From the moment the concept of fear was presented to me as a child, one moment defined the word. I didn't know it would be in late November or that it would be a Tuesday. I never knew it would be a gray day with winds that whipped with an icy bite. When I moved into my condo, I never imagined that would be where I'd fall to the floor in a pile of nothing. Not knowing any of this still didn't make the day any less inevitable.

"Your father died last night," my mom's voice slightly wavered as she spoke.

I don't know what I said. I don't know what she said. I just stopped. My heart stopped beating until my veins screamed. My lungs stopped breathing until my chest throbbed. My mind simply stopped thinking.

The motion was good; the tasks were good. When I returned to reality, I was already dealing with the hospital and funeral home. And that's what I did; I planned, confirmed, and reconfirmed. If there were forms and decisions, I didn't have to think. Thinking had always been my enemy, but my mind was devoid of thought in the days after my father's passing. Then, as quickly as the questions, forms, and decisions came, they were done.

After I walked away from Billy Collins, I got used to the idea of being alone. I convinced myself that choosing loneliness made it less lonely, but I was never really alone. My dad was there. I always had my dad. True loneliness, the kind that permeated my core and changed every perception I had ever had, didn't come until he was gone. But when he was gone, it immediately overtook my soul.

In weak moments, I had thought to call Billy. If anyone could fix me, it was Billy Collins. Truth be told, I probably would have, but I no longer had a way to contact him. It had been nearly ten years since I had walked away from his farmhouse. Four hundred and ninety-three weeks had passed since I had stepped foot in Duluth. Three thousand four hundred and fifty-one days faded the memories, thoughts, and emotions.

I resigned myself to return to the motions of life as a broken woman. I had ten years of experience holding people out. The one thing I learned from Billy was that I wasn't equipped to be in love. I was unwilling to relinquish control and let one emotion threaten to rip me open. I comforted myself by knowing it was a choice. I avoided erratic passion. I lived a life colorblind. My gray scale was a comfort, and this life in a gray world allowed me to float through the same motions even as I watched dirt fall into the grave of the last piece of my heart.

The afternoon after my father's burial, I was back in my office working; meetings, calls, emails, life. Staying busy was what I knew and what made me successful. It was dark when I looked up one evening a few days later. By the dimness of the floor, I knew I was the only one left in the office. Outside, night had fully blanketed the world. In a quiet moment of indulgence, I flicked the lights off and let the freshly hung twinkle lights throw sparkles of illumination around my office.

Somewhere, people were celebrating the holiday season. I slumped back into my office chair and let my mind slip into a soothing empty. At least, that was my plan. Someone shattered it by urgently banging on the door to the office floor.

I heaved myself up, expecting to see the cleaning crew. They occasionally forgot their pass and would bang to see if anyone was left to let them in; often, I was. At this point, where else would I be? The banging was incessant, though, and ire rose in me, quickening my pace. I set my expression to annoyance as I approached the door, but it wasn't the cleaning crew; it was a frantic courier.

"Hey, receiving is on the first floor," I directed.

"No, this is for a Lily Turncott on the third floor. Sorry I'm so late. The holiday shipping started early this year," he explained as he shoved the signature pad at me.

I didn't choose to sign; it was just an automatic response. I could have been signing my death certificate for all I knew. I handed it back to him as he gave me a familiar package. My eyes devoured it; I don't even recall if the courier said goodbye.

Since I moved out of my parent's house at eighteen, my father had bought me a local landmark ornament for my Christmas tree every year. He'd always give it to me on Christmas Eve to hang on my tree that evening. It was our tradition. For the past ten years, he had started a second tradition. On the second Monday after Thanksgiving, an album would appear at my office. We never spoke of it; it just occurred. But how could it still happen?

I ripped the paper off to find a 7" album of I'm Your Puppet, and my stomach plummeted. It hadn't been my dad. It couldn't have been. He was gone. Anger ripped through my emotionless state. Raw, unfiltered anger at the only remaining person who would've sent an annual album.

I don't remember how it happened. One minute I was standing in my office as a fond tradition I thought I had shared with my father curdled in my hands, and the next, I was staring out a plane window at the flashing lights that adorned the wingtip. Anger was still toppling me. We had an agreement, walk away. That implied no contact. If my dad didn't send the albums, only one other person would've, and the anger quickly soured to hatred.

I had no plan. For a person who prides herself on order and planning, Billy Collins could burn that house down from half a country away while asleep. I tossed and turned on the rough sheets of the Duluth hotel bed. I warred between just dropping the box of records off at his studio's front desk or attempting to see him.

As I neared the studio, the vibration in my chest at his nearing proximity made the answer for me; drop the records and run. It was just before 9 am, so I wasn't even sure if the studio would be open. Do recording studios open that early? I could just leave them at the front door and run away. Nothing wrong with a forty-year-old dropping a suspicious package at the front of a celebrity's studio. What's the worst that could happen?

The worse that could happen started with the doors being open.

"Hi." Suddenly all my career woman powers of the previous ten years melted at the mild prospect of coming face-to-face with Billy. "I'm just looking to leave this here."

"For whom?" There was a snap to the young receptionist's tone despite her not even looking up at me.

"Billy Collins," I stammered.

"We don't just accept packages for Mr. Collins. Is he expecting this?"

"Sure, you can tell him it's a return from Lily Turncott." My anger filled me with more confidence.

"What was the name again?" Her eyes snapped to mine.

I sputtered for a moment as my mouth made the movement of words without producing sound.

"Lily Turncott?" Her eyes suddenly dipped to her screen. "Please hold on a moment while I try to reach him."

"No, don't reach him. I don't want to reach him. I'm just leaving these here," I stammered.

But she was already on the phone and holding an annoyed hand up to me to wait, and I, like a scolded child in the principal's office, muted my protests.

"Yes, I have a Lily Turncott out front with a package for Billy." She paused. "Sounds good." She hung up the phone and raised her face to my gaze. "He'll be with you in just a moment."

"No, I don't want to see him. I'm just dropping this off," I argued.

"If you just hold on, you can drop it off in person," she shot back, matching my annoyance.

I sucked in a deep breath and did the only thing I could do; I ran. I swiveled on my block heel and headed for the door just as I heard the throaty voice call my name, but I didn't stop. I pushed through it and quickened my step to my rental car.

"Lily," the voice came again. I could hear him coming closer now. He would catch me. His long legs were no match for mine, but I needed him to know that I didn't want to see him. "Lily, stop." His arm circled my waist.

"Put me down, Tim," I demanded.

"You really thought you could get away from me, Road Runner?"

"Yes, that was obviously the plan," I admitted.

"Lily, stop; you came all this way. You can't run now." His voice was softer, lulling me into a trap to prevent me from running.

"Fine," I admitted defeat as Tim released his grip.

At the glimmer of freedom, I took a quick shot at running again, but he had expected it and easily clamped me with his arms.

"Really?" But as much as he tried to sound annoyed, a touch of laughter seeped into his tone.

"You got old," I shot as I finally turned to face him.

"Great seeing you too, Lily."

"Put on a few pounds as well," I added.

"Always a pleasure," Tim winced. "What's going on? Why have you brought your charming self here after all these years?" Concern filled his face as he inspected me.

"He's been sending me records every year for ten fucking years." I added as much fury to my words as I could. I needed Tim to feel the anger I felt.

"What?" All Tim's voice revealed was confusion.

"For ten fucking years, he has been sending me a record on the second Monday after Thanksgiving." My voice was rising with the all-consuming anger I had recently befriended.

"That's so random. Are you sure it's him?"

"Yeah, I thought it was my dad, but," I paused. I didn't want to tell Tim about my dad. I didn't want to distract myself from my rage. "I know it's not him. It's Billy." My words curled around his name like a snake coiling before a pounce.

Tim's eyes briefly flickered behind me before he set a hand on my shoulder and gently attempted to usher me inside. "Let's go to my office and figure this out."

"No," I pulled away from his hand. "I don't want to go inside there. I just came to give them back, so he knows to stop."

"Yeah, yeah. No, I get it. Let's just take a quick look at them inside. Maybe it's not him." But Tim wasn't looking at me as he spoke and was now nearly shoving me towards the door.

In an instant, I knew why, but it was too late; the grainy voice called out a "morning" before a car door slammed behind the greeting.

"You people are supposed to be rock stars; aren't you supposed to sleep until noon?" I grumbled.

"Yeah, we're rock stars in our 40s with fucking kids," Tim barked back as he tried to hide me behind him.

"So, I was thinking about Dagger, and we got to change the cover, man. At least the color scheme, the purple tone doesn't fit." Billy's voice came absently as he paced towards us. "Oh, shit, sorry; I didn't realize you were with..." His eyes fell on me as his words dropped. They burned into me for barely a second before the fury flickered to Tim. "You called her?" The accusation fell from Billy with unmistakable disdain.

"No, Billy, I..." Tim stammered.

"Fuck you, Tim. Just fuck you." His eyes moved to me with a rage I had never seen before. "My choice, Lily. We decided it was my choice and here are you taking that away from me too?" And then he paced by us both.

"Billy..." I called after him, but it was no use.

"Well, honestly, that went better than I had expected." Tim shrugged.

"Is he okay?" My anger had flipped to panic. The man that had just looked at me, the man that just spat words with venom, was not Billy Collins.

"Why did you come here, Lily?" Tim finally matched the anger I was feeling. "You could have just shipped them back."

"Honestly, I don't know. I got this year's, realized it wasn't from my dad, and blacked out. It may have been a rage blackout. I've read that can happen. The next thing I knew, I was on a plane."

"Rage blackout," Tim nodded as he stepped back from me.

"Timmy!"

"Oh, we're back to Timmy now. One rage blackout and we are back to chummy names." A jest in his tone quelled the anger between us, but unmistakable shades of hurt also filled his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Timmy. I just... with Billy... and you two... everyone really..." I stammered.

"Are incoherent thoughts the beginning of a rage blackout? I want to know the warning signs."

"I'll just go and take my rage blackouts and incoherent thoughts with me." I turned and continued to my car.

"Wait," Tim called out with a sigh of resignation. "If Tess found out you were here, and I didn't invite your over for dinner, she'd divorce me, and you know how I hate paperwork."

I paused, trying to calm the twelve-year-old screaming inside me out of the excitement of seeing her friends again. "You don't have to," I evened my tone as I spoke.

"I know I don't have to, Lil."

Lil, he called me Lil. I kept my face smooth, but inside, my heart pounded alive again, spreading warmth through me for the first time since my world had stopped.

"I want you to come," he added in a softer voice.

"You sure? I mean, Billy..." I didn't want to cause more friction than I already had.

"I'll deal with Billy. It's fine. It's just dinner."

"Okay, text me your address." I pulled my business card from my purse and handed it to him before quickly leaving. Part of me expected him to rescind the offer if I stuck around too long.