19. The Second Day Before Christmas
The Second Day Before Christmas
Scene I
[The couch in Sebastian’s messy, messy living room.]
Viola, dressed in pyjamas, cocoons herself in blankets.
Like a turtle in its shell, I shield myself inside my blankets and stare at Sebastian’s television.
It’s filthy, covered in dust and finger smudges.
It’s also not on. Still, I stare at it, loving how it shows a blank hollowness, marred only by the grit and grime of everyday life.
It’s the most honest reality television I’ve ever seen.
“Get up,” Sebastian says, throwing the covers off me, as best as he can with his broken arm.
I yank the covers back. “I’m sick.”
He yanks them back. “You’re not sick.”
I look him dead in the eye and cough, not bothering to cover my mouth. “Am too.”
Sebastian snorts a laugh. “More like scared.”
I narrow my eyes at him. You know, because he’s right. “I’m not scared.”
“Are too.”
“I’m—” I stop myself. How is it that I can be a grown-ass adult, and still fall into childish arguments with my brother at the drop of a hat? “Why do you think I’m scared?”
I expect him to rip the covers off me again and rib me with some version of calling me a scaredy cat. To my surprise, there’s no immature jibe. Only the depression of the couch as Seb sits at my feet.
“Because you might have been fired.”
I jolt up. Fresh air hits the top of my head for the first time in almost twenty-four hours since I came home early from my shift. “How do you know that?”
“When you went full couch burrito, I stole your phone.”
“You what?”
He shrugs. “I stole it because I care.”
Typical Sebastian. He can lie, steal, really do whatever he wants with zero repercussions. Me, I commit one tiny bit of ongoing fraud, and I get my natural consequences. He really does get the luck for the both of us.
“And what did you see in my phone?” I ask after a while, not sure if I want to hear the answer. I bet there’s a message from Maria, telling me that I’m fired. Or maybe a call from the police, requesting me to turn myself in.
Maybe Duke texted to tell me he never wants to see my lying face again.
And I deserve it all.
He opens my phone (apparently well-acquainted with my passcode).
“Lots and lots of messages from those posters I put up. Weird. I totally forgot I did that.” He shrugs, like it wasn’t a huge pain in my ass.
“Also, some texts from some girl named Olivia,” he says, smirking in a way that I do not like at all.
I reach for my phone, but he moves his hand away. Impeded as I am by my blanket prison, I’m no match for his speed. “Give me my phone back!”
“What’s her deal anyways? Olivia? Is she cute? Single?” I reach for my phone again, but he shoulders me back down into the quicksand of his couch and then continues to scroll through my texts. “She seems cool.”
“You really asked if she’s cute before you ask if she’s single?”
“She’s got pluck to her. I like that.” He smiles as he texts.
“You’re texting her!”
“Someone had to. She was worried sick about you. She texted you about a dozen times, not that you bothered to even look at your phone.”
“I’m sick,” I protest.
“Amazing how that sounds more believable each time you say it,” he deadpans, while still texting her on my phone.
I swallow. “Has… has anyone else texted me?”
Sebastian freezes, then sets down my phone to give me his whole attention. “No,” he says, shaking his head. He sits down and moves my blanketed feet onto his lap.
I nod, even though tears prick at the backs of my eyes. I really wasn’t expecting Duke to text or call. I know what I did was a dealbreaker. It’s just… I don’t know. I thought there was a chance that the feeling between us could transcend my transgressions. That he’d understand.
“Olivia told me about everything that went down yesterday,” he says softly.
I hang my head, unable to look at him. “I’m sorry.” My voice is barely audible. “I know you needed this job for next year and I blew it for you. I ruined it, like I ruin everything.”
“Oh, hey, no. Viola, you really think I’m trying to drag you off this couch because I’m worried about getting this job back next year?” His voice is kind. Caring. I barely recognize it.
“That’s what you said when you practically forced me to take this job.” It’s a little hyperbolic and a little petulant, I know.
Sebastian rubs my feet over the covers. “And you really think that I’m thinking a year ahead?”
I frown. That forethought is rather un Sebastian-like. “What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that you tend to get stuck a bit. A lot.”
“Thanks. One of my elbows bends weirdly. Would you like to tease me about that, too?”
He laughs. “Maybe later. Right now, I’m trying to be nice. I’m trying to tell you that I was lying about needing the job for next year because sometimes you need a push.”
My frown deepens. “Are you really trying to give me life advice? You?”
“Yeah, me. Why not?”
I gesture around his filthy apartment. “You’re not really the poster child for having your life together.”
“A little mess doesn’t mean I don’t have my life together.
Mess can be good. Mess can be proof of a life happily lived.
I’ve never once asked you to clean up your blankets off the couch because I like seeing them.
I like the reminder that my sister trusts me enough to reach out when she’s going through a tough time.
” He looks around his apartment and smiles.
“I’m happy with everything. I’m happy with the messy apartment and the job hopping and the tragic love story because I chose it all.
I’m never going to regret going for something.
I’m never going to regret living my life. ”
I wrap my blankets around me tighter. “I live my life.”
“No, no you don’t. You live the life that’s the easiest way forward. You stayed with Mal because you were too scared to do something else. You’re not dumb. You knew he wasn’t right for you, but you stayed anyways.”
I curl deeper into the couch, pointedly looking at the ugly-ass upholstery instead of my brother. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“This! This is exactly what you do. The second something becomes hard or someone pushes back, you lose all your spine. You either do exactly what they want you to do, or you do nothing at all. You never take the hard route.”
I snap into a sitting position. “Again, you know nothing about this. Everything I do is the hard route. Not all of us can have everything in life handed to them, like you do.”
“What about your early education degree, Vi?”
I narrow my eyes. “Don’t.”
“I bet you had your application completely finished. I bet you didn’t even say a word when Mal suggested putting off your schooling. I bet you were even a little bit relieved because the thought of your application getting rejected was too scary for you to deal with.”
“I said don’t.” I fly to my feet, leaving the blanket on the couch. Part of me itches to walk away, to leave this conversation and every emotion it’s stirring up. Except, I have nowhere to go.
“Come on, Viola. Do this. Have the hard conversation. Fight me. Fight for yourself. Fight for anything.”
I whirl around. People pleaser that I am, if he wants a fight, I guess I can deliver. “I said I don’t want to have this conversation because you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like to struggle or be scared because everything in your life works out for you.”
He holds up his broken arm. “Really? Everything just works out for me? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
I roll my eyes. “You broke your arm, sure, but then the bar just offered you a lot of money for not suing them.”
“I still broke my arm! And lost the love of my life.”
How can he expect me to seriously fight him when he says shit like that? “You barely knew her. You’ll find someone else who catches your eye on one of the dating apps you’ve been scrolling through non-stop.”
Sebastian shakes his head. “I’m on there looking for her . Because that’s what you do when you find something you care about. You go out there and try. God, Viola. You have to try.”
I fold the blanket around myself, blinking away the tears, even though Sebastian’s seen them a million times by now. “Olivia told me about Duke.” I sit back down on the couch. “He sounds nice.”
“He is.”
“Usually, that makes a person more inclined to go out with the guy. Not rot on her brother’s couch, where he may or may not have spilled soup earlier.”
I adjust where I’m sitting. “I really hurt him.”
“So? If he’s as great as you think he is, he’ll understand.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it. Things are different for me.”
Sebastian gives me a squeeze. “I know you think that everything just works out for me—”
“Because it does.”
“But it really doesn’t. I know that if I find dream girl on a dating app or because of my posters, you’ll say it’s because I got lucky.
That’s not it, though. To have a chance, you need to take a chance.
” He tilts towards me, softening his voice.
“Life works out for me because I try and I try. I take risks, I go for shots that I know I have no business taking, I fail over and over again, and, above all else, I don’t stop trying.
I don’t stop trying because I know I deserve good things, that I deserve happiness.
Do you, Viola? Do you think you deserve happiness? ”
I don’t answer his question. I have to answer it for myself first.
We sit in the comfortable silence until my phone vibrates. Instead of handing it to me, Sebastian reads and responds to whatever text I just got, smiling to himself all the while.
“Hey, do you know if I own a mop?” he asks.
“A mop?”
“Yeah. I’m thinking of inviting Olivia over sometime, so I should probably tidy up a little bit first.”
Understatement of the year.
“What about that other girl? The one who got away? The love of your life?”
Sebastian shrugs. “Like I said, I try and I try.” He holds up my phone. “I’m hanging onto this right now. I need to find a video that explains how to clean a toilet, and I don’t want to use my own. You know, in case it falls in or something. Cool?”
With a smirk, he takes off towards the bathroom, shaking my phone in his hand—daring me to come after him. I could, but that would mean getting off the couch. It would mean wrestling my phone away from him.
It would mean going for it.
The lights fade on Viola, still on the couch, deciding if she should get up or stay.