Merry Cherry Christmas

Jeremy shook his head, but he still wasn’t smiling that bright smile Max had come to enjoy seeing. Max asked, “You had enough? It’s getting really crowded. I could use some fresh air.”

“Yeah?” Jeremy’s face brightened hopefully. “You don’t mind leaving?”

“Nah. Let’s walk back to campus. You hungry? I could go for street meat.”

Jeremy nodded happily, and they collected their coats. Outside, the night was crisp and covered with a fresh layer of white. Leaving the thudding bass behind was a relief, the snow blanketing the night in a peaceful muzzle. They hadn’t brought hats, but there was mercifully no wind.

“There should be a hot dog stand not far,” Max said as they headed up Yonge. He wanted to ask what had happened to upset Jeremy, but maybe he should let Jeremy bring it up himself if he wanted to.

They grabbed sausages and cans of pop, and Max couldn’t help finding it adorable that Jeremy chose orange. After loading their buns with sauerkraut and ketchup and mustard—plus mayo for Max—they headed west on a side street and found a low concrete wall to perch on while they ate. The fresh snow was dry and easy to brush off. The concrete was freezing, but Max ignored that.

They were across from a row of new townhouses decorated with wreaths and white fairy lights. With no wind, it was nice sitting there eating their sausages in companionable silence, their pop cans sitting between them on the wall.

“Mmm. Spicy,” Jeremy mumbled around a bite.

“Mmm,” Max agreed, swallowing his mouthful and washing it down with root beer.

They sat for a while longer until they’d finished eating and their asses got too cold. After crushing their empty cans, Max dropped them into a recycling bin behind a dark restaurant. He burped, and Jeremy laughed, and then they had a quick burping contest because they were twelve.

Jeremy raised his hands. “I can’t compete. You’ve got mad skills.”

“Let me tell you, if there’s one thing being on football teams for years has taught me, it’s teamwork, strategy, and burping.”

Back to an easy silence, they zigzagged along the shockingly quiet residential streets south of Bloor. Even after four years in Toronto, Max was still surprised by just how calm and still the city could be right downtown. True it was Sunday night, but they were only a block or two from a major road, and there was only the crunch of their boots on the snow and salt. Their breath clouded in white plumes.

They passed a townhouse with a sad string of blue lights on a tree. Max said, “I hate it when people only put lights halfway up. Either do the whole thing or forget it. Like, what, you don’t have a ladder? Get a ladder, bro.”

Jeremy chuckled. “I’ve never really thought about it, but you raise a good point. Does your family decorate?”

“Oh yeah. We’re into it. And Christmas was my mom’s fave. Only time of the year we’d go to mass except for weddings and funerals. It was for the carols, not gonna lie.”

“Are you Catholic too?”

“Yeah, my dad’s family is from Goa like my mom’s. He was a baby when they moved here. Goa was colonized by the Portuguese, so big Catholic influence and a lot of Portuguese surnames like ours: Pimenta.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Yep. Those Europeans sure loved to colonize.”

Jeremy grimaced. “They sure did.”

Max wasn’t sure he should bring it up, but curiosity won out. “So, are your parents really religious? Is that why it’s been tense?”

Jeremy sighed, pushing up his glasses. “You’d think so, right? But that’s the thing that confuses me most, I guess. They’re not devout or anything. We were always a hundred percent Easter and Christmas Catholics, and not even then sometimes.”

He was quiet for a few moments, and Max waited, walking beside him quietly.

Jeremy said, “And obviously there are Catholics who accept their queer kids. What I’m saying is that…I didn’t see this coming. I don’t remember them saying negative stuff about gay people when I was growing up. I think I’d remember that.”

“Yeah.”

“So it was like… Before I told them, I was nervous. Hard not to be, you know?”

“Totally. My dad and stepmother are liberal, but it was still nerve-wracking. Luckily for me, they were great. My whole family was. Meg had told me not to worry, but I still did. Hopefully your folks will come around, right?”

“Yeah. It’s weird.” Jeremy breathed deeply, his breath clouding, snow catching in his ginger hair as flurries drifted down. They walked by dark, sleeping houses. “It’s not like they threw me out. They didn’t call me names or tell me they think I’m disgusting. They didn’t say they’re ashamed. They didn’t say much at all. That’s the problem—there’s just all this silence now. When we do talk, it’s awkward. We never mention anything about me being gay. We never acknowledge how weird everything is. That I can’t really talk to my brother. If they hate me, I wish they’d just say it. You know?”