What He's Been Missing

“I don’t usually watch the ball drop.” I walked over to the couch and looked at Xavier, chomping down on the pizza like he’d never left.

“I see.” He looked at pills. “You sick?”

I coughed a little. “Just a slight cold.”

“Hum . . . Guess I won’t be kissing you tonight.” He laughed.

“Kissing me?” I repeated. “X, what are you doing here?”

He clicked off the television.

“I missed you. I was sitting in my place this morning and I thought, I can’t go into the next year without her. I can’t make a new start without her,” he said. “So, that’s what this is. That’s why I’m here.”

“I see.”

“Do you want that?”

“I told you to go away. I just thought you would stay away. . . .” I said. “I mean . . . you were away. But now you’re here.”

“Do you want me here?” He took my hand and kissed it.

“Yes. I do.”

“Good! Because you know what they say—”

“Whoever you’re with at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve is the person you’ll spend the next year with,” we said together.