You really hurt my feelings, you know. That first time you invited me over to your mom’s house.

It was Christmas time. Real Christmas time, not the endless, unnatural jingle hell that you and I live in every day, working for Winter Wonderland.

You’d think after three years of shoveling reindeer shit to a steady soundtrack of Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey, I’d be relieved to go home to an empty apartment and a dinner of fucking anything other than turkey or ham, no matter what time of year it was. That’s actually part of why I took the job. A vaccine against the holiday blues. Immunity by overexposure.

But the fact remained I had nowhere in particular to be on Christmas Eve after work. And you knew that I didn’t.

I guess I should have suspected something was off when you made the offer. It’s not as if we were friends.

We were coworkers. Acquaintances. Casual enemies, maybe. Not friends. I was that pain in the ass liability from the reindeer paddock who could never seem to keep her humor or her language quite Rankin and Bass enough during park hours. And you were that insufferable ‘spirit leader’ from the gingerbread bakery who was always on my case about it, even when the guests were laughing and happy.

I told myself that I was accepting your invitation just to spite you. That you didn’t really expect me to take you up on it. That it would serve you right for making such a public show of how good, how perfect you and your whole family had to be, to open your home to random hangers-on, instead of closing ranks like normal people during the holidays.

You texted me on December twenty-third with the closest thing you ever gave me to a warning. You said your mom was going through a tough time, and that it would mean a lot if I could just bear with her. You said she needed people around her.

I never would have told you this at the time, but I thought that was kind of sweet. I thought it meant you really trusted me for some reason, or, more likely, you were spinning a tale to make me feel like I was doing you a favor, when you really meant it to be the opposite.

I put on a nice green sweater, brushed my hair, and brought along a pumpkin pie. Store bought, of course. I barely know how to bake canned biscuits. But I made sure it was a nice one, and I brought the can of whipped cream to go with it.

I knocked on the door, and I got so nervous, waiting for you to answer.

I’m an elf at a year-round Christmas theme park. Being on my best holiday behavior is my literal full-time job, and as you’d so often pointed out, I wasn’t particularly good at it.

If I weren’t a damn skilled reindeer handler, I probably would have been out on my ass long ago.

You thought it was because I didn’t care, and I preferred to let people think that. But standing there on that doorstep, waiting to be admitted into a real, private, family Christmas dinner, I was certain that, even if I tried my very best, I was going to say or do something wrong.

Imagine my shock when it was your mother whose behavior ruined everything. And it was her behavior. I haven’t changed my mind about that.

She started out sweet. She shook my hand and kissed my cheek, like I was a dear old friend, and learned my name on the first try.

Then she tucked the pie away in the kitchen.

I wasn’t the only person who brought an offering of food to contribute to the dinner, and they weren’t all desserts. I remember Liz, the one other guest from work, brought a nice charcuterie board that was definitely intended as an appetizer.

But your mother tucked that away too.

What she did serve right away was spiked eggnog, hard apple cider, and mulled wine.

Now, don’t get me wrong, an extended cocktail hour would normally be about as close to my kind of a party as a Christmas party could be. But just as I was getting a nice buzz on, and starting to feel a little bit cozy on the couch between you and your mom, surrounded by friendly, happy people who didn’t seem half as uptight as I’d imagined, that was when she let the other shoe drop.

“Present time!” she announced, and twisted around to take a giant box from behind the couch and place it on the coffee table. “This year, I was able to get you all some deep, deep discounts on everything in the Indulgeables winter catalog!”

She opened the box, which was full of soaps, candles, massage tools, bubble baths, heating pads, all that kind of stuff, each piece emblazoned with that sparkly, purple Indulgeables logo.

“Now, I do expect each of you to spend at least a hundred dollars on comfort and joy tonight! Don’t make me chase you down.” She shook her finger and looked around the room like she was indulgently scolding a kindergarten class about not wiping our fingers on the tablecloth.

My stomach was slipping down into my shoes, but what hurt most was the look you gave me. You rolled your eyes behind your mom’s back, yes, like she was saying an overly long grace. But then you smiled at me, so prematurely grateful.

You both just assumed that we’d all go along with this.

I know when I’m being used. So, I stood up.

“Welp, this was fun,” I said. “Enjoy the pie.”

It didn’t have to be a scene.

But your mom grabbed me. You both did. One of you on each of my hands.

“Don’t be silly!” she said, pulling on me in a way she probably thought was comical. I don’t think either of you actually expected me to pull back.

I slipped out of your grips, grabbed my ridiculous little velvet clutch purse and headed for the door.

“You’re drunk,” your mom accused me.

“Yeah, a little,” I said. “Just like you planned. Diabolical. Really.”

“Please,” you joined her. “I can’t in good conscience let you drive in this condition.”

“I’ll rideshare,” I said.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” you said. “Do you realize what that would cost?”

“Yeah, and it sucks!” I said. “I get it. I get that I’m screwed either way. It’s all masterfully orchestrated, really. But Uber isn’t the one who pretended to invite me over for the holidays so it could extort me. So guess who gets my money?”

“I didn’t pretend anything,” you had the gall to say to me. “This is just how we do Christmas. Every family has their own traditions.”

I yanked on the door handle. “Why is this locked?”

“It’s just a precaution,” your mom said, looking so wounded. “You didn’t even look at what I’ve got! These are great deals!”

“Open the door,” I said.

“It won’t hurt you to hear me out,” she said. “Once you’ve tried the peppermint eye pillow, if you still feel this way, I’ll—”

“No,” I said. “Now.”

No one moved toward the door.

I looked to you. You were hunched over next to her, arms crossed in front of you. You could only hold my gaze for a couple seconds, and when you did, you were embarrassed, but also so angry. Angry with me.

I picked up some knickknack from a side table. A heavy ceramic snowman.

“Am I free to go, or not?” I asked.

I bounced the snowman up and down in my hand, openly weighing it.

There was silence, and then your mother opened her mouth again, still sitting on that couch.

“All I’m asking-”

[Window shatters]

I swung the snowman into that nice, floor-to-ceiling front window of your mother’s house, shattering the window and the snowman into fragments on the ground. I stepped over the mess, through the opening I’d made, and I left.

I didn’t look back, but I’ll admit to gaining a certain satisfaction when I heard Liz and a few of your other ‘guests’ escaping by the same route, once I’d made it an option. 

#

The next time I saw you would have been December the twenty-sixth. You walked past the reindeer paddock three times that morning, trying to catch my eye and looking like you were going to spit fire.

When I went to eat my lunch in my usual spot, in one of the gingerbread cottage facades along the reindeer trail, you followed me.

It was hard to eat my sandwich to the sound of all your agitated pacing outside, so I opened the cottage door.

[Door opens]

“Come in or fuck off,” I said.

[Footsteps, door closes]

You chose to come in.

That drafty little plywood room was only built three feet deep, to make the façade’s door and windows look like they led somewhere. It couldn’t help but cram us together.

I set my lunch aside, laced my fingers around my knees, and waited for you to yell whatever it was you wanted to yell.

You opened your mouth a few times, but your certainty seemed to chip away the longer you stood in that house with me.

Finally, you just said, “I promised my mom I’d get you to replace that window.”

“Oh,” I said. “I guess you’re breaking a promise to your mom.”

“You know, you completely ruined our Christmas,” you said. “Seems like the least you could do.”

“Oh, I completely ruined it?” I said. “So, pulling off that little holdup was the only worthwhile thing about Christmas for you? You know, if all that mattered was money, you could have just come to work yesterday. Holiday pay is double time.”

“It’s not about money,” you said. “My mom hasn’t made a dime off of Indulgeables that she hasn’t handed right back to them.”

“Yeah, I know how MLM scams work,” I said.

“It’s about making her feel better about herself,” you said, almost pleadingly.

“She doesn’t need a sales party for that, she needs a fucking deprogrammer. And maybe you do too.”

You bit your lip like you were trying to make it bleed. And then you went for the jugular.

“I thought you not having a family was just bad luck,” you said. “But maybe it’s because you’re too selfish to be part of one.”

I stood up, brushed off my green velvet elf dress, and raised my head to my full height.

“I could have told you that!” I shouted back at you. “My parents would be thrilled to tell you that. For fuck’s sake, if I wanted to spend my Christmas getting dragged into a pit of bullshit, I could have gone home!”

“I wish you had!” you spat at me.

“I always thought you were in such a rush to go home to your family because they were different,” I said. “I assumed that they didn’t turn every gathering into a hostage situation. But it turns out you just don’t have the spine to stop playing the hostage.”

You looked confused at that.

“I’m not a hostage,” you said.

“Oh, please,” I said. “You have to buy my mom a new window, or she’ll be disappointed in me! You have to pay her scam masters a hundred dollars, or my Christmas will be ruined. You have to stop swearing in front of the kids, or I’ll lose my completely meaningless ‘spirit leader’ title for not stopping you. Jesus fucking Christ, every word out of your mouth sounds like a ransom call. Well, I’m not paying it. Any of it. And if you had two vertebrae to rub together, you’d make your own escape so that you couldn’t be used as a weapon against anyone else.”

“Oh, is that what you did?” you asked.

“Something like that,” I said.

“Just that easy?”

I gathered up my lunch and stepped toward you. Toward the door you’d entered through.

You backed up, giving me a clear path through the cramped space. Maybe because it was the right thing to do. Maybe because you knew by then how I get when I’m cornered. You certainly didn’t look happy about it.

“Where are you going?” you asked.

“To find another cottage,” I said.

“Please,” you said. “For me, will you just—”

“But it’s not for you, don’t you get that?” I said. “You pretend things are for you, because you’re cute, and you’re pitiable, and people want to do nice things for you. But it’s never for you. It’s always for whoever’s pulling your strings. I bet you can’t even remember the last time you asked for anything you actually wanted for yourself!”

You looked at the floor, and sniffed in a wet breath.

My hand was on the doorhandle, and this one wasn’t locked. I could have just left, again, no destruction required.

But you are cute, and pitiable. Just like me. And I said, “Fine, spit it out.”

Our fast, agitated breath was heating up this tiny gingerbread cottage façade, in spite of the unfinished wood seams and the snow outside. You smelled like cinnamon sugar. I smelled like hay.

“I swear to god, the next thing out of your mouth had better not be about your m—”

And that’s when you kissed me.

It started as a hit and run. Your lips were on mine, hard, and before I could move, they were gone again, and your eyes were on me instead.

“Don’t go,” you said.

“I won’t change my mind about the window,” I said.

“I know,” you said.

And then I kissed you.

I wrapped my arms around your neck and held you by the hair.

Your knee worked its way between mine, inviting me to grind against it, to make this encounter into one that could not be described as “just a kiss.”

That day, I told myself that I would never be taken home to mama again. Not to yours, not to anyone’s. But this, this I could wrap my head around.

I rode your thigh, building up a bloom of friction heat where my thermal, candy-cane-striped tights met yours.

“Will you stay?” you whispered. “Can I stay?”

I couldn’t have made my enthusiasm any clearer, but you seemed to delight in asking me, over and over again.

Can I? May I? Would you? For me? Please?

I wasn’t going to try to take that from you. Like I’d said, you had a lot of lost time to make up for, when it came to asking for things you wanted.

So, we went through every request together, every step, one by one.

Yes, you can kiss my neck. Please do. Yes, you can put your hands on my ass. My breasts? Yes, that’s fine too. Yes, we can unfasten these plastic peppermint drop buttons, strip off the tights. Yes, you can come here and keep me warm. Yes, you can taste me, if you want. Yes, I want to taste you too, and see you, and feel you.

Yes, you can rub that hard, warm cock up against me. Yes, even there. Yes, that wet spot is all about you.

Yes, you can push it inside. Yes, all the way. Yes, you can fuck me right up against that flimsy strip of wall, as hard as you want, even if it makes the whole cottage shake. It’s okay, no one will know, no one wants to ride along the gingerbread village trail the day after Christmas.

Yes, keep going. Yes, just like that.

Yes, yes, yes.

#

That was the beginning of… well, we never gave it a name. Like it was an animal destined for the dinner table. But that didn’t stop me from getting attached.

Every day, I actually looked forward to going to work, so that I could see you.

We made our way around that whole park together, on breaks and closing shifts and slow summer weekdays. We stole moments together in the stables, in the lodge at the top of the ski slope, in the cars of the flying sleigh ride, and of course in every gingerbread cottage along that trail.

We hid gifts and messages for each other in a secret spot in the lower branches of one of the park’s giant Christmas trees. I had never been more excited to look under a Christmas tree in my life.

Sometimes we’d even go back to my apartment at the end of the night, to snuggle in front of a movie with hot chocolate and marshmallows, and then use a few of those gifts on each other, in ways that required more reliable privacy.

You turned out to be a more ravenous, more creative, more deranged lover than I ever would have believed out of a goody-goody stick-in-the-mud mama’s boy. Maybe I should have expected it for exactly that reason. All that thwarted personality had to find somewhere to go.

We both ended up taking turns wearing that old reindeer leash I brought home. And we both learned the hard way why you don’t mix cinnamon into whipped cream, if you’re planning to use it somewhere more sensitive than your mouth. You bought me one of those lingerie sets that open by tugging on a satin bow, like unwrapping a present. And the day after I let you unwrap me, you surprised me by jury-rigging a way of wrapping your own cock. There were big poofs of curling ribbon everywhere, and it ended up requiring the very, very careful use of some scissors for me to finally free you.

We learned so much about each other, so quickly at first, like there were certain details that just couldn’t wait to leak out and intermingle. I found out about your terror of mice, your addiction to fidget toys, and the fact that you sometimes went home from a day’s baking at the park to bake some more on your own terms.

I don’t care that you had to make them in a muffin tray, your pecan tarts were the best dessert I have ever had in my life. Well, the best food dessert.

During that beautiful year, I understood for the first time what people meant when they said they wished every day was Christmas. Our world of endless fairy lights and cookies and carols transformed from some twisted prison sentence, into the paradise it was supposed to be.

Every splash of color, every whiff of fragrance, every jingle of bells felt different. Magical.

My performance reviews got better. Mr. Stanbridge particularly noted my sharp increase in holiday spirit, and, ironically enough, in the wholesomeness of my attitude.

I can just picture the veins popping in his forehead, if he’d ever found out what you and I were doing, just out of view of the guests. But he never suspected. No one did.

We hid it from all of our coworkers, to avoid all those dating at work complications. You hid it from your mom. Couldn’t let her know that you were still seeing that horrible girl who owed her a window. And on my side… well, secrets were irrelevant on my side. There was no one to tell but the reindeer, and they’re very discreet.

If there had been anyone for me to talk to who was even one inch away from the situation, I’m sure they would have told me it was unsustainable.

Even from my vantage point, it was hard to miss.

I’m not a fool, I knew why you liked me. And it wasn’t about being cute, or even pitiable. And it wasn’t just sex, but….

I was an escape. A safely hidden act of defiance.

You wanted me, because I was nothing anyone had ever picked for you. And because you were hoping I would maybe rub off on you a little.

Every so often, when we were both fucked out and lying awake and naked together, I remember you would ask me difficult questions. Stuff like, “How do you just… do things, knowing that people will be mad?” And, “How do you know, when something’s beyond saving?” And even, “What was it like, that first year, breaking every tradition you’d ever known?”

You wanted to talk about that stuff.

I never did.

My past is not some juicy, intimate secret waiting to be unlocked upon reaching some special level of trust.

It’s a tired, old, boring story that you’ve already seen regurgitated in a thousand bad movies, and there is nothing on earth I wouldn’t rather spend my breath on.

I know, you were right in the middle of your own variation on the theme. You wanted to hold the hand of someone who knew their way out the other side. But the truth was, my way out had been a blind stumble that I had no confidence in being able to repeat, even if I’d had it in me to go back in after you.

“Honey, if you want a lecture, go find yourself a teacher.”

I said that to you, more than once.

#

It was December again, real December, when it all came to a head. When else?

[Feet shuffling through snow]

It was dawn, before opening time, and you and I were building a snowman up in the powder flats, to break the ice, so to speak, and make the guests feel more comfortable doing the same.

“So, my mom’s been asking if I’m bringing anyone to Christmas Eve dinner this year,” you said.

“Okay,” I said. “Are you?”

“Well, I guess that’s what I’m asking you,” you said. “Would you—”

“No,” I said.

I admit, there was a part of me that was happy to know that you were asking me that, rather than asking permission to ask someone else.

“She’s not selling Indulgeables anymore,” you said, oh so casually. “She’s on kind of a spiritual kick these days.”

“And what does this spiritual kick look like?” I asked.

You looked down at the snowball you were rolling up to torso size.

[Snow crunching]

“Well, her ‘guide’ will be there,” you said, with quotation marks in your voice. “And he’ll give a sermon, probably thirty or forty minutes. It’ll be mostly pseudoscience stuff about the practical power of prayer or something. She’ll cry and applaud, he’ll tell everyone how to donate to his work, but you don’t have to do it, I promise, and then we’ll all have dinner.”

I stacked my snowman head on top of your snowman body.

[Snow stacking]

“Pass,” I said.

“She’s my mom,” you said, like I wasn’t well aware of that. “I have to go.”

“So go,” I said. “Do your sonly duty, and when it’s over, you can make your getaway to my place for a little private after party.”

You didn’t seem to like the sound of that.

“Look,” you said. “I know my mom attracts some odd sorts. This guy seems about as harmless as they come, and if that’s true, I can put up with him for an evening for her. And if it’s not… Isn’t it better for her to have people around her who still have some perspective?”

“Yeah, you’re a real tempering influence,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked.

“Nothing, never mind. It’s not my business.”

“Not your business,” you muttered, like that was somehow the most heartless thing I could have said.

I could see you winding up for the killing blow, and then it came.

“Are we family?” you asked me.

Fuck, that word. That ugly, bitter syrup-flavored word.

It would have been so much easier if you’d just asked if I loved you. If I could envision my life entwined with yours right to the end. If ours was the closest, most important connection I had ever forged.

Any of those questions, I would have answered for you honestly that day.

But you said that word, and I froze, and you took that for my response.

“What are we doing here?” you asked, sticking decorative buttons too deep into the snowman’s face. “What’s the saying, ‘If you’re not dating for marriage, you’re dating for heartbreak’?”

I gagged out loud. Yeah, it was rude. You were never into me for my diplomacy skills.

“Did you pick up that reductive little nugget from your mom’s ‘guide’?” I asked.

“So what if I did? Maybe he’s got a point.”

[Footsteps in snow, heading away]

You grabbed your toboggan from where you’d wedged it up against the tree and shoved your way off down the hill toward your bakery station, to begin rolling out the morning dough.

#

We didn’t speak again for… a long time.

I wrote you a letter. I don’t remember exactly what was in it. I think I tried to explain myself. I offered up a few of the dull, depressing stories about my parents that you always seemed to feel so deprived of. I think I went with one of the million and seven times when my dad went off on me for accidentally letting on that I knew something he didn’t, and then my mom went off on me more quietly in the kitchen later, about how I needed to be more careful about not ruining his mood, for her sake.

Like I said, boring stuff.

I told you how pissed I was, and how badly I wanted you back anyway.

It was a rambling mess, and after a few days, it became a literal mess of slush and pulp as well, because you never picked it up from under the tree.

Ever wondered how a habit feels after it breaks?

Neither did I, before I found out.

I don’t know how I kept dragging myself to the park every day, knowing that I’d see you, but not hear from you.

I credit the reindeer with keeping me around. Changing jobs isn’t an easy or safe proposition for someone with no savings and no… family, to speak of, but I probably would have tried, if it hadn’t meant leaving the deer behind.

Without you, the magic had drained back out of everything else in the park. No, worse, it went right on glowing, casting light on everyone but me. But the reindeer were never that kind of magic in the first place.

Their magic comes from just… being alive.

They’re animals, with no idea what this elaborate cosplay we’ve involved them in is all about. Christmas Day is just another day to them, and what they want from me stays the same as it is all year. Clean hay, plenty of food pellets, and a certainty of not being grabbed at by surprise.

I get reindeer. I respect reindeer. And that year, I relied on the reindeer, more than ever.

Maybe that’s why I lost my cool the way I did, when I did.

It was real Christmas time, yet again, and things had gotten slowly, incomprehensibly, back to something like normal.

You had started speaking to me again, sort of. Not about anything serious, but you sniped at me at staff meetings, and sometimes I even enjoyed sniping back. Like it didn’t mean anything. Like nothing had ever happened that could have added any real weight to our words. It became a game in my head, seeing you prove that you still existed, and proving the same right back at you.

The crowds were thick, like they usually are in December right up until the big day.

The ice-skating pond was closed so its elves could scrape some fresh vomit off the surface, kids were crying, and parents were raising hell to anyone who would listen about how long the lines were for everything else, especially for the meet-and-greet with Santa.

Can’t break the illusion by letting a second Santa lighten the load now, can we?

I don’t know who it was who started suggesting to people that Santa’s reindeer were capable of passing messages to him if you whispered in their ears, but if I ever find out, I’m going to kick the coal out of their stocking. Suddenly, every family in the park seemed to think it was “the least I could do” to help them stick their kid’s face two inches away from an antler, since I’d obviously already ruined their Christmas with our unacceptable wait times.

Did I mention that reindeer don’t like having their heads touched unless they initiate it?

They’re not all that touchy-feely in general, actually, but they take head-touching as a particular sign of aggression.

I was giving my usual spiel to a fresh group of visitors, telling them all my north pole insider secrets, like how it was only the girl reindeer who had their antlers right now, because the boys shed theirs around November. I was busy demonstrating how to hold your palm flat to feed them, just like with a horse, when some dipshit at the edge of the group ran up to Vixen and wrapped his arms around her neck.

“Now!” he hissed at his wife, who snatched up their daughter to lift her up for a whisper.

“Sir, I need you to let go and step away,” I barked at him, with honestly more composure than I would have expected of myself.

He heard me, looked right at me, and did not let go. Vixen was vocalizing in distress and trying to struggle her way backward. Dipshit’s wife trotted over a little faster.

“For your own safety…” I said, right before Vixen ducked her head and tossed it back up, thumping dipshit right in the mouth with the flat of her antler.

[Painful thunk]

At that point, he let go, wiping away blood from a split lip. The kid started crying into her mom’s shoulder. Dipshit looked at her, and got that awful look in his eye, like he thought he was going to die if he didn’t prove something fast and hard.

He turned, hauled back, and lined up a punch for Vixen’s nose.

“I said back the fuck up!”

[Whip crack]

I shouted, shoving myself between them and snapping my sleigh whip in front of his face. It wasn’t a real whip, just a noisemaker with a string on it, and the reindeer knew that, but I don’t think he did.

Shock bought me five whole seconds of quiet from the crowd, the first quiet I’d heard all day, and then the girl started crying even louder.

“Yeah, that’s right, your daddy’s on the naughty list! It sucks, doesn’t it?”

I’m not proud of that comment.

Dipshit looked for a moment like he was going to throw the punch anyway, with me in front of it, but then he dissolved into semi-coherent whining about how I’d broken his jaw and almost taken his eye out, how he was going to sue the park, sue me, sue to have my vicious reindeer put down.

I looked away while he was babbling, and there you were, standing frozen on your usual ‘spirit leader’ rounds.

I thought for sure you’d got me this time. You’d seen me not only bend character but break it to pieces, and end up with unhappy guests in the process.

All you had to do was verify the few factual points of dipshit’s story, and you’d be rid of me for good.

But that’s not what happened.

Mr. Stanbridge grilled us both for over an hour about dipshit’s accusations. He made it clear he wanted the easy answers. He wanted verification that he could offer me up as a sacrifice, without anyone crying wrongful termination.

But you wouldn’t give that to him.

“The guest broke the rules and attacked the deer,” you kept saying. “She was trying to protect them both, and everyone else there. She tried Christmas-appropriate language first. He didn’t respond to anything short of a screaming F-bomb.”

No matter how many times Mr. Stanbridge asked you to reword your answer, you wouldn’t change its meaning.

Finally, he made us both sit in the hallway outside his office, while we waited for his lawyer to come in and take our statements all over again.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Sure,” you said.

I had to ask. “Since when do you…?”

“Have two vertebrae to rub together?” you finished for me.

“Frankly, yeah.”

You shrugged. “Don’t start expecting the whole skeleton or anything. But whatever parts I’ve got that are sturdy enough to stand up, you get first dibs on them.”

I could have turned that into something dirty, of course, but you sounded so earnest. And I was too distracted by the least suggestive of your choice of words.

“First dibs? Really?”

“Really,” you said. “Without you, I wouldn’t even know what standing up is supposed to look like.”

You rested your hand on the hallway floor between us. I put mine next to it. You stretched your pinkie closer, and so did I.

It was the first time we’d been this physically close to each other in a year, the first time I’d really been able to see how sunken your eyes were.

“You look awful,” I said.

“You don’t,” you said.

“Seriously, are you okay?” I asked.

You shrugged.

“Don’t worry,” you said, “it’s not about you.”

“I never said it was,” I pointed out.

You spent a while deciding, and then you said, “Mom’s ‘guide’ wasn’t so harmless.”

“Oh,” I said.

I didn’t want to gloat, not at all, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t sound that way.

“She, uh… she poisoned herself for him,” you said.

“Oh,” I said.

“She tried to poison me for him.”

“Oh.”

“It didn’t work,” you said.

“Obviously,” I said.

“I mean, it didn’t work on her either,” you said. “I didn’t drink it. She did, and it killed her kidneys and left the rest. She’s in the hospital. And she’s… sorry.”

I shuddered for you. It was the cruelest thing she could do to you after all that. Being sorry. The hardest, most inconvenient thing.

You shook yourself, rubbed your own shoulders like it was just the cold.

“Forget it,” you said. “It’s not your problem. Really. Just… bear with me if I’m a little low on spirit. I’m not really having a Christmas this year.”

#

I think that’s when I knew how serious, how lasting, the effect you’ve had on me really was.

It was when I realized that I could not bear the thought of you going a whole year making Christmases merry, without anyone trying to do the same for you.

So here I am, in the hospital parking garage.

I won’t lay all this on you tonight. I’ll hold onto it.

What I do have for you today is a car full of every bit of Christmas I could get my hands on.

There’s a little tree on the dashboard, tinsel hanging from the ceiling, oversized snowflakes stuck to the inside of the windows, opposite the actual frost outside.

The central storage compartment is full of roasted chestnuts and a thermos of warm cider, and you can imagine the playlist I have queued up. Oh yes, Mariah Carey is there.

I couldn’t afford to get you much to unwrap, but there is a stocking with your name on it on the passenger side door, full of fidget toys and a set of real tart pans.

Everything’s as close to perfect as I’m going to get it.

I’m about to call you, and if you tell me to fuck off, I will.

If you tell me I can stay, but that you can’t take the sound of another Christmas carol, I will strip off this hideous sweater and walk through the snow to sit with you, without bringing along any Christmas at all.

If you do take a break to join me here, I will drive you to the most beautiful street of lights I know, and I will take you out of that second hospital room, the one inside your head. I will drag you into your body with me, and distract you in every way I know. Or we can just stay right here in the garage and talk, about anything you want.

The only thing I want for myself tonight is the chance to tell you this. I can’t be a doormat, any more than you can be… all skeleton all the time. I can’t be anything other than myself. But if that’s something you want in your life, in your family, then yes. My answer is yes.

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