Chapter 25
When we first returned from Wade’s, we had to face the facts about getting home to Ripton.
Tía felt like it’d be risky to rely on the MTA and the Metro-North to be running and on time the morning after the storm.
Once we ruled out the idea of a cab or car service (which, with the holiday and surge pricing, Diya projected would cost “approximately nine million dollars”), we stared at one another.
“So basically, we need a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,” Izaac said.
I bit my lip and looked back into the living room, where Hugo was playing with his truck collection. He was pushing his ambulance past a fire truck, causing a traffic jam for a tractor trailer and a pickup truck with a miniature snowplow.
And it hit me.
“No,” I said. “What we need is a plow .”
Diya turned to me.
“You know I’m right,” I said before she could speak. “We’ve got to plan ahead. Avoid potential future pain. Open up to possibilities.”
Cash and Izaac looked thoroughly confused, but she just gave me a knowing smile and nodded.
Despite it being nearly midnight, it took seconds for Seichi to respond.
Hell yes!
He couldn’t have been more thrilled to be part of a rescue mission (and I suspect to be a hero for Diya) and promised to pick us up by six fifteen a.m. That meant we should have time to get back, regroup, and still report to Cooper by nine. Which means this adventure will be ending soon.
For now, though, everything is still. There’s light streaming through the windows in the front door, and it’s the kind of quiet that only comes with snow.
Diya is across from me. We’re head to feet on a couch in the Diaz family living room, and she appears to still be asleep. Cash and Izaac are too, smashed together on a love seat adjacent to us.
I pull out my camera to look back at the most recent footage for proof that all of it was real.
The rest of the night after trivia was the impromptu holiday party of my dreams. I watch back the Oreo tasting flights (classic, red cream, and peppermint bark), then us taking turns playing Super Smash Bros .
and Audra explaining the origins of Nintendo to us.
She’s so passionate about making games like this that bring people together.
The community organizer in Izaac couldn’t argue with that logic.
Carlos was clearly hanging on every word too, and we were all giggling at the googly eyes they were making at each other—Izaac included.
It was such a perfect, unforgettable group celebration—the kind of big queer found family scene I’ve always wanted to create in one of my Christmas movies, only it was real.
There are more gaps in the footage as the night goes on.
I filmed a lot of it, but also tried to stay present, because looking around the room at those people—the ones I’ve loved for so long, and the ones I just met but already felt so much for—what I wanted most of all was to hold on to the night, the moment, the feeling, not only on-screen but in my heart.
I shot the last bit of footage when I was sitting on a piano bench, watching Hugo and Cash have at it in a Super Smash Bros . battle royale. In it, Eve finally takes a break from hosting duty and approaches me.
“This seat free, Strudel?” she asks, and the screen goes black, because that’s when I shut off the camera. But even without the recording, I’ll never forget the way she looked at me.
Ever since we’d left the bar, Eve had seemed lighter to me. So much more joyful and free than at any time since we met. Like for the first time, she wasn’t carrying the weight not only of her own pain and future, but of her brother’s, too. And suddenly she was opening up to me even more.
She told me what she knew about Hugo and selective mutism, and how important it is for him to feel safe and secure in order to begin speaking again.
“It’s so great that he felt that way tonight,” I said.
“Well, your special abilities go beyond picking good presents. You make people feel safe,” she said. “He and I both got a chance to experience that gift tonight.”
I could feel the fire in my cheeks, but I forced myself not to look away. “Well, comfort and joy are important elements of Christmas,” I said.
As we watched everyone else eat, drink, and be merry, Eve stayed on that old piano bench by my side.
She steadily got closer to me in ways that would go unnoticed by anyone around us, but were unmistakable to me.
When she leaned forward to grip the edge of the bench, her hand landed over mine.
At first she apologized, like it was an accident.
But when she readjusted, the edge of her hand still met mine.
A few minutes later, she took a deep breath and stretched, and her thigh pressed against mine.
Each time there was contact, the sparkles flared.
But somehow, I was still at ease enough with Eve to talk about other things too (like how Eve has never seen Home Alone 2: Lost in New York , and why she needs to see Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ).
I’d have talked to her all night, had the power not gone out.
After that, she got up to help Tía and Carlos distribute candles, and then we all sat around by flickering flames and listened as Tía told stories about her early days in the neighborhood, about Carlos starting up the taco truck, then the tree lot.
I kept waiting for everyone else to go to sleep so Eve and I could live in our own reality just for a little while. So I could quietly look into her eyes in the flickering light.
But by the time yawns started replacing yarns, my eyelids were drooping too. I fought sleep, the way I did when I waited up for Santa, the way I’ve done so many times for the moon. But before I knew it, I was on the couch, no memory of how I got there.
“You warm enough, Strudel?” The question was no more than a whisper against my ear as I felt a blanket wrap around me.
But then there was another whisper, this one from behind her. Carlos. “Hugo’s looking for you to tuck him in, Eve.”
“Be right there,” she whispered back, but she paused one more moment. “Rest easy, Strudel,” I remember her saying as I was on the edge of consciousness. “Two more sleeps…”
I lay there trying to hold on to the moment, to the smell of cinnamon that lingered after she left, until it all faded to black.
Now, after replaying this memory more than once, I want so badly for her to wake up so I can see that flicker of a smile on her face again.
But I also know that once everyone is up, it’s only a matter of time until we have to go.
We’re only a few hours away from the Bazaar, the party, the day and the traditions I’ve awaited for so long.
Yet somehow, when I really search my feelings for what I want right now, rather than going back to what I’ve always said I wanted, those don’t feel at the top of the list. In this moment, I want to be right here, and I don’t want to wish a single second of this adventure away.
Maybe Eve has an internal clock calibrated to bakery hours too, though, because it isn’t more than fifteen minutes before I see her come down the stairs and make her way into the kitchen.
I wait a beat, trying to get up some courage and wrangle my hair, which I am one thousand percent certain is an unholy mess. Then very carefully, I lift myself off the couch, trying not to disturb Diya.
“Morning,” I whisper once I make it to the kitchen. I want to talk to Eve, be as close to her as last night, but I’m also hyper aware that I probably have some heinous morning breath. So I keep a safe distance.
“Oh, hey,” she says, as if it is totally normal for us to be meeting in her family’s Brooklyn kitchen before six a.m. “Merry Christmas.”
“Oh my god, yes! Merry Christmas Eve!” I whisper-shout, because there is never a way for me to be even remotely chill when it comes to those words. Then I pause. “I mean Merry Christmas, comma Eve. But also Merry Christmas no comma Eve? That’s confusing.”
“Let’s leave the grammar aside for now, shall we?” Eve says with a Get a grip expression that I can’t look away from. “Either way, we can officially say, one more sleep , right?”
“Dude, are you seriously quoting Kermit to me before coffee?” I ask.
Eve laughs through her nose, and wowwww , how is anyone that cute before they’re fully caffeinated?
“Speaking of which, does everyone drink coffee?” She’s looking at me with those melted chocolate eyes, and suddenly I’m a puddle. When I say nothing, she nods toward the living room and holds up the coffee bag.
“Um,” I say finally. “One hundred thousand percent. Those three without coffee would be like Santa without Christmas spirit. They’d cease to exist.”
“Great,” she says. “I just got this new one from my roaster in the neighborhood. It’s their Christmas blend, whatever that means.”
Eve begins the process of measuring out the grounds, but then she pauses to look out the window where the results of the Polar Quasar are on full display.
There’s easily ten inches of fresh powder out there.
I can’t remember the last time I saw that much in one storm.
I want to run out there and build snowmen and make snow angels and go sledding all at once.
“The MTA already posted that there are gonna be serious delays, probably most of the day, so you guys definitely made the right move.”
I cautiously sidle up next to her. “Hard to believe it’s such a transportation menace when it’s so pretty,” I say.
“Yeah, I love it when it’s like this. All quiet and fresh,” she adds.
I want to keep looking at the scenery, but it’s so hard for me to take my eyes off her—her nose, her ears, her curls, her mouth.
“So… peaceful,” I say.
I don’t feel anything like peace, though. Because all I can feel is the heat from her body and everything in me is screaming that this could be my last chance to make a move. I shift my weight and lean closer, but I have no idea how to do this.