Page 26 of Made for Mayhem

I slowed as I neared them, my heart pounding in my chest. Something in me pulled toward her, sharp and instinctive, forcing me to take notice.

When she finally looked up, the world stopped.

Blue eyes. That same impossible blue that had once looked at me over a basket of fries in a dim Chicago bar.

Blonde hair. Those same messy waves that had whipped around her face on the windy beach at sunrise.

Full lips. They looked different, not tugged into a mischievous smile, but the same ones I’d almost kissed years ago.

Suddenly, I wasn’t standing in my gravel driveway in Colorado. I was back on a cracked city sidewalk, watching a woman choose joy like oxygen.

Three years fell away in a heartbeat. The noise, the grief, the distance—gone. All that was left was the shock and the rush of memory, the sting of every what-if I’d buried and the one night I’d never been able to forget.

Dizzy wasn’t just some aunt who’d be stopping by.

She was Daisy. My Daisy.

My pulse stuttered once, hard. The same pull I’d fought that night slammed back into place, unwanted and unstoppable. And under it, the slow realization that this time, I couldn’t walk away.

7

By the time I turned onto the gravel drive leading to Aunt Maggie’s place—after passing it once, then somehow doing it again—my eyes burned from being awake too long. The sun hung low at my back, spilling soft golden light across the mountains ahead of me.

I’d spent half my childhood here. Summers that smelled like wildflowers and mountain air, Violet always a step ahead of me, daring me to jump higher, climb faster, be braver. Everywhere I looked held memories of happy days with the people I had loved and lost.

I cut the engine and stepped out, gravel crunching beneath my boots, then turned slowly, taking it all in. The property hadn’t changed much—two houses, just like always. The big one sat farther back, solid and quiet, its windows catching the light. An older couple had lived there when I was younger, their kids grown and gone, but I didn’t know if that was still the case.

But it was the smaller house near the road that stopped me in my tracks.

Aunt Maggie’s house. Violet’s house.

Everything was downtrodden, beaten down by years and snow. I couldn’t remember if it was this bad before, but the paint peeled off the siding in chunks now. The porch leaned a little, looking as tired as I felt. A ceramic frog with a chipped foot sat on the top step—the same one I’d given Aunt Maggie one year for her birthday. Off to the side, a bright blue bike leaned against the railing.

I couldn’t stop staring at the flowerpots lining the steps, every shade of the rainbow imaginable. Bright and mismatched in that messy, joyful way my sister loved.

My chest squeezed tight.

While I was in Chicago trying to prove I wasn’t a helpless mess, Violet had been here. Living in the house Aunt Maggie left us. Raising her daughter. Turning childhood summers into something permanent. Something real.

I’d stayed away because coming back meant facing her. Over the many bad days we’d shared in our early lives, she and I had developed an ability to see straight through each other. I’d stayed in Chicago because I couldn’t bear the thought of her looking at me and knowing exactly how miserable I was. How badly I’d failed.

And apparently, she’d stayed here, unable to tell me that she was sick.

She’d lived here without me.

She’d died here without me.

“Dizzy!”

The sound cracked through the morning air, familiar enough to splinter something inside me.

I jerked my head up just as a blur of blue fleece came flying down the driveway—Junie, all wild hair and flushed cheeks, rain boots slapping against the gravel.

She was bigger than I remembered. Older.

The last of my strength seeped out of me, and I fell to my knees, arms open. Before I could even brace myself, she slammed into me at full tilt. Junie threw her arms around my neck like she was the one here to hold me together.

For a heartbeat, everything else disappeared. Chicago. My job. The endless highway. The house. The emails full of paperwork about cremation waiting for me to read. All of it fell away under the weight of a little girl clinging to me as if she never wanted to let go.