although several of her updates are things she’s already shared with me during previous conversations, I pretend as though they’re not. Periodically, the conversation requires me to provide a brief answer, but other than the occasional yes and nod, little is required from me.

Pulling onto our street makes every nerve cell in my body come alive. My eyes rake the streets, looking for signs that the past six months have all been a strange dream and that we’ll pull into the driveway and Dad and Max will be there, along with the rest of my family, and things will all go back to being the way they were. The way they are supposed to be. Back to reality.