★ WINNER: 2024 DBT Literary Awards "First Place: Contemporary Fiction" Aisha isn't known to hold her tongue, but that's until she finds out her boyfriend and her best friend are having an affair on New Year's Eve. This sends her packing. She leaves Denver and moves to Dallas to have the time and space to process the betrayal. Spending time alone also spotlights other issues she has been trying to conceal: her broken relationship with her mother, her growing apart from her brother, and the impact of her late absentee father on her life. Aisha is overwhelmed by everything, so instead of using her time away to "do the work," she spends weeks putting it off and indulging in every possible distraction-until she hits a wall. Aisha will have to either confront the ghosts from her past before the year ends or continue to pretend they aren't there and let them haunt her until the very end.