Chapter 19

Chapter 19StellaSnow came down in a drifting haze, making it hard to even see the end of the street, packed with people squeezing in for Christmas Eve shopping. People laughed and chattered with friends, family, loved ones all around us, and I kept my gaze straight ahead—I was in a different world, even from Clarissa, walking next to me with her hand in mine.I knew I was doing a halfhearted job. This was our magical Christmas experience. I was taking Clarissa back to Santa’s workshop, or so we said at least—it was a cute little kid-friendly workshop for sugar-cookie decorating, and Clarissa had been so excited about going and helping make cookies for the reindeer and Santa’s elves. Did the reindeer care what the cookies looked like?They did in Clarissa’s eyes, and I was spoiling the magic by being like this. But I’d been trying to mine up whatever little bits of Christmas magic and cheer I could ever since Gale left, and I just didn’t… I didn’t have anything to show for it.I squeezed Clarissa’s hand, only just noticing how quiet she’d been through the walk from the lodge. “Are you excited, Clari? Going to be a little artist.”“I’m not that little. I’m growing fast.”“Ah… so you have. Going to be a big, grown-up, full-fledged artist.”She smiled, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it. I was ruining her experience. But guilting myself into being happy wasn’t exactly a winning formula.The workshop was decorated exactly how it should have been, a big candy-cane archway at the front, gingerbread tables with gumdrop chairs, and candy-button lights above the crowds of people and their kids packed in practically bouncing with excitement. The smell of cinnamon and fresh-baked cookies was strong enough to knock out an elephant, but I got accustomed before long, and I led Clarissa up to check in for the workshop session with the coordinator—er, head elf.I really did my best. I smiled at Clarissa as we went through the workshop and complimented her work—which, just like Jemimah, was pretty solid except for the random nonsensical touches here and there, like an angry green goblin face added onto one cookie that she assured me was supposed to be a serious elf—and I followed the coordinator’s directions and made a couple of my own, piping colorful shapes onto sugar cookies and wondering what kind of cute designs Gale would make.But despite my best efforts, Clarissa gave me a sad look as we left, and I had a feeling it wasn’t because she was worried about the sugar crash she’d get from all the cookies we were taking home with us.“Did you have fun, Clari?” I said, walking close to her under the eaves of a row of townhouses with colorful lights strung up over the doors. Clarissa looked down.“I did.”Ugh, this poor kid. Guess pretending nothing was wrong wasn’t cutting it. I knelt in front of her, putting my hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Clarissa. What’s wrong?”She gave me the saddest little look I’d ever seen in my life, and she said, “You’re so sad. I don’t want you to be sad.”I’d been working on taping together the pieces of my heart, and then she went and said that, shattering what pitiful efforts I’d made. I squeezed her shoulder, trying to smile. “Oh, sweetie. I promise I’m okay. You don’t need to be sad for me.”She shook her head, hard, loose ginger curls waving around her face. “It’s because Abigail left, right?”I sighed. Kneeling in the snow under a bakery window wasn’t where I’d wanted to have this conversation. “I miss Abigail a lot, but I know how important it is for her to be with her family…”“We’re her family too,” she said with a pout. “It’s not fair. Is it because I told Grandma and Grandpa you were together?”I struggled trying to maintain my smile. “It’s not your fault, Clari. Promise. These things just… happen, sometimes.”“I miss her. It’s more fun when she’s here with us.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “You miss her, too, right? Did you have a fight and now you’re not together?”“We… we weren’t together in the first place, Clarissa. We’re just friends. And we’re still friends!”She looked up at me through her eyelashes. “That’s not true. I saw you holding hands and I saw you kiss her.”I hung my head. “Ah, yes. And where was that?”She clasped her hands at her waist, looking down and swaying. “Um… you know… I don’t want to say. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”“Sounds very naughty, Clari. Methinks the little lady—the very grownup young woman—is spinning some tall tales.”She huffed, turning away with a frustrated sound in her throat. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”I sure as hell got where this poor kid was coming from. I didn’t love the realization I was doing the same thing my family did all the time. “Clarissa…”She looked down. “I’m sorry for telling everyone about it… I didn’t think it would make her leave.”“Oh, honey.” I hugged her, my heart aching like I’d just reached in and wrung it like a wet towel. “It’s okay, sweetheart, all right? It’s not your fault. I promise. Honest. From the very bottom of my heart.”“But she’s not coming back…?” Her voice was so small, so scared, it… echoed what was in my head.All I wanted to know was the same question. Would we at least make it through to being friends at some point? Would we still be what we were before—what I’d lost and hurt over more than I’d realized?And… would that ever really be enough? Now that I knew what we could be, could we really just be friends? I didn’t believe I’d ever stop thinking about our time together, even if we spent a lifetime together as friends. Would I have what it took to celebrate her finding someone new—someone who could treat her right? What it took to say goodbye every year as she went to celebrate Christmas with somebody else?“I don’t think so,” I said, the words slipping out so quietly I could barely hear it myself. Clarissa gave me a heartbroken look, tears welling in her eyes.“But I want to see her again,” she insisted, her voice wavering, and it broke me, because my voice came out in a thin waver, too, only realizing when I spoke that there were tears in my eyes too.“I do, too, sweetheart,” I said, choking on the hot feeling in my throat. “I do, too.”She sniffled, and she fell against me, burying her face in my shoulder and letting me hug her tight—my fingers in her hair just holding her against me, an arm tight around her waist, like I was trying to hold her together when I knew full well it was me who was falling apart.That sad little look on her face kept haunting me through the rest of the evening, until I ended up in my bed at the lodge lying on my back staring at my text chat with Gale. The last message we’d sent, a see you soon with a kiss emoji, felt like a sick joke now, and I didn’t want to know how long it would take for us to send anything else… if we ever even would.She’d told me she would text me when she got home, to let me know at least that she’d made it safely. The first day, I’d assumed she’d just forgotten—she must have been tired, and I didn’t blame her if she just wanted to get home and collapse and cry, because that was all I’d done that evening. The next day she didn’t text, though, I’d worried she hated me and never wanted to message me again. Today, I was starting to worry something had happened to her, but... but she’d have texted me if it had been that, right? She’d at least let me know if something awful had happened, right?But I couldn’t just text her and ask. She’d told me she needed time before we could ever be friends again anyway… I had to give her that. At least give her that, if I couldn’t give her anything else.A knock on my door pulled me out of the spiral, and I set my phone aside. “Who is it?” I called.Faith’s voice drifted through the door. “Hey, Dad and I are going out to eat way too much sugar tonight. He wants to know if you could come.”“The man knows my phone number. He doesn’t have to use you as a messenger.”“Okay, well, he used me as a messenger. Is there an answer or should I tell him he needs to access you through the correct channels?”I sighed, flopping onto my back. “I’ll stay here tonight… I hope you two have fun, though.”There was a long pause, Faith not saying anything, and I’d started to wonder if she’d heard me or not before the door squeaked, pushing open. I shot Faith a look as she stepped inside, shutting the door behind her, folding her arms.“I said—” I started, but she just glowered.“Look, the last thing I want is you stirring up more family drama because you’re sad about your breakup.”“Break… what?” My head felt fuzzy. Faith rolled her eyes.“Your breakup. You know, when your much cooler girlfriend skips town because you’re too much of a wet rag.”I blinked fast, just trying to push the thoughts in my head into order. “The… Faith, are you talking about Abigail?”She threw her hands up. “What, how many other girls have you been dating here?”“How many—zero. I’m not a lesbian.”She snorted. “Look, I don’t care if you’re a nonbinary abrosexual biromantic demigirl, the point is I know you were dating Abigail, so just drop the act.”“The…” I shook my head, my brain feeling like it was full of cotton. “Faith, why do you even know that many queer labels?”“Sam’s a lesbian. I just pick things up. Stop changing the subject.”Her friend from school being a lesbian was not a reason to know that much. I’d… think about it another time, though. I rubbed my forehead, a strange feeling churning in my gut. “Faith, as much as I appreciate you trying to look out for me, we weren’t—”“Abigail already admitted to it when I cornered her about it, so just drop it already. I’m sick to fucking death of nobody telling anybody else anything in this family. What, you really think I’m about to go relay it back to Grandpa?”I let out a long, sudden whoosh of air, feeling like the strings holding me up were cut, and I slumped back against the headboard.No. I didn’t think that she would. And I guess maybe if I wanted the family communication failure gone, I had to at least put in some… nominal… effort on my part.I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “Okay. In that case, you can respect me being moody over breaking up right before Christmas.”She looked away with a heavy sigh. “That part I get. A little too well.”I paused. “You and that Ben guy from school…?”“Yup.”“Ah. I’m sorry.”“It’s whatever… I’m the one who broke up with him. Got sick of him always ignoring me to go hang out with his buddies and then lying about what he was doing. I’m hoping it’ll make more time for the dumb little badminton thing with Sam.”Was Faith… happy to dump her boyfriend to spend more time with her lesbian best friend to play badminton together? Maybe some things did run in the family… “Well,” I said. “I’m glad you seem to be handling it better than I am.”“Well, yeah. It’s different when you’re better off without them. You just broke up with Abigail because you’re—this—” She gestured, frustrated, short for words. I raised my eyebrows.“Do say it. Don’t hold back on my account.”She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, yeah?”“Let me have it. You can hardly criticize our parents for not communicating things if you won’t, either.”She put her hands on her hips. “Like you’re any better?”“Didn’t say I was. It’s something I’m working on, too.”She stared for a second before she let her arms drop. “You dumped her because you’re too scared to face what people are going to say about you two.”I winced. “I just don’t want to subject her to all of that… and I don’t want to have my family falling apart on my conscience or hers—”“You know, fuck this family,” she said, folding her arms again. “You ever think, like, if a family falls apart because of something that small, it kind of deserves to fall apart?”“What, I should just knock down everything in my path because I don’t think it deserves to stay standing?”“Who does this actually serve? And, like… why? Maybe Grandpa for his power fantasies. Dumb shit like that. Pretty easy to recognize that’s not worth losing a perfectly good relationship, not to mention making a stupid divorce worse.”I fell onto my back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Faith… it’s not like I disagree. I know I should have done something more. Asked her to stay… but it’s a little late now, anyway.”“That just sounds like you’re still being spineless. Self-sacrificial for no reason. That’s just self-indulgence at that point—just that you want to self-sacrifice because it makes you feel good about yourself. Think the only way you can contribute to this world is by suffering.”I didn’t say anything, turning my head and looking out the window. Lights across the street, gleaming for the night of Christmas Eve. The most exciting night of the year when I was a kid.When did I get that idea into my head, anyway? Maybe it was just self-indulgence.And Gale didn’t need someone so self-indulgent.Faith sighed, turning back to the door. “Guess you are just holing up in your room. Fine, I’ll take pictures of all the great food you’re too mopey and sad to try with us.”“Enjoy.”“Shut up.” She stepped out of the door, shutting it behind her, and I fell into the quiet of it all. Just sitting there with the thoughts clattering around in my head…It was maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour, before something welled up too much inside me, and I turned to my phone, picking it up with a rush that had me feeling dizzy, and I found myself texting Gale, against all odds, against all reason.Did you make it home okay?I moved so much on the adrenaline of the moment that I wasn’t thinking about it until after I’d hit send, and then I felt a little sick. I turned it off and hid it, counting down the seconds, praying she’d get back to me right now and praying she’d never get back to me at all and we’d never have to face what I just did, and after a minute that felt like hours, my phone buzzed with a text.Nope.My stomach dropped out. No? What does that mean? Are you okay? I replied, but she was already typing before I sent it.I’m safe, just had a Christmas miracle car breakdown in the middle of nowhere… landed at Charlie’s house of all places.My stomach roiled. Charlie had mentioned a house a little bit out of town where he did his art projects… I didn’t want to think what would have happened if Gale hadn’t found it. I’d ridden in Mom’s car on the way up here and watched out the window enough to know there were about two buildings tops within twenty miles of Bellsford.She went on with another message. He put me up overnight and brought a mechanic buddy to look at it this morning. Had to go and get some specialized equipment to fix it, and he only just got done with it a bit ago, so I guess it’s working for now, at least… I’m going to leave in the morning, though, because if it breaks down again, I don’t want it to be midnight in the middle of nowhere.It was hardly the highest priority right now, but seeing the proper and correct way Gale texted, instead of the casual way we’d always gone back and forth with each other, hurt like a hook hanging from my heart. I’m really glad you’re okay… is there anything I can do to help?It took her a second to respond. Maybe get your mom to tell Charlie he didn’t ruin your family. His guilt complex is getting annoying.Why the hell were all of us trying so hard to keep my family from being ruined? What did that even mean, ruined? Why were we so damn scared of it, anyway? Maybe it would be nicer after it was ruined. Maybe I wanted Charlie to come in and make out with my mom on a table and I’d scream that I was bisexual and that I’d touched every inch of Gale’s body, and I’d get to watch Grandpa’s eyes glaze over before he passed out.I will, I texted. Please let me know if there’s anything real I can do, though. I’m sorry about the rotten timing.There was a long pause before another text came through. Thank you.It shouldn’t have hurt so much to read a message like that. But I couldn’t get the strangling ache of it out of my body, no matter how long I lay there in bed, staring out the window.I heard noises from downstairs—people going in and out, talking in low voices in the lobby. Next to me, I could hear the chunky digital clock that looked like it came out of the 90s tick every time a minute changed, and occasionally, I heard footsteps go by in the hall outside—a whole world with people who were living lives.Or maybe they also felt like they were watching the world from afar. Maybe this was just the human experience.It was late once there was another knock at the door, and I sighed. I had no idea what I’d put up the do-not-disturb sign for.“Faith, is that you again?” I said.Dad’s voice drifted through the door instead. “Hey, kid. It’s your dad. Faith and I brought back something for ya. Didn’t want you feeling left out.”I sat up, pushing myself out of bed, feeling like I’d been there for weeks instead of a few hours. My whole body felt heavy as I opened the door, Dad on the other side giving me a smile—careful, trying to look casual and easy, but he couldn’t hide the undertone of worry there—and handed me a paper box.“Here. Your sister and I picked these out for you.”“You didn’t need to do that.” I took the box, heavy in my hands. “Thanks, Dad.”He shifted from one foot to the other. “You mind if I come in?”Oh. The sweets were a bribe. “What about?”“I’ve got something else to give you, but it’s a secret, all right?”I didn’t have the energy to fight it… I stepped back out of the doorway, letting him in, and he shut the door behind him, standing awkwardly. I sank onto the edge of the bed, looking expectantly at him, and when he didn’t say anything, I said, “What is it?”He cleared his throat. “She told me not to tell you, but, uh… morning she was leaving, Abigail gave me this,” he said, pulling a small gift-wrapped package from his pocket. “Wanted me to give it to you for Christmas without telling you who it was from. But I, uh… thought you deserved to know.”It felt like a cold press against my forehead, a dizzy sensation as I looked down at the box with its simple red wrapping, a tiny silver bow on top. “Oh…”He set it down on the nightstand, and then, awkwardly, he sat on the bed next to me, letting out a long breath. I couldn’t take my gaze off the floor, just sitting in that churning feeling, and finally, he spoke in a careful voice.“Hey, look, Stella. I, uh… I know things have been a lot lately. Me and your mom, this whole trip, and just…”I pursed my lips. “It’s really okay. I’m not the one going through anything.”“Just—just let me finish.” He clapped his hands on his knees, and it was only then that I saw the nervous grip on his knees. The man I’d grown up only ever seeing with a couple faux-happy expressions, coming in here and just being… nervous… a little afraid—I didn’t know if I recognized him. After a second, he breathed out slowly, and keeping his eyes down, he said, “I don’t know if I’ve been… the best dad to you, kid.”“Oh, um…”“I know I’ve been running away from things. Working all the time so I didn’t have to come home and face your mother. Pretending I didn’t know we needed a divorce. Even just playing dumb with the family, pretending to them that your mother and I were all good… I guess I thought if I just gritted my teeth and stuck it out, it would keep everyone happy.” He sank into himself, shoulders falling, as his voice went quieter. “But I guess… inaction is also a decision. And sometimes that hurts people the most. You’ve been the one being responsible for the family. I’ve seen that. And I’m sorry I… sorry I made you feel like you had to do that.”Dammit—did it have to be now? I wasn’t in the place for this conversation. Couldn’t it have been in a week?Then—maybe that was me trying to do the same thing he was talking about. Hiding from things. Running away just until next week. I took a shaky breath, and I wiped my eyes, feeling the heat of tears in the corners. “I don’t know about that… I mean, you’ve just been trying to keep things together, too, just in your own way.”“Yeah. Of course. But that doesn’t mean I did a good job. Or that I don’t owe you an apology. I want… you’re still just a kid, Stella. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you are, and I want you to just be able to be that kid. No matter what happens between me and your mom—we love you, so damn much, and we want to help you be happy.” He laughed, a raw and throaty sound. “We just both suck at it a little bit.”“Dad—”“Ugh, look at me. Your old man, a fully-grown man well into his forties, crying like a little kid.” He wiped his eyes, taking a shaky breath. I swallowed, hard. I wasn’t… sure I’d ever seen him cry.“Dad… I am happy. Really. It’s just…”He rested his elbows on his knees, looking down. “You and Abigail were really happy together. I could tell. And I want… I want that for you.”I felt my face prickle. Not the whole family lining up for a procession of this… “It’s really nice being around Abigail, but I know it’s important for her to be with her family, and… it’s not like we’re not friends anymore just because of it.”“Your mom and I have always just wanted you to find someone who makes you happy. Abigail… we love her. Really. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone be so right for someone else.”My face was burning now. I swallowed awkwardly. “Um… Dad, we weren’t dating.”“Your dad’s seen a couple things in his time,” he laughed, looking sidelong at me. “And I’m realizing I don’t know you as well as I should, but I know you well enough to see when you’re in love.”“Uh…” I suddenly lost all my arguments, everything turning into a hazy cloud. “Dad, I… um…”“Someone who knows every bit of you and your life story, someone who’s seen it all by your side, and you know them just as well—and you fall for each other?” He chuckled, standing up. “That’s not an easy thing to find. Don’t give up on it for someone else’s sake.”“But Mom…” I started, my voice shaking. He put a hand on my shoulder, smiling sweetly at me.“Your mom was wrong. And even she knows that. Just because someone says you can’t do something doesn’t mean you can’t. Even with everything all of us have said, all we want is for you to be happy.” He paused. “Besides, your sisters like her too. Don’t think you’re ever finding someone all five of us like ever again.”He couldn’t just pull the rug out from under me like that and then walk away. But walk away he did—turned back to the door and pulled it open, stepping out, giving me just one last look back with a warm smile wreathed in the soft glow of the table lamp next to my bed.“Merry Christmas, Stella. We’re really damn proud of you.”