The Christmas Pic

37. Ava

CHAPTER 37

AVA

I’ve never been so distracted in my life. The last couple of days at work have been excruciating. The office has been mostly empty, but my mind is constantly racing with Jo, Jo, Jo.

I made the right decision to exit Jo’s life before I fucked it up any further, but I can’t quiet my fantasies of her shouldering her way back into mine.

Is that her texting me? No, just Jason, congratulating me on my Harmony Springs success (apparently, the Board never doubted me and stocks are higher than ever).

Is that her knocking on my door to kiss and make up? No, just Max, bringing me a gourmet fruit basket from Aspen and team (their Gramsta views are through the roof; what a story).

Is that her from across the hall? No, just the poor intern who caught me staring longingly at the back of her head (I’m her boss so she’s too afraid to report me to HR).

Gramsta is usually my safe harbor, but being cooped up here is driving me crazy. I'm haunted by my own ghost in these offices, the Ava who strutted the halls before my trip to Harmony Springs–armored, undefeated. Maybe I’m the ghost, a faint imprint of my former self .

Either way, I need to escape. I drive to my rarely used house in LA, where the remnants of the life I packed away at 18 are stowed deep in its closets. The furniture inside is covered with the dust of disuse.

I think about Jo, religious in her allegiance to the objects in her life that hold importance. Chrissy, her record collection, all the trinkets and artwork she inherited from Roger. I’ve never allowed myself to dwell on clutter from the past, material or otherwise. My religion has been my relentless drive forward, onward, and upward.

It never even crossed my mind that replacing the truck would devastate Jo, and that terrifies me. Has my practice of denying my own emotions blinded me to the pain I’m capable of inflicting on someone I love?

I walk to the first closet I see and begin pulling out boxes filled with high school yearbooks and tech gadgets I never bothered patenting. I’m not sure what I’m searching for, but my anguish is so uncontainable I’m desperate for anything to help me make sense of what I’m supposed to do next in the wake of losing Jo Fisher.

I spend hours in a fugue state, with just the bare bulb of the walk-in flickering above me, until I reach the back of the closet. I swing my arm beneath a dark shelf to check for stragglers and my hand hits a familiar keyboard. I crawl on hands and knees and drag out the most formative Christmas present I ever received.

Looking at the scratched, vintage Mac logo, I’m flooded with sorrow. At first, I think my grief is about the abandoned computer, neglected despite its unfathomable impact on the trajectory of my life. But as I run my hands over its iconic beige chassis and chunky keys, I have a breakthrough. It’s not the one I expected to have, but I suppose that’s the nature of a breakthrough .

I pull out my phone and type in three little letters.