Chapter Text
Los Angeles greeted Trixi Wilson, and she met it with the brittle exhaustion of someone who’d slept too little and felt too much, wrapped tight in a glittering, carefully constructed shell. The city always felt cloying on Christmas Eve—an unbroken robin’s‑egg sky hung overhead with almost mocking cheerfulness, the air thick with exhaust, fryer grease, and a bare brush of cool winter wind pretending to be festive. A restless hum pressed at her skin as though the entire city were buzzing with holiday anticipation she wanted nothing to do with.
Ten years had passed, but this season still dragged its nails through her as sharply as it had the first Christmas after the accident.
Her hired car rolled to a stop at the curb. She took a breath to steady herself and instead felt her ribs cinch tight. Cameras began flashing before she even opened the door. Perfect.
She stepped out, black stilettos striking pavement in crisp, confident clicks. Her short silver dress—sleek, tight, and short enough to get a disapproving frown from her manager—caught the light with every step. The black leather jacket she wore hung open in casual rebellion against the December chill. All of it pieces of a carefully constructed shield that she'd gotten adept at putting into place over the last decade.
A cluster of fans and reporters surged forward immediately, phones raised high, voices calling her name in excited bursts.
Her long‑suffering bodyguard pushed ahead of her, arms outstretched. “Let’s move, Ms. Wilson,” he muttered with a tone that wavered between pleading and resignation.
Pasting on the wide smile that she knew her fans expected Trixi ducked around the man without an acknowledgement. The squeals notched up another decibel as she approached the group of young women. She signed several of the offered articles of clothing and merch, responding with only a thank you to the flood of holiday wishes.
By the time she was finally able to slip through the front door of the hotel she could feel the mask that she had pasted on cracking at the edges. The lure of her room and the minibar that she knew would be fully stocked pulled her through the opulent room that sparkled in tones of gold and white.
She focused straight ahead as she walked, ignoring the Christmas garlands, ignoring the cheerful, "Merry Christmas Ms. Wilson!" from the employee behind the front desk, ignoring the way the twinkle of Christmas lights reflected off the marble floors.
Her stilettos carried her straight to the elevator, where she stabbed the call button with unnecessary force.
The elevator doors opened to the smell of pine cleaner and faint cigarette smoke—an old combination that rose like a ghost itself. A memory tried to surface, but she shoved it back down before it could form fully. Pain lived in those cracks, and tonight she refused to let herself feel it.
Her penthouse suite awaited her, dim and quiet, the minibar stocked exactly as she’d requested. The artificial cheer of the lobby still clung to her—too bright, too hopeful—sharpening her need to smother it all beneath the familiar haze waiting behind that door. She kicked off her heels the moment the door shut behind her, shrugged out of her jacket, and grabbed the nearest bottle. No glass. She didn’t bother anymore.
Three harsh swallows later, the burn in her throat spread through her chest, loosening something inside her just enough for the world to blur pleasantly at the edges. Not enough to forget—never enough for that—but enough to mute the sharpest edges.
She paced the room once, twice, then drifted toward her bags which had been carefully lined up along the wall. Her hands hesitated at the zipper to the large bag that contained her clothes, but she took a breath and flipped open the case to reveal its contents.
Tucked carefully in the back of the bag lay clothing she only brought out once a year: faded jeans, a stretched-out band tee, and Luke’s old sleeveless hoodie. She had stolen the clothes the day after the accident - back when everything had been uncertain and she'd been desperate for any source of comfort that she could find. The fabric no longer carried his scent—time had long since erased that—but memory filled in what reality could not.
She tugged the clothes on, exchanging glitter for cotton, stilettos for scuffed sneakers. The transformation was intimate, unsettling. It made her skin prickle.
When she stepped into the hallway, hood already up to obscure her face, her bodyguard was waiting.
“Ms. Wilson—Trixi—please,” he tried. “Mr. Molina said—”
She cut him off with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “Marcus, I’m heading out. Don’t wait up.” She knew damn well his name wasn’t Marcus.
His jaw flexed, but he held his ground. “Ma’am, I can’t let you—”
“My manager,” she spat, “needs to remember who signs his paycheck. As do you.”
She brushed past him, ignoring the hurt that flashed briefly across his face. He wasn’t the first person to take the brunt of her misery tonight. He probably wouldn’t be the last.
Back in the lobby, she kept her gaze far away from the towering Christmas tree dominating the center of the room. Its warm glow washed over her peripheral vision, stirring memories she had no intention of unlocking. A smaller. more lopsided tree. A star twisted out of pipe cleaner. Three boys crowding around her, laughing.
She tightened her jaw and slipped behind the display, down a service corridor, and out the back exit.
Cold, stale air hit her immediately. She shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets and crossed the quiet street and wound her way through several side alleys and dark streets before she came to the hot dog cart, waiting as always beneath its familiar faded yellow umbrella.
It wasn’t the same cart anymore—not really. The umbrella was still yellow, but brighter, newer, lacking the sun‑bleached wear she remembered. The tinsel was intact instead of frayed, silver instead of the gold. Even the cart itself was cleaner, newer, the metal unscarred by years of weather.
But her memory laid itself over the differences like an old TV, flickering between images: the rust creeping up the legs, the sagging umbrella, the smell of onions and mystery meat mixing with winter air. She could almost see the old vendor hunched behind it, the exact tilt of his cap, the way he'd called the boys “kiddo” even though they towered over him.
The illusion stung worse than sameness ever could. The cart wasn’t the same—but in her mind, it would always be that cart, on that night, frozen in place.
The memory overlay carved a slow, icy line through her chest.
She forced herself to step up to the cart, as she did every year.
“How many?” the vendor, younger then the original man, but still with that same beaten down energy, asked without looking up.
“Just one.”
He handed it over. The smell, greasy and heavy, made her stomach twist, but tradition was tradition. She bit into it, chewing past the lump forming in her throat. Maybe this year it’ll take me too, she thought with a familiar dark, hollow humor.
She ate the hot dog in five large bites and tossed the crumpled-up wrapper into a nearby trash can before turning back toward the hotel.
She didn’t make it far before the voice rang out from the shadow of a nearby building.
“You look like you could use a pick me up,” a voice drawled, smooth and charming in a way that immediately made her tense.
Trixi barely turned her head.
A man stepped forward, palm cupped around a tiny baggie dusted with white powder catching the neon light.
She should have walked away.
Instead, something reckless—something aching—rose in her. Tonight she was unmoored, drifting, half-hoping for some kind of collision.
“How much?” she asked.
He named a low price. Too low. Too easy. She handed over the cash before she could think, before she could remember why she’d spent years avoiding anything stronger than alcohol.
The baggie’s weight in her pocket felt heavier than it should.
Back in the suite, she tossed it onto the coffee table, its presence sharp and accusing. She opened another bottle, this time a merlot that no doubt cost more than her parents' car payment once had.
Her phone buzzed awake as she lifted it, and Spotify offered the same playlist she listened to every Christmas Eve. One click, and the room filled with a track that had once belonged to all of them.
The track that started it all, really.
Alex’s drumbeat kicked in first—bright, confident. Reggie’s bass followed, grounding everything. Then the first voice joined in.
She barely recognized the female vocals - so bright and full of life - as her own.
Tears pressed at the back of her eyes and the lyrics sprang unbidden from her lips in a whisper of sound.
For a moment it was just her, young and old harmonizing.
And then Luke's solid baritone joined, twining his voice effortlessly into hers.
She froze.
Luke’s harmonies wrapped around her heart, warm and familiar as a hand she hadn’t held in years. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard, imagining Luke next to her. Alex sitting in the chair across the room. Reggie lounging on the bed. Imagining a world where they'd all grown older together.
She leaned back, took another sip, and her gaze slid to the little pile of white powder waiting like a dare.
She wasn’t going to use it. Probably. Definitely shouldn’t. But the fact that she had bought it at all meant the boundary had already shifted.
Her skin prickled with a sudden, electric chill.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
The lights flickered—once, then twice.
Reggie’s line in the track started, but instead of continuing, the song dissolved into a burst of static.
Her phone screen went black.
“Trix?”
The voice wasn’t in the speaker.
It was behind her.
Trixi screamed, the phone clattering onto the table.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, breath trapped in her throat.
“Hey, sis. Long time, no see.”
She turned, slowly, terrified of what she would see.
Reggie stood in the center of her penthouse living room.
Black leather jacket. Flannel tied around his waist. Ripped skinny jeans. Hair flopping into his eyes, still wild from their last show.
The bottle slipped from her hand, spilling a vibrant red across the cream-colored couch.