I’m at least seventy percent sure I passed all my exams. I can’t say I expect my grades to be stellar, but after deciding this term at McGill will be my last, I hauled ass to end on a high note.

Stephen picks me up at the Ottawa bus station as usual. He’s joining us for dinner at Mom’s place tonight, where I’ll be spending the first week of my Christmas vacation. The second week will be spent at Dad’s—that is, if Mom doesn’t put me out on the sidewalk after I’ve gotten her up to speed on my life choices.

“Hey, sis,” Stephen greets me, hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans.

I swear the guy dresses like Hollywood’s idea of a drug dealer. Sometimes I wonder if he actually is a drug dealer.

“Hey, bro.”

“How’s Montreal?”

I smile at the familiarity of the conversation. “It’s good. Still much cooler than Ottawa.”

I’m a little hung over from the Metro Records Christmas party last night. We decided to go see a show at a bar in the Old Port. I had a few beers, but I was more drunk on the music than I was on the alcohol, swept up in the rush of sweat and swaying bodies all moving to the same sound. I felt so right, so sure of myself, surrounded by coworkers who have become a kind of family. We’re always ready to sing each other’s praises and catch each other when we fall. Together, we’re building something I know is going to take us farther than we can even imagine right now, and there’s no one else I’d rather be on that ride with.

Well, almost no one else.

JP didn’t show up to the party.

“He’s not avoiding you, you know,” Matt had said, clapping me on the shoulder just before he left. “Well, not really. He’s back in Trois-Rivières already.”

I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.

“He was different when he was with you, you know that?” Matt scanned my face like there was something he hoped to find there. “Different in a good way. Whatever happens, I just want you to know that as his friend, I thank you for that.”

He left before I had a chance to think of a reply.

Stephen pulls into Mom’s driveway, and we climb out of his rusty old Subaru.

“My babies!” Mom calls, flinging the door open before we’re even on the front step. “Merry Christmas!”

“It’s December twentieth,” Stephen grumbles, but he submits to a hug before Mom slips her arms around me.

“I love having you guys home,” she gushes, patting me on the back.

For now at least, I can’t help thinking.

I’ve decided to tell her tonight. There’s no use putting it off; if I’m going to ruin Christmas, I might as well give it a few days of advance notice.

Sometimes I think my mom uses Christmas as a way to expel all the pent-up homemaker urges she squashes down in her life as a stone-cold real estate shark. The house is decorated to the nines, and she’s got freshly baked cookies on novelty Santa plates ready for us when we walk into the living room. Kenzie gives us a bored wave from where she’s texting on the couch. Serena Ryder’s voice is drifting out of the stereo, crooning about calling her ex-boyfriend to wish him a merry Christmas.

We have dinner in front of the television, like we used to do as a special treat when we were kids. Then Stephen takes off to hopefully not deal drugs, and Kenzie heads out to a ‘sleepover’ that I know is probably a Jell-O shot-fuelled house party. I sit on the couch with Mom, wondering how to tell her I’m dropping out of university. Clearly, my siblings and I have all grown into very well-adjusted young adults.

“So, Mom...” I begin, when the credits of Christmas with the Kranks start rolling and she switches the TV to the fireplace channel.

“Yes, Molly?”

“I have some news.”

“Good news?” she asks, stretching out on the couch a little.

I stare down at where I’m shuffling my hands in my lap, my voice rising several octaves when I answer her. “...Yes?”

She laughs, not seeming to be on the alert yet. “You don’t sound so sure about that.”

“I just...hope you think it’s good news too.”

“Wait.” She sits up straight all of a sudden. “Molly, are you pregnant?”

A nervous laugh shoots out of me. “God, no. No, Mom. I’m not pregnant.”

At least I’ve been able to start this off with some good news.

“I’ve just, uh, been given a new opportunity,” I continue, “and I’ve decided to pursue it. A few months ago, I got a part time job at a record label.”

I glance up from my lap. Mom has a hard look on her face, but she doesn’t interrupt me.

“I know how you feel about me working while I’m at school, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before, but it wasn’t something I could let myself say no to, Mom. The label is just starting up, but it has some very big bands signed to it already, and the owner is one of the most important people in the Montreal music industry. She took a chance on me and gave me a graphic design job even though I had like, no experience, and I...I’ve been good at it. I really have. They’re very happy with me there.”

“Is this why your grades have been slipping, Molly?”

And here we go.

“I know my work-life balance has been off for awhile. I just really love what I do there, and it’s hard to keep focusing on school at the same time, but I got myself back on track in time for exams, and I did a decent job on them.”

Mom raises her eyebrows. “Decent?”

I nod. “I’m sorry I didn’t work as hard as I could. It’s disrespectful to you to not make school my priority when you’re paying for it, but...but you won’t have to pay for it anymore.”

I hear her suck in a breath and force myself to continue.

“The label offered me a full time job. I’ll be the head of their graphic design department. It usually takes years to get this kind of a job, Mom. I’m getting handed a career on a silver platter. I couldn’t turn it down. I might not ever get an opportunity like this again.”

“Molly...” Her voice is shaking with what’s probably rage. “Your degree...Your future...”

“This is my future,” I urge. “I’ll be making more than enough to support myself in a steady career. I didn’t even have to intern. This is way more than I’d ever get with a sociology degree, and I want it so bad, Mom. I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted before.”

“What happens—” She pauses to swallow. “What happens if this...label goes under? What if you’re out on the sidewalk in a few months? You don’t have graphic design credentials. You said yourself you don’t have any other experience. Is another company really going to hire you if you lose this job? I get that you’re passionate about this, Molly, but you need to be practical. Your father—”

“Dad loves his job,” I interrupt, “and he loves us too. He taught me to be passionate because he knows how important it is, and you taught me to be practical because you know how important that is. I’m taking this job for both those reasons. It’s a solid career, Mom. I’ll make more money at Metro Records than I would even years after finishing my degree, and if it does go under, working for Shayla McDougal means I have one of the most powerful references in the city. I can make this work, and...and I love it, Mom. It makes me feel like the old me, like how I was before the divorce...”

It takes me a second to recognize the sound she makes as a sob. She drops her head into her hands as her shoulders begin shaking.

“Mom.”

I reach for her, and she flinches before leaning into my touch.

“I...I just...” she chokes out. “I’m so sorry.”

I do my best to hide my shock. Seeing her like this is as disorienting as watching the floor tilt.

“Mom, it’s okay,” I manage to murmur.

“No. No, it isn’t.”

She cries quietly for a minute before she snuffles and lifts her head, balling her sleeve up in her hand to wipe her cheeks.

“I let you down when your father and I divorced. I let you all down. I don’t regret leaving your dad; it was the right choice, but I went about it all wrong. I was just so scared, Molly. I spent all day looking at the bank statements, calculating and recalculating to somehow come up with enough to make all the payments and still put food on the table. I felt so trapped. I hadn’t worked since before Stephen was born, and even then, all I ever did was wait tables. You can’t support three kids on a waitressing salary. You just can’t. I wasn’t going to raise you on rice and canned ravioli. I wasn’t going to let you be the kind of kids who only got socks on Christmas morning, and I was so mad your father refused to see it that way.”

She slams her fists down on her thighs.

“It’s okay,” I soothe. “I understand.”

“Do you?” She blinks at me like I’m offering her a lifeline. Her hand reaches out to cup my cheek. “I saw you becoming a shell, Molly. I saw you crawling inside yourself to feel safe. I should have been there to help you, instead of spending all my time worrying about the money. You all became such different children after the divorce...”

I didn’t think she noticed. We’ve never talked about it. I thought that when I started making myself invisible, I faded into the background for her too.

I only notice I’m crying when I start to speak. My voice comes out thick and cracked. “That’s life, though, isn’t it? Things happen, and they change you. I don’t blame you for doing what you had to do. All things considered, you did a pretty good job, Mom. You did a really good job.”

Her shiny eyes are locked on mine. I know she can see herself reflected in them.

“I guess I must have done something right,” she whispers. “Just look at you, Molly. You’re the bravest, most brightest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” is all I can manage, before I really start to sob.

She scoots over and wraps her arms around me. I lean into her like I’m a kid again, and she leans into me like I’m all grown up. It’s in that moment that I realize I finally am. We cry together, with tears that are equally happy and sad. We cry for things lost and found. We cry for the past and we cry for the future. We cry for words that shouldn’t have been spoken, and for words that weren’t said enough.

When we stop crying, we smile, and I know everything is going to be all right.

“I want you to take that job, Molly.” Mom sniffles and unravels herself from me so she can wipe her eyes.

“That’s good.” I’m sniffling too. “Since I kind of already dropped out of all my courses at McGill...”

“Molly Myers!” She swats my leg. “Just promise me one thing, okay?”

“Of course.”

“If things don’t work out—If you get into trouble, you come to me, okay? I don’t want you to be afraid of me saying, ‘I told you so.’ I want to be sure you know I’m here to support you if things go wrong.”

I nod. “Okay. Thank you, Mom.”

She reaches for the plate of cookies still resting on the coffee table and offers it to me. We both take a bite out of sugar cookies covered in red and green sprinkles.

“You know,” Mom comments, “I always told you university was important because it would give you options. I want your life to be full of open doors, Molly. I didn’t want you to have to force the doors open like I did, but I think you have what it takes to open those doors for yourself. Going into real estate was one of the hardest, riskiest things I’ve ever done, but it’s been one of the most rewarding. So as much as it scares me to see you on the same kind of uncertain path, I’m going to do my best to trust it’s the right one for you. It just might take some adjusting, okay?”

I laugh and reach for another cookie. “Got it. Thank you for trusting me.”

I go to bed that night feeling more at peace than I have in months. I didn’t realize how much the prospect of telling Mom about Metro Records was weighing on me, pressing down on my chest and constricting my lungs. It’s like I can breathe fully now, expand myself to take in more air than before.

I wish I could say I felt the same easing in my heart, but it feels like it’s wrapped in elastic bands, always pinching and squeezing until I’m left with nothing but a tight and warped little knot where I used to swell with something I think might have bordered on love.

I really think I could have loved him.

I bought his Christmas present a few days before we went to Trois-Rivières. I saw it in the window of a pawn shop, and I knew it was perfect: a vintage brass harmonica from the forties, still with its original leather carry case. The delicate scrollwork engravings caught my eye even before I knew how old it was, and when the shopkeeper let me have a closer look and pointed out all the antique details that made it special, I couldn’t walk away without it. I also walked away with a very big dent in my bank account, but the look on JP’s face when he opened it and the sight of him raising it to his lips for the first time would be worth it.

Or at least, it would have been.

Matt said I changed JP for the better, but JP hasn’t tried to show me that himself. When I left him in the hotel room, a big part of me was expecting him to show up at the bus station, drag me out of the terminal just as I was stepping on board, kiss me senseless, and tell me he was ready to face his fears. I thought I could coax him into the right decision by giving him an ultimatum, but whatever held him back was stronger than the thought of letting me go.

I just wish he would talk to me. I know there’s something more than us at work here, that something is hurting him, and the thought of JP in pain is enough to make me feel hurt too. If he showed just a hint of turning in my direction, I’d run straight for him with flailing legs and arms, but when I asked him to trust me, all he did was take a step back.

I wonder where he’s sleeping right now, if he’s in his childhood bedroom too, staring up at a ceiling streaked with shadows he memorized as a kid. I wonder if his heart is wrapped up in elastic too. The pressure is so sharp, the pinching so painful, and I know that even with everything all wrong between us, just the sound of his voice would ease the tension.

I reach for my phone on my nightstand and pull up our text conversation. The last thing he sent me was a message letting me know he was on his way to the bus station in Montreal, followed by a photo of him with his duffel bag over his shoulder, covered by a filter that makes him look like a pirate. He’s a big fan of stupid photo filters.

I stare at his smirking face, obscured by a skull and crossbones eye patch, and before I can talk myself out of it, I hit the button to call him. It’s almost midnight now. The phone rings for so long I’m about to hang up, but then his voicemail comes on. It’s the same greeting as always. He rattles something off in French and then adds a quick sentence in English:

“You have reached Jean-Paul Marc Joseph Bouchard-Guindon, but if you are a sexy lady, you may call me JP. You may also leave me your number. Merci.”

Flirt, I think, as the long beep follows.

I realize then that I’m smiling.

“Um, hi.” My voice sounds breathy. “I, uh...”

I cradle the phone against my cheek, trying to figure out what to say, or how to explain why I’m calling in the first place. I’m not looking for answers. Part of me is mad that I’m the one calling, not him, but I need a moment.

One more moment of feeling close to someone who’s so very, very far.

“I’m just calling to say...”

I trail off and can’t help laughing to myself when I realize I’m literally quoting Serena Ryder right now. His name even fits perfectly into the chorus of ‘Calling to Say.’ I sing the words into the receiver, my voice warbling just above a whisper.

“I’m just calling to say merry Christmas. Merry, merry Christmas, JP.”

The message beep sounds again.