LanieI rubbed my eyes, realizing I’d read the entire staff email Principal Stafford had sent out and not understood a single word.“Okay,” I exhaled, leaning in closer to my computer screen. “Focus.”And yet I couldn’t. Again, the words on the screen turned into mush. It was like I’d forgotten all the English I’d ever learned.Dropping back into my chair in frustration, I looked around my office. For a while there, the place had begun to feel familiar. Now it didn’t. Now I felt like a stranger in my own life.Wherever I went, I felt out of place. School. My home. My car.On Monday, I must have spent a good two hours staring at the painting in my living room that Andrew had bought me, overwhelmed by competing urges to burn the thing or throw myself onto it, sobbing. In the end, I simply consumed half a bottle of wine and fell asleep on the couch.I’d been avoiding my parents’ calls, and I faked being sick on Sunday night to get out of yoga and drinks with Erica. Usually, after a break

AndrewI paused a few feet outside of Raven’s new hospital room, two hot chocolates in hand.“I felt bad going without you, babe,” Jason said from inside the room.Hearing someone call my daughter “babe,” a kid at that, made me both want to cringe and laugh.“Seriously,” Raven replied. “It’s fine. Let me see that picture of Josh and you again. Oh my god. He’s ridiculous,” She laughed.I smirked to myself. Every time I heard Raven laugh, I was reminded of how lucky I was to have her by my side.I would never slip on the gratitude again.Deciding I’d probably done enough eavesdropping for one day, I entered the room. “Knock, knock.”Raven briefly glanced up from where she held Jason’s phone in her good arm. Her leg and arm were still in casts, as was Jason’s arm.Jason straightened up as I approached. I got the sense he was still a little wary around me, which was fine. Keeping him on his toes was a good idea.“You went snowboarding with your arm like that, huh?” I handed him his hot ch

Lanie“Ring it, Lanie,” Mom encouraged me.Reaching forward, I rang the doorbell of the house half a block away from my parents’. The rest of the caroling group—mostly friends and neighbors of my mom’s, and none of them under fifty—bustled in excitement.Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, and then it opened, a white-haired man looking at us all in surprise.“One, two,” Mom called out, and all six of us burst into a rendition of Jingle Bells. I mumbled along, hunching down in my jacket and wishing this was all over.I just wanted to go back to my apartment, back to the bathrobe I’d lived in since school got out, and back to all the depression I’d been allowing myself to wallow in.“Sing,” Mom hissed between her teeth, knocking her shoulder against mine.I forced a smile and picked up the tune. The white-haired man was nodding and smiling, enjoying the show enough for the whole neighborhood.“See?” Mom said to me after we wrapped up our three songs and were carefully stepp

AndrewI drove around the block one more time. And then another.“Shit,” I spat, yanking the wheel and sending my car into Lanie’s parking lot at the last possible second. The car behind me honked, but I ignored it, slowing down and cruising past Lanie’s apartment building.Like a stalker.Because I was still too chicken to call her.It was a day past Christmas, and I hadn’t been able to fix things for Raven as a Christmas present, as she’d requested. Instead, I’d twiddled my thumbs and thought about things and then thought about things some more.I wanted to fix everything I’d fucked up, but where did I begin? No doubt Lanie hated my guts and never wanted to hear from me again. I couldn’t blame her for that.Even if she didn’t hate me, at the best, she was hurt. Nothing I could ever say would fix what I’d done to her. “Sorry” only went so far—especially when you’d hurt a person before.When we’d discovered that my closest friend was also her father, I’d been the one to suggest we tak

LanieStopping at a closed door in the hospital’s main hallway, I checked my reflection. Hair fine. Makeup perfect. The skirt I’d pulled on over leggings just tight enough.I’d done myself up for the occasion, stopping right before getting to the point where it would be obvious I was trying to impress Andrew.Or make him sad. Or jealous of my next boyfriend. Or whatever it was my monkey brain was hoping to accomplish.I didn’t really want to hurt him, even though he’d hurt me, but that sick little part of myself wanted to remind him of what he’d let go.I still didn’t understand it. So he felt he needed to give more time to Raven. Okay, that made sense. But what about after she left home? Was he never going to have a girlfriend again? Had he thought about that at all? Had he considered the possibility of calling me in a year, when he had more time?Well, I’ll have moved on since then, I sourly thought. So if that’s the case, he’ll be out of luck.“Ma’am, excuse me.” The voice made me