Now, I kinda remembered why I was so happily single for so long.
The next day, I got a picture from wherever he was in Russia, an early morning shot of fresh snow weighing down the trees. It looked like it was in the woods, even though that made no sense.
Sick of this shit. But figured you might like it.
I went ahead and smiled down at that damn picture for ten minutes like some lovesick idiot before I went to bed, making myself not write back immediately, not be the girl who was waiting by her phone. Even if I was.
I had been in the store, debating Christmas decorations when I finally reached for my phone, snapping a picture of two boxes.
– Star or angel?
There were barely a few minutes before my phone buzzed.
Star. Putting up your tree?
Normally, I wouldn’t. Last year, I had put up a sad little fiberoptic tree, and called it a day. I had no one to share the holiday with anyway, had no presents under the tree, so what was the point in going all out, right?
I guess I never realized how depressing that mindset was until my life got shaken up a bit.
So this year, I dragged out my old six-foot tree from the attic, along with a plastic container full of ornaments, and I had strung colorful lights all over it.
But the topper had been missing somehow.
Hence the shopping.
I had maybe even picked up a few little presents for Fenway, Gunner, and Jules along with my coworkers, seeing as I was seeing them more often. I had been to play games with Fenway three times, plus a few movie nights. House arrest was fraying his nerves. He claimed the part of his case that should have subjected him to such measures was over, that Quin was simply being paranoid. But whatever the threat Quin threw at him was enough to keep him up there, though I knew he had escaped before.
I figured that their Christmases – Jules maybe excluded – would be as lonely as mine. So I planned to bake some cookies, and maybe make some food, and bring it over there late Christmas evening.
– I figured it was time. Only a few weeks left.
There was nothing after that as I perused the store, something that wasn’t overly like me. I could make speed shopping an Olympic sport. I would go in, knowing I needed this, that, and the other thing, and have blinders on to everything else. First, it was out of necessity thanks to a strict budget. But also, I just got antsy when I was trapped inside of those fake air and too-bright-light places for too long.
Maybe it was just a desire not to go home and obsess over the fact that the communication between Quin and me since the phone sex had been weird, just like the space between us after having actual sex had been odd.
All I did know was that by the time I walked out of there, I had a gift to wrap for Quin as well.
I was very much becoming that girl that I hated so much.
But I couldn’t seem to stop myself from putting it under the tree. And thinking of him as I put the star on top.
I didn’t hear from him again until the early hours of Christmas morning. Almost a full two and a half weeks later.
Two and a half weeks.
But this time, it wasn’t an informal text.
I had been laying on my couch in the living room, covered in three blankets because we had steadily stepped into the part of winter where it didn’t matter how high the heat was set, you always woke up with a chill on your skin, staring at the lazily blinking twinkle lights on my tree, flashing off the shiny bulbs in a way that sparked a warm, swirling sensation I knew only as nostalgia to move through my chest and belly.
My mind moved back to years past, sleep wiped impatiently from my eyes, red and white striped pajamas a wrinkled mess around my small body as I barreled down the stairs toward the front window where the tree stood like a homing beacon, tinsel windblown from the door being opened one too many times. And there were the piles of brightly packaged boxes, all promising a high I had never been able to get ahold of as an adult. My parents would sit and watch me, steaming mugs of coffee between their hands, heavy-lidded, tired eyes that I didn’t know enough to realize came from staying up all night arranging what would become my delight.
There would be none of that this morning, I had just been musing on that slight bit of sadness when my phone started ringing on the floor beside me, making Mackey let out a grumble and roll over from where he was sleeping under the heating vent.