3. Trevor

3

TREVOR

I shouldn’t have saved shopping for the last minute, but here I am, in a jampacked mall, looking desperately for the perfect Christmas gift for my goddaughter.

It has to be perfect, something everyone will talk about for the rest of time. Something that will take the attention off of Iris and me this Christmas and put it on how great of a family member I am.

I can’t explain this need to prove myself as worthy to the Hawthorn clan. No one has given me the pink slip, fired me from the family.

After dinner last night, though, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m dead weight. Just a single guy with nothing to contribute other than a storm cloud. I turned into the Grinch once the Christmas seasons started, but since Iris and I broke up, I’ve been a real Eeyore.

So, I’m focusing all this pent-up energy and anxiety into gift hunting.

I’ve already been to three stores and haven’t managed to find much of anything, save an adorable pair of tiny Mary Janes and a fluffy dress I couldn’t pass up. But clothes aren’t really a present for kids, much less a baby. I need toys . Good ones. And not ones that make noise, that’s a rule from Rowan and Oliver.

As I stroll through the aisles of Toys a Million, I find my eyes glazing over as I examine doll after doll, box after box. My eyes are starting to hurt from the fluorescent lighting, and I’m getting annoyed by the same Top 40 songs in every store.

I’m not cut out for this work.

Iris and I always shopped for Rose’s gifts together. She was always able to sniff out the perfect pièce de resistance, and I’d find some bits and bobs to push the gift over the edge. We made a good team that way.

In lots of ways.

Until she decided we weren’t a team.

I stop in front of a display of Montessori toys, all made of natural wood with little color. I know this stuff is supposed to be good for child development, but man is it boring.

I pick up one of the boxes and start to read the copy on the back.

Am I really going to be the relative that starts buying a literal baby educational toys?

Argh. No.

“Hi, Trevor.”

I jump out of my skin at the sound of Iris’s voice.

“Jesus!” I lose my grip on the box.

It tumbles to the ground with a clatter.

Cursing under my breath, I bend over and grab the box, before coming face to face with my ex-fiancée.

“Sorry,” she says with a sheepish smile. Her blue hair is tied up in a flouncy, messy bun on top of her head.

I ignore how much I like the messy buns on her. Always reminds me of mornings with her. “What are you doing here?”

Iris lifts an eyebrow and smirks. “Uh…shopping for a toy for Rose? You? Deciding to start your Montessori collection?”

I roll my eyes and turn away without a response, heading back down the aisle.

Iris laughs and follows me, her fancy sneakers squeaking against the ground. “Oh, don’t be like that. I’m just teasing.”

Yes, I know. And teasing used to be so cute. Made my heart flutter, my stomach swoop. Now it’s just annoying.

I glance at her.

She’s carrying a box. “You found anything good?”

She presses the box to her chest. “No copying.”

“Why would I copy? That would ruin the point of gift giving.”

We continue walking, rounding into the next aisle.

She shrugs. “I don’t know, to make me look bad?”

“I’m not going to sacrifice giving Rose a good Christmas to make you look bad.”

“I don’t know that.”

I stop in my tracks and turn to face her.

That hurts more than I can say, but I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of having wounded me. “You really think I’m that petty?”

She puts a hand on her hip, narrowing her gray eyes. “You ignored me most of last night. I think you’re very petty.”

Fair point .

“Whatever. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to look for a gift, so–”

“Me too. This is only the pièce de resistance.”

My insides shudder at the fact she echoed a thought I had not three minutes earlier. “Yeah, well, good luck.”

“You too.”

We part ways, and I continue my search.

Except, I don’t. Not really. Now that I know Iris is here, I can feel her everywhere. I don’t have to see her.

My body is alert to her, to her exact direction, to her exact distance. And it kills me.

We’ve been apart for half a year, my body should have reset, be able to let her go.

That’s so not the case.

I start combing through some dolls and find one that doesn’t have items too small Rose might accidentally swallow them. It’s a start. Nothing exceptional, but…it’ll have to do.

As I turn into the next aisle, my body lurches. Iris is here.

And sure enough, there she is, combing through stuffies. She picks up one dog and frowns at it, then drops it into the basket and grabs a giraffe. Her focus breaks, her eyes shooting to me.

Fuck, I’ve been staring.

Idiot .

“Can I help you?”

I gnash on my lower lip. I don’t have to make this hell for both of us. I don’t. “She’s really into hippos now.”

Iris frowns.

“Rose, she likes hippos.”

Her expression lightens. “Oh. Thanks. That’s helpful.” She reaches into the bin and pulls out a fluffy hippo.

Rose will love that.

She shakes her head. “God, I’ve missed so much. I remember when it was–”

I walk a little bit closer. “Giraffes. Yeah. That phase didn’t last much longer after you…” I clear my throat.

I don’t need to bring up the past anymore. We both get it.

It sucks. This. Us.

I realize Iris is no longer holding the box she had earlier. “Changed your mind on the main event?”

“Yeah, I…it needs to be perfect, and it wasn’t.”

We are both quiet. I watch Iris’s hand wring the neck of that poor hippo. She’s nervous. I don’t blame her. So am I.

She looks at what I’m carrying. “You still don’t have anything?”

I shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket, sighing heavily. “I don’t know what I’m doing, to be honest. All I managed was some clothes and that’s a gift for Rowan more than Rose.”

Iris giggles.

My chest fills up with all the moments before where I thought to myself, “I love that laugh. I’ll love that laugh forever.”

Unfortunately for me, that might still be true.

“Um, maybe we should team up. You know, if we’re trying to set things aside and make Christmas good for Rose–” Iris begins.

Surprising both of us, I say, “I like that idea.”

And I do. We’re better as a team. In this respect and this respect alone.

Iris smiles and nods. “Cool. Well.” She holds up the hippo. “One down.”

“And we’re going to spoil her, right?”

“Oh, no question.”

“Then at least five to go. Come on.”

Together, we patrol the aisles. Aisles I’ve already gone down suddenly come alive with ideas, thanks to Iris.

She points out a magnificent dollhouse I missed, and we both agree that it would be the perfect centerpiece for our gift.

We pick out a puzzle and some books and then I spy a pink, sparkly scooter that Rose will have to grow into, but I can’t resist.

“They’re going to hate us for this.” Iris smiles.

I smirk. “What kind of godparents would we be if we’re not competing with her actual parents?”

We smile at each other and for a moment, just a moment, I forget the past six months. I feel as though I’ve been transported back in time to when we were a team. When each day was special because Iris was in it.

God… The number of times I’ve wished we could go back in time to before everything fell apart.

Why haven’t they invented a time machine yet?

I break away first, wiping the smile from my face. “Okay. A few more things and then I think we’ll be sufficiently annoying.”

A few minutes later, we’re ready to check out.

“Lucky kid.” The cashier smiles as she rings us up, and I get the distinct impression she thinks we’re shopping for our own child.

Another heartbreak.

I didn’t just lose Iris six months ago. I lost the family we had planned to create together.

“Yes, our goddaughter is spoiled,” Iris replies, effectively slashing that dream in half.

We walk out of Toys a Million with bags a million. We are a child’s dream with all these toys.

I fall into step beside Iris. “That was a good idea. To team up.”

“Thank you, I’m glad you admit it.”

I chuckle but don’t know what to say.

I should say goodbye, but I don’t really want to. Which confuses me beyond belief considering last night I barely wanted to be in the same room with her.

“I’m kinda hungry. You want to go grab a pretzel at the food court?” Iris raises one shoulder.

I bend my lips down. “Mm. A pretzel.”

“You can just say no. Don’t have to add the flare of assholery.” She laughs awkwardly.

I press my lips together.

I haven’t been trying to be an asshole. I’m trying to protect myself. “I could do a pretzel.”

Iris’s eyes widen. “Oh. Okay. Cool.”

“Unless you were just being polite, in which case–”

“No, let’s go get a pretzel, that would be good. We can…catch up.”

I had no intentions of catching up with Iris during her stay in Chicago. Yet here I am, almost eager to spend a little more time with her, to draw back the curtain on the past six months.

I admit, I’m curious to find out if hers have been as hellish as mine. Not that I’d tell her I’ve missed her. Not after she hurt me the way she did.

We go to the food court, and each get a pretzel and a lemonade too because what’s a pretzel without a big gulp-size of lemonade?

We sit at a table across from each other.

It’s a bit too small, a bit too close for comfort. As I adjust in my seat, my knee brushes hers more than once, and my body reacts with a flare in my chest.

Stupid muscle memory .

“How long are you in town?” I pull off a bit of pretzel.

Iris licks some butter of her thumb. Her nails are decorated like presents, little red detailed ribbons and white stripes of wrapping paper. Adorable, as usual.

Dammit .

“I’m leaving on the twenty-seventh. We don’t get the time off between Christmas and New Year’s at the office, so–”

“That’s annoying.”

She shrugs. “We have to hit the ground running on development for our first project of the year.”

We fall into silence.

Chewing, swallowing, sipping. Asking questions is like touching a livewire. Dangerous. Could get shocked.

But my curiosity is overwhelming. I want to know if it was worth it. If exchanging us for her work is something she regrets or…not.

“You like it, then? The work?”

Iris puts down the next bit of pretzel she was about to eat. “I like it enough. They work us like dogs, but it’s great money and once I’m there for a year, I’ll be able to start pitching my ideas.”

Iris has great ideas for video games. She’s even developed a few indies herself.

I remember how she showed them to me after I begged her too. She was embarrassed, pointing out all the flaws, how if she had a bit more manpower she could have accomplished more.

I tried to tell her how impressed I was. How special her work was. Maybe she believed me enough to go after her dreams.

And she…deserves that.

“And you like Seattle?”

Iris tilts her head to the side. “Trevor, come on.”

“Come on what?”

She blinks a few times, lashes fluttering.

She doesn’t have any makeup on, except mascara, right now. That’s one thing she feels naked without. “I can’t help but feel you’re trying to play gotcha or something.”

I shake my head. “I’m just curious. Rowan and Oliver don’t talk about you.” At my request . “So, I don’t know how you’ve been.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

Harsh. An uppercut to the jaw.

“Of course, I care.” More than I want to. More than I let on.

Iris chews on the corner of her lip. Wary of me.

She wasn’t even this wary on our first date, and I was just a stranger from a dating app.

Hard to believe a stranger might make her feel safer than I could right now.

“Be honest with me,” she says, gentleness in her voice. “And don’t get mad when I say this, but…”

My thigh muscles tighten in preparation to not get mad.

“I think you want to know if I regret taking the job. Is that true?”

I blink a few times. “I…”

“Be honest, it’s fine.”

I close my eyes. I’m so frustrated. Not with her. With me. “That’s not all want to know, but…” I rub my hands over my face. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

It’s strange to me, but Iris smiles. It’s a sad sort of smile. A smile she wishes could be different I think. “I don’t, Trevor.”

I suck in a breath. Another punch, this one to the gut.

I can’t conceal how her answer makes me feel. “Sorry, I–”

“It’s okay, I know that can’t be pleasant to hear.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s not.”

I’m no longer hungry. The smell of the buttery pretzel’s making me nauseous. I reach for my lemonade, hoping it can tamp down the churning in my belly.

“Look, Trev…”

Not the nickname…

“I know apologies mean nothing. You made that clear.”

The night everything fell apart between us, there was no lack of apologies from Iris. They fell on my deaf ears. Because it couldn’t fix what had happened.

“And while I’m sorry that the way I made my decision hurt you…I can’t help but wonder how you would have reacted if I had told you that I was applying for a job in Seattle. That I got a job in Seattle.”

“I would have supported you.”

“Not the way I needed to be supported.”

I move back in my seat, her words a physical push to my chest.

“You would have been scared that things would have to change. I know you, Trevor. You were so locked in on our future.”

“And you weren’t?”

“I was, but you were so rigid about everything once we got engaged.”

There’s no tone of accusation, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like one.

“That we’d get married a year after the engagement, and then we’d start trying for a baby six months in, it’s like you had this schedule, and it felt like there was no room for life to surprise us.”

“So, you took that into your own hands? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Iris pinches the bridge of her nose. “No, that’s not–”

“That you wanted to fuck things up so that–”

“Trevor, let me talk! You have never let me talk about this.”

I’m stunned to see tears swimming in her gray eyes.

“I saw the position. I applied. On a whim. I didn’t think anything would amount. And then I got an interview and another and then they offered me the position. And each milestone, I thought, ‘I’ll tell him. He deserves to know.’ And that’s true . You did deserve to know. But…”

I watch Iris with bated breath. Begging for more with my eyes.

“I knew your first reaction wouldn’t be to celebrate me.”

“Of course, I’d celebrate you.”

Iris shakes her head. “Not the first reaction. I could see it play out. I knew you’d hear ‘job in Seattle,’ and your whole five-year plan would collapse out from under you and that would scare you more than you would be able to support me.”

I open my mouth to respond, but no words come out because…

Because she’s right.

“You’d get there.” She smiles. “Of course, you would. I know you wanted me to follow my dreams. And if it wasn’t clear, I wanted to do that and make a life with you. It just felt like the possibility of following my dreams was growing smaller by the day. We’d get married, I’d have to become a mother–”

“Have to,” I echo.

Iris’s jaw tightens. “You know it’s not like the movies. You know it’s not easy to have a baby.”

“Of course not, but–”

“I would have resented you if you convinced me to stay. That’s the simple truth. And I didn’t want that to happen with us, Trevor. Because I love…”

I hold my breath.

“I loved you.”

Past tense.

“I loved you too,” I reply, but only because saying “love” present would be embarrassing for me. Confusing too, considering the way I despise her for letting us fall apart is still so great.

Iris wipes at her eyes, catching a few tears before they fall. “I should go. You want me to take the bags or–”

“I’ll take them.”

She pushes herself out from the table. “Okay. Thanks.”

I focus my eyes on her unfinished pretzel so as not to watch her go.

I watched Iris walk away six months ago, and my entire world imploded. I watched her walk away last night, and I let her beauty get the best of me. If I watch her now, who knows what will happen?

Except, once her footsteps have flurried away, and I am left alone in the mall food court, I regret not having a final image of her to hold onto.

I’m doomed to suffer her loss again and again for the rest of my life.