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CHAPTER1
Zoey
“Get your shit together, Zoey. Stop embarrassing yourself.”
Clearly, my dad wasn’t auditioning for the role of a life coach. With such heartwarming advice, who needed holiday cheer anyway?
I’d always loved the magic of December—the twinkling lights, the festive decorations, the promise of a fresh start with the new year.
But this December felt anything but magical.
This year was like a personal piñata filled with disappointments—like I was blindfolded, swinging wildly, and missing every bit of joy.
A brutal breakup followed by being fired from my job had left me shattered, questioning my worth and the direction of my life. And then, to top it all off, I was twenty-five years old and had to move back home with my parents.
It took one particularly bitter argument with my reflection in the mirror to decide that a change of scene was what I needed to escape this fiesta of gloom.
Living in Miami just added to my bad mood. The sunshine and palm trees felt too bright, too cheerful, when all I wanted to do was disappear from the world.
So, I was taking my father’s advice and getting my shit together. I booked a flight and landed on the other side of the country.
The family cabin in Montana wasn’t just a place—it was an old friend, and right now, I needed one. Hidden among the snow-covered pines, it was worlds away from Miami’s relentless sunshine and the mess I called my life.
And my first order of business was settling in and streaming every cheesy holiday movie I could find, so I could live vicariously through a small-town heroine who needed to find her Christmas spirit.
As I maneuvered my rented SUV through the winding roads, the trees—topped with a layer of snow—welcomed me to my sanctuary. This was my chance to hit pause, to breathe.
My family wasn’t arriving until December 23rd, so I had twenty-three days to process being dumped, watch sappy movies, binge on Christmas cookies, and drink hot cocoa to my heart’s content.
Maybe I’d drink my hot cocoa with a splash of brandy to take the pain away a bit. Well, maybe a shot of brandy. Okay, maybe I’d skip the hot cocoa and go straight to the brandy.
This break-up had been especially catastrophic—him telling me he didn’t see a future for us, me ugly crying, and a few failed attempts at petty revenge that were just too embarrassing to think about.
Yet they were so embarrassing that I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
Drunk dialing to tell him what he’d lost?
Did that.
Posting on social media ten times a day—while being completely delusional—about how wonderful my life was now that I was single?
Did that.
Eating an entire roll of cookie dough in one sitting for some high-calorie therapy? Okay, I didn’t do that. It was even worse; I ate two rolls.
With a heavy sigh, I shut off the engine and sat in the SUV for a moment, watching the swirling snowflakes dance around me.
It was so different from Miami, where I had grown up. The prior week, I had helped my mom string some lights on the house while wearing a bikini, and today, I was just hoping I didn’t get frostbite on the walk from the SUV to the front door of the cabin.
I lugged in three suitcases because cold-weather clothes took up a lot of room. And I had six bags of groceries I had picked up at the local grocery store twenty minutes from the cabin.
I had everything I needed to wallow in self-pity.
My parents loved skiing and hiking, so they bought the cabin as a vacation home when I was just a baby. It wasn’t just any cabin, though. It was a sprawling multi-story retreat, adorned with polished wooden beams, grand stone fireplaces, and panoramic windows showcasing majestic views.
We’d spent the past twenty-three Christmases here—every year since I’d been two years old. This place really was my home away from home.
I trudged through the snow to the front door, each step sinking into the soft blanket beneath me. Unlocking the door brought a sense of familiarity, and it was exactly what I needed.
