My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories (11 page)

“The problem is,” Haley went on, “I never understood
why
I was doing anything—other than I knew it was expected.” She refilled both our glasses again. “And I’m not even saying my parents pushed me. Or my counselors at school. It was
me.
I wanted to excel. But every decision I made through high school was based on how I thought it might make me look on paper. I never once stopped to think about what I actually
liked
to do. That’s kind of sad, don’t you think?”

“More like honest.” Usually, I liked to keep quiet. I liked to listen. But the wine was just reaching my head, and I felt oddly comfortable, so I let myself talk. “Here’s a question,” I told her. “Would you rather be great at something you like, or just okay at something you love?”

“Jesus, I don’t know,” Haley said. “That’s hard. What about you? Sounds like this is coming from a personal place.”

I stuck my silverware on my empty plate and leaned back with my wineglass. I felt like I was in a movie or something. One about rich British people, like the show Haley had mentioned before. Talking all deep in a beautiful New York apartment. Swirling damn wine in an actual wineglass. The only other time I’d had wine, me and Jessica drank it out of shot glasses, because that’s all we could find at her stepdad’s place. “The one thing I know I love,” I said, “besides my family, is music. Guitar. But I also know I’m not that good at it.”

“You play down there sometimes, don’t you?”

“Me? No way, not at Mike’s. I’m talking about at my own place.”
Stop lying!
“Okay, maybe I mess around a little. Not for real, though.”

“I knew it,” Haley said. “At first I thought it was the radio, which must mean you’re pretty good.”

I shook my head, embarrassed. “Anyways, let’s just move on.”

Haley laughed. “Looks like I’m not the only one who could be better at taking compliments.”

After a short stretch of silence, one that didn’t even feel that awkward, I said, “I guess I don’t really know what I want to do, either. Sometimes I feel like a shook-up bottle of soda. Like, I have all this passion that wants to explode, but I don’t know where to aim it yet. Is that kind of what you mean?”

“Exactly. And sometimes I get worried I’ll
never
know where to aim it.” Haley emptied the rest of the wine bottle into our glasses, but there were only a few drops left so she got up and opened the second one.

We talked for hours after dinner. When the second bottle of wine was gone, I raced downstairs to grab Mike’s bottle of vodka. When I came back, Haley fixed us vodka cranberries and we sat on the couch in the living room and we talked and talked and talked. Haley told me what it was like growing up in Oregon. I told her about life near the Mexican border. Haley described what she’d be doing back home right now—dinner at a fancy restaurant with her mom, dad, and little sister, followed by each of them opening one gift by the fire—and I told her about Christmas Eve at my grandma’s.

By midnight I was officially drunk, and as much as I liked talking to Haley, I also wondered what it would be like to kiss Haley, so I started down a very different road. “Hey, Haley,” I said.

“Hey, Shy.”

“Maybe it’s my turn to make up the rules.”

“Uh-oh.” Haley looked away from me, sensing where I was going. “This isn’t my game anymore, though. This is just two people talking. Please tell me you know the difference.”

“I know,” I said. “But I just maybe … sort of…”

“What?”

“I wonder how it would feel to, like, you know, hold your hand. That’s all.” I set down my wineglass and faced her. “Like if we were on an actual date.”

Haley forced a laugh. “We wouldn’t be on an actual date, though. Because I have a boyfriend back home,
remember
?”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “The patient guy. I almost forgot about him.”

It was true. I’d gotten so caught up in the moment I completely forgot about the world outside of the apartment complex. I picked up my wineglass again, sipped a little more vodka cranberry.

That’s when Haley did something that surprised me. She set down her glass, then took my glass out of my hand and set
it
down, too. “But it’s not like you’re talking about getting married, right? You’re talking about holding hands. Hypothetically.”

I swallowed hard. “To test the feel.”

“Which I suppose is pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.”

“Though, I’ll be honest.” I touched Haley’s bare ankle. “A small part of me might also be talking about marrying you.”

She slapped my hand away. “See, this is why I never should’ve taken a shower down there. Showers can lead to hand-holding, which can lead to.… People are better off growing Christmas dreads.”

Haley smoothed her pretty hair behind her ears and reached for my hand.

I could barely breathe.

It was everything I wanted, but at the same time, it was scary as shit, too. Because I knew myself. I felt the “unbalanced thing” to the point that I couldn’t even think straight. Haley’s eyes locked inside mine. Her hand in my hand, which was making my whole arm tingle, my whole body.

“It’s a pretty good fit,” I managed to say.

She made it so our fingers were linked and, for a few long seconds, we just looked at each other. I glanced at her lips before forcing myself back to her eyes. Her face grew more serious, and she cleared her throat softly. “I have to admit something. It’s kind of bad.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, nervous she was going to pull the plug.

“I didn’t really procrastinate. I bought my plane ticket home
weeks
ago.”

In my drunken state it took me a few seconds to realize what she was saying. She’d
chosen
not to go home. Which meant she was avoiding something. Possibly some
one.
My heart pounded against the inside of my chest.

“I just never went to the airport,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m a coward.” She scooted a little closer to me on the couch. “Do you think less of me now?”

“Why would I?” I said.

She shrugged. “What are you thinking, then?”

I swallowed and stared at my drink for a couple seconds. When I looked back up at her I said, “I’m thinking about what it would be like to kiss your cheek.”

Haley breathed deeply and squeezed my hand. “Maybe you should find out.”

But when I leaned in, aiming for just inside her left ear, she turned suddenly and I ended up kissing her on the lips instead.

It was just a peck and then I pulled back and looked at her. Both our eyes locking on each other’s and our chests going in and out and in and out. Without thinking, I took her face in my hands, gently as I could, and I kissed her again. Longer this time. Not a peck, but the real kind. And she kissed me back.

She shoved me onto my back, still kissing me, her hands gripping wildly at my hair, mine slowly moving down her warm body. “What are we doing?” she breathed into my ear.

“I don’t even know,” I said, and then we were kissing again.

I got lost in it. Her lips. Her touch. Me and Haley. She’d made me dinner, and now we were together on her couch. It didn’t seem possible. And for a few seconds, my amazement pulled me out of my body. I found myself hovering up near the ceiling, watching everything unfold in awe. But then I forced myself to focus on her lips again, and the feel of my hands on her stomach, and I rematerialized.

It was all so … alive.

I felt like I was breathing the world into my lungs.

In a few minutes, I flipped her onto
her
back and pinned
her
arms. And I pulled away and just stared at her, both of us breathing, wanting more.

“What is it?” she said.

“I wonder more things,” I told her.

She closed her eyes and slowly opened them. “I know you do, but…”

“Like how it would feel to
be
with you.”

When she didn’t answer, I lowered my face toward hers and we kissed some more, but this time I felt this surge of energy so powerful my mind slipped away completely, and I reached up and undid her blouse, one button at a time, and then I reached around her back and undid her bra clasp.

That’s when she stopped me.

She turned her head and spun out of my grip and immediately started re-clasping her bra and buttoning her blouse.

“Oh, shit.” I watched her, my stomach flooding with nervous butterflies. “Shit, I went too far, didn’t I?” When she didn’t answer right away, I said, “Haley?”

She stood up and covered her face with her hands for a few seconds. When she removed them, her expression was worried. “What am I
doing
?”

“It was totally my fault,” I said.

She started to pick up our still half-full wineglasses, then she put them back down and went to the door and pulled it open. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Shy. I’m sorry.”

“I apologize, Haley. I got carried away—”

“Just, please,” she said, cutting me off.

And she wouldn’t look at me. That was maybe the worst part of all. If she’d have just looked at me, then she’d know how sincerely apologetic I was, and everything would be okay. But she never did.

“Okay.” I moved through the door, into the hall. I hit the elevator button and stared at my shoes, listening to her door click closed behind me.

Christmas Day

Haley didn’t come down for a shower on Christmas morning.

I waited around in the living room on the couch next to Olive, listening for her knock, but it never came.

I stared at the text of my novel, but really I was analyzing the night before, from every possible angle. It always came down to the same thing: me. I knew she had a boyfriend. Yeah, maybe the fact that she didn’t fly home meant they were on the rocks or whatever, but still. I’d taken it too far.

Why’d I have to be that guy?

The one who always wanted more?

I didn’t call home until noon because of the three-hour time difference. I talked to my dad a little, but mostly I talked to my sis. Merry Christmas, we both told each other. She described all the food she was making, and how Pops was driving to Chula Vista to pick up Grandma, who had promised to bring a big stack of tortillas. Then they were going to drive up to the cemetery with flowers. “It won’t be the same without you,” my sis told me.

“Yeah.”

“No, I’m serious, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever gone there without you.” She paused. “You better not be spending today alone, Shy. Because that would just be sad.”

“Oh, hell no. A few friends are coming over and we’re baking a ham and shit. It’s gonna be legit.” I switched the phone from one ear to the other. “I still wish I was with you guys, though.”

“By the way, Peanut’s tooth is better. We can tell ’cause he’s constantly hounding us for food again. Which
you
started.”

I smiled, remembering how I used to sneak Peanut my dinner scraps on the sly.

We talked a little more, about my old man, who she claimed was doing better, too, and then I told her I had to go get ready for my friends. We said our good-byes, but before she could hang up I said, “Oh, and Sofe?”

“Yeah?”

“Stay away from dudes.”

I showered with the door open and put on the best shirt I’d packed for cat sitting, and I even put some of Mike’s gel in my hair, trying to tame my crop. Then I sat with the cat and read my book, though secretly I was still listening for a knock.

Snow-Covered Stoop

I woke up from a nap to the sound of Olive scratching at the front door.

“Where
you
trying to go?” I said, climbing off the couch.

Then I saw it.

A small card on the ground, just inside the door. My name written in neat, girl handwriting. I picked it up and looked through the peephole. Nobody there.

I tore open the envelope. A skinny Santa was on the front of the card, waving from behind the wheel of a hybrid convertible. The handwritten note inside said: “Leftover lasagna from the night you stood me up. Heat in microwave for two or three minutes. Also, Merry Christmas.”

I opened the door and found a large plate covered in tinfoil.
She didn’t hate me!
The second I reached down for it, though, Olive squirted out into the hall.

“Hey, man!” I set down the plate and lunged for her, but she took off up the stairs. The door slammed behind me as I took the stairs, two at a time, to Haley’s floor. Olive was nowhere to be found.

Great, I thought. My one damn job.

I hurried to the highest floor and searched the landing and looked out the window at the snow-covered fire escape, then I ran all the way back down to the ground floor and checked the front vestibule, where the mailboxes were. There was no sign of Olive anywhere.

After another fifteen minutes of unsuccessful searching, I found myself standing on Haley’s welcome mat, knuckles hovering in front of her door. She’d obviously left me a plate of food, as opposed to inviting me over, because she didn’t want to see me. And asking for help had never been my strong suit.

Still.

I knocked.

She opened the door right away, wearing a look of concern. “What’s wrong? I heard you go up and down the stairs like fifteen times.”

“Olive made a run for it. I can’t find her anywhere. Mike and Janice are gonna
kill
me.”

Haley grabbed her keys. “I’m sure she’s here somewhere. Come on.”

We went back to the top floor and looked in every corner. Haley even opened the window to the fire escape and stuck out her head. Nothing. Olive wasn’t in the elevator, either. Or the trash chute. Or the bike room. We scoured every floor, all the way down to the ground, but on the way back up Haley grabbed me by the wrist and pointed.

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” I said.

There was Olive, sitting right beside the tinfoil-covered plate, licking her right paw. She didn’t even protest when Haley scooped her up into her arms. I keyed open Mike’s door, and Haley set down Olive, and we both watched her saunter over to her bowl of dry food, not a care in the world.