A Kiss For You

Walking out of his office was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. He deserved to lose his job for what he had done all these years, but I didn’t have it in me to go there yet. I walked into the history department and filled out the appropriate paperwork to withdraw from the program. Maybe, one day, I would want to go back and finish my PhD, but today, I knew that I had come to the end of the line. One too many panic attacks, my first ever prescription for Xanax, and a dissertation topic that seemed perpetually out of reach had done me in.

Screw academia.

I drove my Subaru Forester back to my one-bedroom studio, cursing Austin traffic the whole way. How was it possible for there to be bumper-to-bumper traffic at all times?

Three years’ worth of neglect had taken over my apartment, and my head ached from just imagining what to do with it all. At that moment, my life was completely open before me. No obligations. No job. No future.

I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculous thoughts and began to stuff half of my closet into the two suitcases I had. An hour later, I tucked my MacBook into my leather bag, remembered to grab my phone and computer charger, and kissed Austin good-bye. I’d eventually have to come back for the rest of my shit, but for now, I was going to forget all about Mitch, kick up the Christmas tunes, and drive the six hours home to Lubbock.

The weird thing about Lubbock was, most people had no idea where it was, and when you told them that it was actually not full of tumbleweeds or overrun by the desert, they’d seem surprised. As if that was all there was in west Texas. It was a city of three hundred thousand people, for Christ’s sake!

The six years I had been in Norman at the University of Oklahoma, I’d gotten so good at responding to strangers’ questions about where I was from that I still hadn’t broken the habit of telling people I was from Texas, even when I’d moved back to Texas.

It would inevitably be followed up with a, “Where?”

And then I would have to explain, “Lubbock. It’s west Texas. Stuff actually exists there. Texas Tech and Buddy Holly.”

People would nod, but I didn’t think anyone really believed me since they hadn’t been to west Texas.

My sister, Kimber, was waiting for me outside when I pulled up to her brand-spanking-new house. She placed a hand on her swollen prego belly, and her four-year-old daughter, Lilyanne, ran around her ankles.

I put my car in park and jumped out in a hurry to scoop up my little niece. “Hey, Lily Bug,” I said, twirling her in a circle before swinging her onto my hip.

“Lilies aren’t bugs, Auntie Em. Lilies are flowers!”

“That, they are, smarty-pants.”

“Hey, Em,” Kimber said, pulling me in for a hug.

“Hey, Kimmy.”

“Rough day?” she asked.

“You could say that.”

I dropped Lilyanne back onto her feet and opened the trunk. Kimber hoisted the smaller suitcase out of the trunk, and I wheeled the larger one into her ginormous house.

“Em! Do you want to see my new dress? It has dinosaurs on it. Dinosaurs say rawr!” Lilyanne said.

“Not now, Lily. We have to get Emery into the guest room. Can you show her where to go?” Kimber asked.

Lilyanne’s eyes lit up, and she raced for the stairs at lightning speed. “Come on, Auntie Em. I know the way.”

Kimber sighed, exhausted. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. She’s a handful. But it’s good to have her. How else would I be able to find my way around here?” I joked as we made our way up the stairs after Lilyanne. “Seriously, are we in Beauty and the Beast? Is there a west wing I should avoid?” I gasped.

Kimber snorted and rolled her eyes. “It’s not that big.”

“Never too big for a library with ladders, of course.”

“Of course. We might have one of those.”

“I knew it! Please tell me all the dirty romance novels we read in high school are proudly on display now.”

Kimber dropped my suitcase in the guest bedroom, which was approximately the same size as my loft back in Austin. “Noah would kill me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Most of those books are on my iPad now anyway. I’ve converted to e-books.”

“Fancy,” I said, fluttering my fingers at her. “I could use an iPad. Just throwing that out there in case Noah needs gift ideas for Christmas.”

Kimber laughed. “God, I’ve missed you.”

I grinned devilishly. Noah worked at the Texas Tech Medical Center. He worked long, long hours and made Scrooge McDuck–level dollar bills. He and Kimber were high school sweethearts and possibly the disgustingly cutest couple I’d ever encountered.

“Come on, Lilyanne,” Kimber called. “We have cookies in the oven.”