After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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One Year Later
I'm the first one to wake up. Even Ava is still asleep when I open my eyes just before seven because my phone is buzzing like crazy. I forgot to turn on do not disturb mode but no-one usually disturbs me at this hour. Especially not on Christmas Day. But then I see that it's Liyo calling me from the future. She's twelve and a half hours ahead at the moment, her first Christmas with her parents in Sri Lanka; it's almost seven thirty p.m. for her, the day winding to a close.
I slip out of bed before the buzzing can disturb Laurel, who is curled upon her side of the bed with her arm around a pillow, so deeply asleep that she's snoring softly. I can't resist pressing my lips to her temple. We have shared a bed every single night for an entire year, and yet I still love to wake up when she's still asleep, when her hair is all over the place and there's no tension in her body.
Before the call rings out, I answer it and whisper, "Hi, one sec, just finding somewhere quiet."
I peek around Hannah's open door. She's a starfish in the middle of her bed, sleeping so silently that I watch for a few seconds to make sure she's still breathing. I look into Ava's room. She has been upgraded from her crib to a toddler bed that she loves clambering on and off, and a couple months ago she figured out how to open doors. Sometimes I wake up at two in the morning, sensing a presence in the room, and it's because she has snuck in and she's about to cry.
I won't lie, she scares the shit out of me every time.
But right now, she's sleeping soundly with a halo of blonde waves on her pillow. I watch her with a smile for a moment, until I remember that Liyo's on the other end of the phone. I head downstairs as quietly as I can, flicking on the fire in the living room and making myself cozy under a blanket.
"Hi," I say once I'm settled, though I wish I'd made a coffee. "How's Sri Lanka? How are you?"
"How fucking old are you, Annabelle?" Liyo says. "This is a video call. I don't want to see the inside of your ear. Show me your face."
"Sorry." I laugh and hold the phone out in front of me. "I didn't realize."
"I figured, when you just held me upside down for, like, two whole minutes while you watched your kid sleeping."
I still get a flood of warmth whenever anyone refers to Ava as mine. "Sorry," I say again, grinning at my best friend. It's as dark for her, the sun having set, as it is for me before it has risen, except I'm wrapped up in flannel pajamas sitting by the fire while Liyo's in a tank top and shorts. "Is it hot over there?"
She nods, fanning herself. "I swear, it's killing me. I'm too acclimatized to Montana. It's Christmas Day and it's eighty fucking degrees outside," she says, giving me a wide-eyed look of horror and disbelief. "I think my parents are ashamed of me."
"How's Cas handling the heat?"
Liyo grimaces. "The heat isn't the worst part. It's the humidity," she says. "He's putting on a brave face but he's having, like, three cold showers a day. Aren't you, babe?" She looks off camera, reaching out. "Come here. Annie's on the phone."
