Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
And felt ball flower garlands in soft pinks, creams, and yellows drape around the edges of the tree like a dreamy, whimsical daisy chain.
Each ornament is impossibly detailed. Hand-stitched.
They're also impossibly expensive. Handmade by a shop in Vermont called SuzieStiches.
I know this because I've been looking at these ornaments since July. Sometime around mid-summer, when the heat made everything feel unbearable and I needed to escape into something soft and magical, I started my annual Christmas Pinterest board. Every couple of weeks since then, I'd find myself scrolling through SuzieStiches' shop at two in the morning, adding these exact ornaments to my cart one by one. The mole. The rabbit family. The rain boot. The beekeeper. All of them.
Then I'd stare at the total—sometimes seven hundred dollars, sometimes nine hundred if I really went wild—and feel my stomach twist with something between longing and shame.
I'd leave them sitting in my cart for days, reopening the tab just to look at them, imagining how they'd look on a real tree in a real home where someone like me actually belonged.
Then I'd delete them. Every time.
I've lived the past four Christmases vicariously through my Pinterest board, curating perfect holidays I'll never have, saving images of homes that will never be mine.
But here they are.
Every single one of them.
On a tree.
A real tree, with real pine scent filling my apartment.
My apartment.
This isn't real. This isn't—
I swing my legs off the bed, then look back at it.
I was sleeping in it.
For a minute, I'm grossed out because those sheets have not been changed since… I can't even admit that in my own private thoughts.
Too long, let's just say.
But they're not the same sheets. They're flannel, and yellow, and I don't own yellow flannel sheets.
I stand. Too fast. My knees buckle and I catch myself on the edge of the mattress, breathing hard.
That's when I notice something else.
My apartment is clean.
Not clean like I picked up a little. Clean like someone came in and sorted through every single thing I own.
My books are stacked neatly on the shelf instead of scattered across the floor. The empty ramen cups are gone. The pile of laundry that's been sitting in the corner for three weeks—gone. It even smells good.
My apartment hasn't been clean since… well… ever.
It's just… not a priority when you're depressed.
This is when I notice my blanket fort is gone.
Gone, as in.. been replaced.
It's a glamping tent now.
An actual miniature glamping tent. The kind you'd buy for a kid. Canvas walls printed with moons and stars. A peaked roof. An arched doorway with a rolled-back flap. Fairy lights string across the top, glowing soft white.
I take a step toward it. Then another.
My hand touches the fabric. It's real.
I crouch down and look inside.
The space is bigger than it should be. A child-sized tent but with room to sit up, move around. The floor is covered with a plush rug—white, furry, soft and thick enough to sink into.
In the center sits a wooden crate. Small. Perfectly sized to be a table.
My laptop is open on top of it.
The screen glows.
I crawl inside. The fairy lights cast everything in gentle shadows. It feels safe. Warm.
This is wrong.
I kneel in front of the laptop. The document is still open. The same scene I was writing before—
Before.
Before what?
My hands start shaking.
Think. Think.
The eviction notice. The auction. The helicopter.
The man in the mask.
The exam table.
His cock inside me. His fingers. The wand vibrator. Coming so hard I—
I blacked out.
And then I woke up and ran.
He chased me through the snow.
The syringe.
He drugged me.
I press my hands against my face. My skin is warm. Real.
He drugged me and brought me back here.
I crawl back out of the tent, stumbling to my feet.
My phone. Where's my phone?
I scan the room, pulse hammering.
There. On the kitchen counter.
I lunge for it, grab it, press the home button.
Unlocked. Fully charged.
The date stares back at me.
December 25th. 12:04 PM.
I sink onto the edge of a dining room chair that's actually by the table where it should be, instead of supporting my blanket fort.
He drugged me.
That's when I see what else is on the counter.
A plate of cookies.
Sugar cookies. The kind shaped like snowmen and Christmas trees. Frosted. White icing with red and green sprinkles.
One has a bite missing. A perfect half-moon carved out of the snowman's head.
Santa was here.
The thought lands before I can stop it. Childish. Stupid.
But I'm six years old again. Standing in my pajamas in the kitchen doorway, staring at the plate Daddy and I put out the night before with a glass of milk.
"See, Lettie-bug?" Daddy's voice, warm and conspiratorial. "Look!" He holds up the cookie with a bite taken out. Points to the glass of milk, half empty. "Told you he'd come."
I believed him. God, I believed him so hard.
My chest tightens.