My hands grasp the white tray and place it back on the cart as I make my way out of the TSA line. The officer gives me a kind smile as he hands me back my boarding pass and ID.

“Arizona. Beautiful state. Are you visiting for business or pleasure?”

“Neither,” I reply as I collect my things.

“Well, have a nice trip. Merry Christmas.” He waves me off and I’m more than happy to comply. I don't need his joyful holiday greeting. I'm too proud to accept it, really. There hasn’t been anything joyful in my life for a few years now.

Shoving the papers back inside my purse, I slide my feet into my shoes and continue my walk through LAX.  Oblivious to the world around me, I drag my feet toward my gate. Each step feels slower than the last but I know it's all in my head. It's the fear of going back home. The fear of seeing my mother again after so many years without contact. It's the uncertainty of the damage my father might have suffered from his heart attack.

It was odd to see my mother’s name on the screen when she called. I thought she was calling to wish me a Merry Christmas, but the notion of a joyful greeting was washed away when realization set in. She would never call to wish me anything. Not when I was such a disappointment to her.

The sea of people move past me, and I push the daunting thoughts out of my head. I promised my mother I would be on the first flight out. I figured no one would be traveling on Christmas Eve, but I was mistaken. The airport is flooded with bodies, everyone eager to reach their destination. Dragging my carry-on behind me, I reach my gate, doubting my decision to return home but knowing I really have no choice. With an hour to spare, I find an empty seat to wait and take out my headphones from my purse. It has been years since I’ve listened to anything classical. It’s funny how everything can change in a split second.

I changed.

My taste in music, the life I live. It was never what my parents envisioned for me.

Most of my life, I was my mother’s daughter.

A dancer.

She set a goal for me: Juilliard. They only took the best, and I was to study there, so I was taught to love ballet.

It didn’t matter what I wanted. I was to eat, sleep, and breathe it.

It consumed my schedule. I spent twenty hours a week rehearsing, and by the age of twelve my toes were permanently taped together. I spent every season competing until my mother realized it was a waste of time to compete against people who weren’t up to my caliber. It wasn’t beneficial to drive around Arizona competing in local, regional, and national talent competitions.

My mother’s dreams became my aspirations; I began to believe they were my dreams as well until Ethan moved in next door.

My ankle throbs at the mere thought of him, and I wiggle my foot, flexing the tight muscle. It’s a dull pain that never goes away. Doctors tell me it’s chronic pain, but I know it’s a reminder of how falling in love destroyed me.

It has been eight years since the last time I saw him; for all I know he has moved on with his life. I know I have. Or tried my hardest to. I’ve learned to let go of the past and focus on the future. Life is precious; my best friend Emilia taught me that. There is no point in dwelling on the small stuff.

But Ethan wasn’t small. Oh, God, not at all. He was the “what if ” in my life.

What if it had worked out between us?

What if it he had followed me?

What if I never broke my ankle?

I told myself what we shared was a lie, a figment of my imagination.

But what I felt for him was an all-consuming, pure and innocent first love. The kind you never forget. The kind of love you store in a locked box, making sure you throw away the key and then toss into the deepest end of the ocean. It’s a love that haunts you. It’s what you compare everything too.

I inhale slowly and then let out a cool, calming breath, forcing myself once again to shut out thoughts of Ethan and the life that will never be. Nervously, I lace a tendril of hair around my fingers and twirl it. I sit for forty-three minutes completely lost in my thoughts as I listen to the playlist my mother made for me once upon a time. Her favorite Bach composition comes on and I’m transported to another time.

My mother.

I sigh and shake my head. She loves me, that much I know, but it never has been a traditional motherly love. It’s been in her own Darlene way. She didn’t kiss my boo-boos or make me soup when I was sick. No, not Darlene. She made me dance, rain or shine.

“Be better,” she would say. “Be extraordinary. Prima ballerinas don’t have the luxury of taking days off. Toughen up.” If my toes weren’t bleeding, it meant I wasn’t pushing myself. “Juilliard won’t even consider you if your Allegro isn’t perfect. Again!”

I wasn’t allowed sick days because regardless of how I felt, I had to dance. I didn't have friends because I didn’t have time for friendships. The girls at my school asked me over for a play date, but I had a regimen. After a while they stopped asking.

Ballet.

It was all I was. It was what my mother made me.

Until Ethan.

He was the boy who crawled through my window and captured my heart.

Anger and hatred boils through my veins as the hurt of his betrayal threatens to resurface. I ball my hands into fists and concentrate on the music blaring in my ears, inhaling and exhaling methodically until my heart rate is at a normal level. But I can’t drown out the noise. Ethan and my mother are the only two on my mind.

I push off my chair and grasp the handle to my carry-on. “Screw it,” I mutter. There’s no way I can face her. Not when the sheer thought of her reminds me of my love for him. I maneuver around the aisle of connected chairs, apologizing as I hurry out of the sea of people waiting for their flight, when I hear the flight attendant make an announcement over the speaker.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are now boarding Flight 437 to Phoenix, Arizona.”

My feet stop short. I pull out my boarding pass.

Your mother can’t control you anymore, and Ethan has moved on, so his father can’t hurt you anymore, either.

* * *

The hour and twenty-minute plane ride from LAX to Phoenix consists of mild anxiety attacks and much-needed booze that costs me a small fortune. The intoxication I worked on vanishes the second our descent from the sky ends and our wheels touch the ground.

Inhaling all the air my lungs can take, I walk out of the plane with my heart racing in my chest. My feet push against the granite airport floors as I follow behind the eager passengers who make their way to baggage claim. Most passengers are greeted by family and friends and hugs and warm wishes are exchanged, but I don’t bother to look for my mother. Picking someone up at the airport is beneath her.

I stroll over to the carousel to retrieve my lone bag from the conveyer belt and walk toward the taxi line. Within a short period of time I’m seated in the back of the car service I hired to drive me to Prescott. My head rests on the leather seat when my phone rings inside my purse. Pulling it out, Chloe’s name appears on the display. Sliding my finger across the screen, I answer the call.

“Hello?”

“Merry Christmas, lover,” Chloe sings, and even though she tries to hide it I can still hear the East Coast accent. She hates when people ask her where in Long Island she grew up in.

“Merry indeed,” I joke, my eyes glued to the snowcapped peaks just visible in the distance. Chloe was the first friend I made when I moved to Chicago. We shared a cubicle at work, and hit it off right away. She was my tour guide as I familiarized myself with the city I now call home. She also helped me prepare for my first Midwestern winter. Never had I experienced frigid temperatures like that before. I grew up in Arizona. Prescott, to be exact. When it did snow, it was light, and quickly melted when the sun rose on the horizon. I wasn’t prepared for the snow a blizzard could bring.  

“How’s LA? I can’t believe you’re making me go to Rae’s Christmas Eve dinner today without you,” she complains.

“Actually . . . I’m not in LA anymore.” I shift my neck from side to side in an attempt to crack it. The non-stop traveling is catching up with my body not to mention I still have another hour on the road before I arrive at the hospital. “I’m in Arizona.”

“Oh, fun! What for?”

“My father had a heart attack. My mother called me earlier to let me know, and I hopped on the first plane I could get.”

Chloe gasps. “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry, Les. Is he okay?”

Closing my eyes, I pray for this to be some kind of a twisted life lesson in which I learn that I need to call my family more often and nothing more. “I don’t know. I’m headed to the hospital now.”

“Oh, sweetie, keep me posted, okay?”

“Of course.”

“And if you need anything, please let me know.”

“Thanks, Chloe. Merry Christmas.”

I hang up the phone and slide it back into my purse. Glancing over at the rearview mirror, I spot the driver looking at me. His dark brown almond shaped eyes seem apologetic and I find solace in them.

Even if for a brief second.

* * *

Wheeling my luggage and carry-on behind me, I walk inside Freeman Hospital Center. My heart rate is humming in my ears but I keep my shoulders straight. I stop when I approach the receptionist and smile at her.

“Hi, I’m here to see my father, Lawrence Sutton.”

She taps her manicured nails against the keyboard, humming to the Christmas music softly playing in the background. She pulls her gaze away from the screen and looks up at me. “He’s in room 415.” She hands me a visitor’s pass. “The elevators are around the corner. You can leave your luggage here with me if you don’t feel like carrying it around the hospital.”

“Thank you,” I say with relief and shove my suitcase behind her desk. I grasp the visitor’s pass and make my way toward the elevator. The farther I walk inside the hospital, the more poignant the sterile scent is. My stomach churns and I grow nauseous.  Simultaneously, my ankle begins to ache and I'm reminded of a different time in this exact hospital. A time when I was the patient, crying uncontrollably when the doctor informed me dancing was forever out of the picture.

My dreams shattered.

My destiny destroyed.

A cruel twist in my fate.

I drill the button to the fourth floor repeatedly, willing the elevator to move faster. A panic attack is brewing inside me just as the doors slide open, and I gasp for air, my hands pressed to my chest as I try to calm myself. When the vertigo passes, I allow myself a few calming breaths before I walk into my father’s room.

My mom sits with her back facing the door, and I take the moment to look at my dad. A tube is down his throat and he is connected to a few machines. He looks frail, nothing like the father I left behind.

I was always Daddy's little girl, or at least up until the accident. After that I didn’t want to be anything. Afterward, it felt as if I didn’t belong anymore; as though my parents were complete strangers. The pride and joy that shone through their eyes had vanished.

When I broke my ankle, all the years of training went down the drain, and my mother and I found ourselves with nothing in common. My whole life, my mother worked vigorously to make me a better dancer. To train harder, be better, then anyone else. A better version of her. She had me in the studio until dinnertime six days a week, and then all of a sudden that was not part of my life anymore. And once I was damaged goods, she was gone.

For years, all I had with my dad was one hour a day. One hour each day when it was just him and I, watching whatever game was on the television. I cherished those sixty minutes. Even he was lost after the accident. He tried to do what was right, but it only hurt our relationship more.

I was lost after I broke my ankle. For months I lay in the hospital bed depressed and alone. But he helped me find a way out. Recovery was grueling, but I learned not to quit, and started putting my broken pieces back together all alone. I enrolled in UCLA, moved out to Los Angeles, where I graduated college, accepted a job offer in Chicago and never looked back.

Tears well in my eyes and my vision blurs as the memories flow through my mind. I swallow every painful emotion and take a step through the door. Clearing my throat, I walk further into the room. My father’s hand is ice cold when I grasp it, and a tear drops down my cheek as I close my eyes.

"I'm surprised you're here so soon." My mother’s voice pierces the silence.

“Hello, Mother."

I find the courage to look over at her. Darlene is sitting in the recliner with a Pointe magazine resting on her lap. Her shoulders are back and as always, her posture is perfect. Her blonde hair is tied in a low bun like it had always been every day of her life. Without pulling her gaze away from the article, she speaks. "You've gained weight."

"It's been eight years, Mother. Of course, I've gained weight."

She slowly closes the magazine and looks up at me fully. Her green eyes are full of disapproval when they meet mine. “It's sloppy weight, Leslie. You've let yourself go. Clearly."

"Mom." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "It's Christmas Eve. I’ve been traveling for what feels like a lifetime to get here. My father, your husband, is lying on a bed with tubes down his throat and the first thing out of your mouth is a snide remark about my weight?" I shake my head and run my hand through my long brown locks. "You haven't seen me in eight years and this is how you’re going to greet me?"

"Don't cry, Leslie. It will give you wrinkles. Besides, you're the one who left and never looked back. After all my hard work the least you could have done was maintain an appropriate weight. Don’t think a man is going to love the extra love handles."

"Mom." My voice is louder than acceptable for a hospital. “I’m not fat. I do spinning and yoga; I eat healthy and I stay active. Occasionally, I enjoy a bacon cheeseburger with fries, and tequila is my best friend. I also believe if I eat a pint of ice cream and no one is watching the calories don’t exist. So please get off my back.”

My mother is just being . . . Darlene. If I’m not rail thin with my ribcage visible, she considers me fat.  This is how she shows she cares. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

"Don't you dare make this about you. Your father is lying there completely helpless." I sigh dramatically and grit my teeth so I don’t lose it.

A nurse, no taller than five feet with jet-black hair walks in, her eyes scan the room. "Is everything okay?" she asks with a hint of concern in her voice. I know she overheard me and my mother.

I swallow back the anger toward my mother. I never learn with her. “I’m sorry. I’m his daughter. I just arrived. Do you have an update?"

She moves to my dad’s bedside and peers up at the screens before checking his chart. "I’m sorry, unfortunately it will be best if you talk to one of his doctors so they can answer any questions you may have. I'll have a resident come in here and talk to you." She gives me a kind smile.

"Thank you." I glance down at my father and hold his hand tighter.

The nurse walks toward the door and stops. “Also,” she adds and I look over at her, “we can only have one family member spend the night in the room."

"I understand,” my mother replies.

When she is out of the room, I turn to face my mother. “After we speak to the doctor why don't you head home? I can stay here with him.”

"You must have lost your mind.” Her voice is condescending.  “I'm not leaving his side. Besides, I don't drive anymore."

“Okay…” This is news to me. “How did you get here?”

“I came in the ambulance. I had Nora’s youngest son drive the car over. It’s in the garage.”

Brushing my hand through my hair, I look back at my father. How did this happen? My hand remains gripping his until a doctor walks into the room. His dark blue scrubs are hidden under his white lab coat. He is younger than I would have expected. There is no peppering in his short brown hair. His smile is bright and wide when he approaches.

“Good evening, I’m Dr. Perkins. I understand you want an update on your father?”

I nod, unable to speak as the fear of what he is about to say consumes me.

“Your father suffered a STEMI heart attack, which means his carotid artery is completely blocked and a large part of his heart can’t receive blood. At the moment he is stable and we have him on blood thinners. Tomorrow morning we will prep him for surgery. We’ll know more then.”

“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you.”

I stare back at my father while my mother talks briefly to the doctor. My father is young, in his early fifties, and he’s always been healthy and active. How did he get to this stage? I realize then that it must have been well over three months since I last spoke to him. A new wave of tears crash over me and I bite back a sob. I can’t stay here. I can’t watch him like this. Turning to my mother, I wipe the tears from my eyes.

“Since, only one of us can stay, I think it’s best I head home. Can I have the keys, please?” My voice cracks.

Darlene digs in her purse and hands me the keys to the Volvo. “It’s on level two in the parking deck,” she says without looking at me.

“Please call me if you need anything or if his stats change.” I walk out of the room before she has a chance to respond.

The drive home is painless, the noise of the rubber tires rolling against the asphalt is soothing. My tears have subsided but the ache in my chest has intensified. I can’t help but think that if I had called my father more often he wouldn’t be in this situation. I know my thinking is unreasonable but the guilt eats me up.

The highway is clear, so I make it to my old neighborhood within thirty minutes. Heavy clouds are high in the sky, making the moon less visible. Snow threatens to fall due to the higher elevation.

“A white Christmas,” I mutter as I pull onto my street. The block is dark, and the lamppost lights are dim, not offering much visibility. A few houses are decorated with twinkly lights and all of them look just as I remember, three-bedroom, center hall colonial with a two-car garage. Gripping the wheel, I turn into my parents’ driveway and open the garage door. My head remains facing forward and I force my eyes to look anywhere but toward Ethan’s home. Quickly, I turn off the car, close the garage door, and head inside the house, hoping no one spots me.

Once inside, I take my time walking from room to room. Not a single thing has changed since the last time I was here. Pictures of me performing are still scattered throughout the house. My mother was once very proud of her legacy.

My ankle throbs as I stop at the framed acceptance letter from Julliard. My hands gently run along the glass as I read the letter. It was everything I ever wanted, my get out of Prescott ticket. Lifting the frame off the nail in the wall, I walk over to the kitchen and place it in the pantry. There is no need to showcase that anymore.

A migraine begins to form in the back of my neck and I close the pantry door behind me and go in search of some ibuprofen. I feel lost and alone. But most of all I feel helpless. I ran away from home. I ran away from a life I didn’t want anymore. Being back here awakens so many emotions I can’t deal with all at once.

Needing something stronger to knock some sense into me, I head over to the wet bar adjacent to the kitchen and find a bottle of tequila. With eager hands I twist off the top and chug on the light amber liquid.

The warmth of the agave alcohol swims through my body. I make my way up the stairs toward my bedroom. My hand laces around the bottle, giving me the courage I lack to enter my bedroom.

I don’t flick the light on, nor do I look at my belongings. There is no need to look at the dresser that is pushed against one wall, my bookcase, or the cut outs I had pinned on my memory board. I know it’s filled with pictures and other small trinkets I left behind. Instead, I sit on the bed and take another swig of tequila, remembering all the times Ethan climbed through my bedroom window.