It was a sad fact to realize that she didn’t have lots of strategies for celebration. Even worse to realize that she’d arrived at this conclusion before. In fact, that was something her and her old therapist had been interrogating, the fact that Deja didn’t have coping skills for being happy for herself. She didn’t know how to reward herself for a job well done, but she had lots of destructive methods for wallowing in her failures. How pathetic, she often thought to herself, with no idea how to break that cycle.

But right now, unexpectedly, she wanted to celebrate.

She thought about calling Toni and Marie, but they were still out of town. Marie had gone to visit her family in New York, and Toni was at an all-inclusive resort in Barbados for New Year’s. Besides, what she really wanted was to go somewhere, to do something, and be with someone. But since that wasn’t a possibility, she decided to do the next best thing: talk to the person she was desperate to be with.

Alejandro picked up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he breathed.

“Hey. You busy?”

“No. Not at all.”

“You sure? Sounds loud.”

“My family’s loud. We’re getting ready for a party, but I have time,” he said quickly. “Let me just…hold on.”

Deja listened to Alejandro breathe — trying to ignore how much she liked even that sound — as the background sounds on his end of the line began to fade. She heard a door snick closed.

“Okay, what’s up?” he breathed.

Deja was sitting in her office chair, looking at the Word file, but she didn’t feel nearly as excited about it now. She felt so pathetic, actually. Here she was, alone on New Year’s Eve, excited that she’d written three probably crappy pages while everyone she loved was hundreds and thousands of miles away. And she’d chosen this. She’d wanted to share the joy in those three pages with Alejandro, but now that she had him on the phone, she was second-guessing herself.

“Um…I just called to say hey. I figured I probably wouldn’t be able to talk to you later.”

“Why? Did you think I wasn’t going to call you at midnight?”

Deja’s face warmed, and she bit back a smile. “You don’t have to do that,” she mumbled.

“Yes, I do,” he said forcefully. “And I want to.”

She shivered at the simple declaration in his voice. She loved the way he made everything seem so easy in a way she couldn’t. It made her feel secure, and she knew she’d get used to it if he kept at it; she probably already had.

“I wrote three pages today,” she blurted out. “I mean, it’s not a lot or anything, but—”