They had been together for about nine months when New Year’s Eve rolled around. The so-called punks still lived in his hometown of Kalamazoo, but the four and a half of them had already spent a fair amount of time together in one city or the other, and so the punks came to Chicago for New Year’s and they all went out for sushi and came home and stayed up talking and laughing and playing games and watching movies and sleeping in a big stupid pile, which meant that because there was no guest room you grabbed a blanket and went to sleep whenever or wherever you wanted, middle of a game or movie. This was the first of many best New Years spent with the so-called punks. This was the first of many best times spent with the so-called punks. This was her first New Year’s with a boyfriend, first New Year’s ever as a couple hanging with another couple. There were a lot of firsts that year. Good firsts. First guy to tell her he loved her (okay look, there are one or two other examples where those words went out there, but try to trust that we can disqualify those), first guy she’d been with for nine straight months, first guy she brought home to her dad’s for Christmas. First guy she would actually have brought home to her mom in over a decade, if her mom were still alive. Both her parents are now long dead, so yay, no one in her business now that it’s over.