8. Christian

EIGHT

CHRISTIAN

I made my slow and meandering way along the main street while my lips still tingled. It felt as though I had closed myself in a ball of shimmering light, my heartbeat irregular and pumping fears and anxiety into my bloodstream, my stomach restless and fluttery. It was the strangest feeling, all-consuming, impossible to escape, and difficult to ignore.

The snow crunched under my feet as I left Santa’s Village behind, passing the many shops along the way and pretending not to see the familiar faces looking at me.

My ears rang.

I had hoped to let go of these regrets when I told him how hard his move had hit me fifteen years ago. I had hoped to rid myself of the guilt I’d carried all these years. To the boy I had once been, severing the contact was easier than facing the sad existence of waiting when to hear from him next.

But it all went wrong again.

Instead of telling him I understood, I saw a possibility that had never crossed my mind. I saw something that felt like the swiftest way to resolve all our troubles. If only I could…

If only I could kiss you.

If only I could love you like you once loved me.

If only we could pick up where we left off.

But that wasn’t the way life worked. I leaped at it like a desperate gambler tossing the final pair of dice and lost. We both lost.

My fingertips moved over my lips before I realized what I was doing. The sweet scent of his cologne and the aromas of chocolate still lingered on me. The lavender scent of his shampoo remained on my fingers and brought tears to my eyes when I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with all I had of him.

Melancholia was a tough and shitty thing, yet I was prone to it the way Milo was drawn to crafts and finding beauty in the tiniest little things.

The wonderful Milo. My wonderful Milo.

Once I was well away from Santa’s Village, I walked aimlessly, taking turns here and there and following whichever sidewalk was shoveled cleaner of snow. The direction wasn’t even close to the first thing on my mind—it was Milo. It was the entirety of Milo’s life and being that crawled under my skin and made itself at home there.

On the day Milo left Christmas Falls, I roamed the streets we had once explored together. Every shop window that had once bore two reflections now only showed me mine. They showed me the loneliness and loss of the one thing I had never wanted to be without. Each friendly smile from the adult residents and shop owners only made me feel the vast emptiness that remained where Milo had been until that morning. Every thought that needed voicing strangled me because I had nobody to voice it to. Silly jokes I thought of on that day and on the days that followed brought tears to my eyes.

And now I wondered if every boy felt that way about his friends. I wondered if every man felt such an infinite desire to be with his friends. I wondered if other guys wanted to be so involved in their friends’ lives, to be so crucial to their existence, and to be the bringers of eternal joy. Was that what friends were like? Because it sure as hell felt like something Lauren had wanted from me yet never gotten.

Lauren, who fell out of love with me slowly, a bit at a time, whenever I disappointed her, who wanted me to come to her and sweep her off her feet and kiss her with uncontrolled desire. I loved her; I had no doubts about that. I wished her only the best and wanted to celebrate her successes and mourn her failures. I wanted to talk to her on the phone and hear where she was in life. But I didn’t want to wake up next to her. I didn’t want to tell her how hot my heart burned when she was around. I didn’t want to look into her eyes and feel the depth of grief over the time we had lost, then try to make up for it by kissing her despite all the risks.

In truth, I had kissed Milo not because I had hoped it would solve anything. I had kissed him because the need to do so blinded me. I knew, just then, in his kitchen, that not kissing him would kill me.

It felt as though it had been inevitable.

Because I want to kiss you , I thought. I want to cross the room in haste and put my arms around you and kiss you until your knees are weak and you’re out of breath .

My heart hammered faster. The fear of the welling desire was a natural response, I decided. And I wasn’t merely afraid; I was terrified. Not only did it dawn on me that I had wanted something entirely different from him for far longer than I had realized, but I understood just how close I had gotten to ruining it altogether.

Or was it too late?

Would I get another chance?