But when I lifted my head, Josh was gone.
Quiet tears tracked down my cheeks anyway.
twenty-three
I couldn’t stop thinkingabout Josh. I had to stop.
I needed to stop. It was over. Done.
It was easier that way.
Though, every time I blinked too long or let my mind wander for more than a second, there he was again. His crooked half smile, the way his laugh curled at the end of a sentence, that one perfect second when his hand had cupped the side of my face like I was something precious.
It was all still there.
Worse, it wasn’t even the kiss that haunted me most. It was everything around it. The way we fit. Like the smallest puzzle pieces that only ever had one right place to go.
And now it was just … silence.
Unsaid and unresolved and unbearable.
I shoved a few last-minute things into my overnight bag and unzipped the front pocket to double-check if I had enough underwear packed. Not exactly the romantic start to a holiday homecoming, but if I forgot something, Gina would never let me live it down. She was already threatening to leave me behind.
The drive home was slow. Slower than usual, like the car was dragging its feet too.
Josh drove. Gina rode shotgun. She insisted on playing her holiday playlist, which was mostly glittery remixes of nostalgic songs in no particular order. The sound filled every inch of the car. The music was loud enough to make talking impossible, which I approved of for once.
Josh barely spoke. Except when he commented on the playlist with a dry, “This one? Really?” or, “Wasn’t this track just playing?”
I sat behind him in the back seat, my head resting against the cold window, breath fogging the glass slightly.
Outside, the city fell away slowly—lights thinning into suburbs, storefronts giving way to empty lots and stretches of dark, familiar roads. I let my eyes close, half dozing.
Sleep hadn’t been kind to me lately. Not when every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Josh saying, “I want all of it. All of you,” and I woke up, aching with the fact that I still wanted him too.
“Hey!” Gina’s voice snapped me out it. “Do you want to drive by your old house?”
My eyes flew open. “What? No. I’m good. Thanks.”
She made a vague sound, like she didn’t quite understand, but wasn’t going to argue. “All righty then.”
The car grew quiet again, except for the distant crooning of some Christmas song I couldn’t pay attention to. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
In the rearview mirror, Josh glanced at me. His eyes caught mine for just a second; it was brief, but something passed between us anyway. Maybe guilt. Maybe apology. Maybe nothing at all.
I looked away.
He took the next turn, bypassing the street I hadn’t driven down in years. The one with the leaning mailbox and the unevensidewalk slabs. The house with the chipped paint and the rusting fence. My house. Or at least, what used to be.
When I’d left the last time, I’d made a promise to myself that it would be the final time. That I wouldn’t be one of those people who looked back. There wasn’t anything left to return to anyway. The family was gone, the furniture was sold, and the memories … well, the ones worth keeping had already been packed up and taken with me. The rest could rot under the weight of their own silence.
Josh didn’t say anything else. Neither did I.
The tires crunched onto a more familiar driveway a few minutes later—his parents’ house. It was warm light and tidy bricks and a wreath on the door, too big to be tasteful. The kind of place where nothing really changed, and yet everything felt different when you came back.
Gina jumped out first, excited to be home.
Josh paused. Turned off the ignition, but didn’t move.
