_Alice. Talk to me. Whatever it is, we will get through this, like we always have. You are not alone._
My psychiatrist told me this during our last session at his office in downtown Los Angeles. It was around eight o’clock on the morning of November 9th. I was lying supine on a tufted sofa, elbows at my sides, the sun shining fiercely in the sky. I called him Stein, though everyone else referred to him as Dr. Costen. He was trying to peel my brain, tinker with my defective mind like he had done so many times before. But that day, for the first time, he couldn’t get what he wanted from me. Not a damn thing.
The thought comes to me as the taxi lurches forward, its engine growling in protest as we crawl through the streets of Kenwood. My stomach knots tighter with every mile, the familiar landscape rising up, swallowing me whole. Ten years—ten long years since I left this city behind, yet the weight of it presses down on me, cold and sharp, like it never really let me go. The cab windows fog slightly from the heat, turning the view outside into a hazy blur of redbrick, iron railings, and graffiti-scrawled alleyways. I press a finger to the glass, wiping a streak clear, but the scene beyond is just as muted as before, like I’m looking through a dirty lens.
I’m back.
Chicago hasn’t changed much, or maybe I just can’t see beyond my thoughts. The taxi bumps over a pothole, jostling me, and I glance out at the snow-choked streets, the slush grinding under the tires. We pass sagging three-story walkups, their bricks darkened by decades of soot and salt, the kind of buildings that lean into the wind like they’re bracing for another bitter winter. Even the air smells the same—burnt pretzels from a street cart mixing with diesel and old snow. It’s a smell that sticks to your clothes, a reminder that this place never lets you forget.
The driver glances at me in the rearview, his eyes shadowed under a Cubs cap, but I ignore him, watching the familiar landmarks spring out at me, dragging me into memories I thought I’d buried. There—on the corner of South Drexel—the liquor store. That cursed store Janice stumbled out of more times than I can count, her breath sour with bourbon, her eyes glazed like she didn’t know she had daughters waiting for her at home. Or maybe she did, and that was the problem. She’d come back with bottles, enough to last a week if she paced herself, but she never did. She was always trying to drown something out, a scream inside her that we could never hear but felt in every slap, in every cruel word, in every night she didn’t come home. I always wondered what she was trying to silence, what desperate scream echoed in her head, the one that none of us could hear but all of us felt. It doesn’t matter now, does it?
The cab hits another pothole, and my hand skids over the cracked leather seat, catching on a split seam. I dig my fingers into the torn cushion, feeling the damp foam underneath—spongy and cold. It reminds me of decay, of flesh eaten from the inside out, and suddenly, I see Janice in that hospital bed, her skin yellowed, her breath rasping like broken glass. I swallow hard, forcing the memory back down, but it sticks in my throat, sharp and bitter.
I tell myself I’m OK.
We roll past my old high school. Kenwood Academy. The bricks are darker now, streaked with time and neglect, but it’s still the same place. I can see myself there, in the gymnasium after we’d sneak out of class, fueled on our juvenile highs. My crew was here—Doug, Robyn, Heather—juveniles with dreams bigger than this city, bigger than their broken homes. And then there was Mark. I haven’t thought about him in years––a forced proposition––but the sight of the school hits me like a punch to the chest, sharp and sudden. We were so young, stupid with love, or whatever we thought love was. I was just a kid, and so was he, but we clung to each other like lifelines, like we could drag each other out of this place. He made me feel like I mattered in a world that didn’t want us. He had all these big ideas, dreams of traveling the world. He’d talk about it endlessly—Monaco, always Monaco for some reason.
I force a laugh, imagining him there now, maybe living that life. Maybe with someone who wasn’t so broken, someone he didn’t have to save, someone who didn’t just… disappear. I left him with no warning. One day I was there, under the Belmont Overpass, his lips on mine, his hands in my deep brown hair, and the next, I was gone—on a plane to London, leaving behind everything we’d built in those short few years, or thought we had. I tell myself he’s forgotten me, that he’s too smart, too driven to hold on to someone who shattered him the way I did. Maybe he’s in Monaco right now, drinking his martinis, laughing with a beautiful blonde. And he’s long since wiped me from his mind. That thought—it brings me comfort. He deserves to forget me. He deserves better.
The cab jerks to a sudden stop, slamming me forward. My hands hit the cold plastic partition with a thud, the impact vibrating up my arms. For a second, I sit there, frozen, the stale heat of the cab pressing against my skin. My heart is racing, my breath shallow.
I glance up, and the driver is staring at me through the rearview mirror. His gaze lingers, steady, searching, and it sends a prickle of unease across my skin.
What does he want? Why is he looking at me like that?
“You need help with your bags?” he asks finally, his voice rough, gravelly, but not unfriendly.
“No,” I say. “I’ve got it.”
He nods, his face unreadable, then shifts back in his seat, staying where it’s warm. He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel his eyes on me as I open the door.
The cold hits me instantly, sharp and brutal, searing my lungs. It’s the kind of cold that doesn’t just skim the surface—it burrows deep, sinking into your bones. My boots crunch against the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk, and I pause for a moment.
I’m not ready for this. For any of it.
The building is right in front of me, redbrick and solid, its windows dark and empty. My chest tightens, and I can feel the weight of it—the why. The reason I’m here. I move to the trunk, pulling my bag out with numb fingers. The handle is icy, and it stings, but I barely feel it. I can’t feel much of anything right now. The driver is still watching me, his face half-hidden in shadow, but I don’t look at him. I don’t say goodbye. I just turn away, dragging my bag behind me as the wheels catch and stick in the snow.
My toes are already numb in my heels, and I curse myself for being stupid enough to wear them. Eight years in Los Angeles have mollycoddled me. I’d forgotten how this kind of cold doesn’t just sting.
The weight of it all—this place, this moment—is crushing.
And yet, I keep walking.
