27. Nova
27
NOVA
I absolutely resented the fact that my body was used to waking up early so that I could be on time at whatever job I had. Today was not the day to be awake and functional. I did not want to be awake. Maybe if I pretended I was still asleep, I would return to dreamland. Not that my dreams were particularly good, but they were better than reality.
The front of my face throbbed in pain from having spent the entire night crying. The crust in the corner of my eyes was thick. I had to peel my eyelids open.
“No!” I groaned loudly and grabbed my pillow and rolled over. I wanted to be asleep. I wanted to sleep through today and tomorrow. I didn’t want to have to face the decisions that I had to make, and I certainly didn’t want to have to be awake to endure being alone on Christmas.
My eyes felt gritty. I knew if I didn’t get up and wash my face, I was risking something like conjunctivitis. Pink eye was exactly the Christmas present I did not want to get.
With another loud groan, I managed to sit up. My apartment was cold and it still smelled funny from the day before. If I had a small apartment within the school, on campus like they promised, would I still be cold? Would the residual heat from the school building have kept everything much warmer, the way it had at Bryan’s large house?
I threw my sheets back and slid my feet directly into a pair of fluffy slippers. The fake fur lining was cold. It was a miserable feeling. They were supposed to be warm and cozy and right now, they just felt cold and hairy.
I shuffled off to the bathroom to wash my face. Hot water ran over a washcloth. Once it was dripping wet, I wrung it out and I pressed and held it to my eyes for a few minutes. The compress felt good and helped to relieve the pressure in my sinuses. This was not starting off to be a promising Christmas Day. If I managed to give myself a sinus infection or pink eye, I was going to be pissed off. It was bad enough that I was miserable. But miserable, sick, and mad without any recourse were a trifecta of ick that I did not want. I examined my eyes in the mirror. They didn’t look particularly pink. They were a bit swollen and I had massive bags under my eyes. There was red around the edges that looked like I had been crying for hours on end, more than anything else, which was exactly how I had spent half of my night. So maybe I wasn’t getting sick. I was still miserable.
My hair was a complete mess. Let it get matted. I didn’t feel like bothering fighting the knots that formed in my sleep. Merry Christmas to me, I decided to take the day off and not brush my hair.
I plodded back to my bedroom and flopped on the bed. Sleep did not take over as I so deeply wished. Instead, my brain started to overthink everything. Maybe I needed to shift pillows? Was it dark enough in my room to sleep? Would I be able to go back to sleep if I crawled under the covers? What would I make myself for breakfast? I stared at the ceiling as I mentally went through the contents of my refrigerator. While I had been taking care of Bryan and Amelia’s culinary needs, I had been neglecting my own. I had some cheese and I might have some eggs.
I was fairly certain I saw an egg carton the night before when I was looking for something to make for dinner. If nothing else, I would have a bowl of Christmas ramen. Not that Christmas ramen was a thing, but since today was Christmas, anything and everything I did today would be prefaced with Christmas—Christmas shower, Christmas nap, Christmas Chinese takeout, Christmas movie—it was simply how my mind worked.
What I needed was a Christmas fall-back-to-sleep, but it seemed like I wasn’t even going to get that.
What I really wanted was a Christmas rom com moment where Bryan showed up on my doorstep with a message scrawled out on poster board telling me how absolutely perfect I am in his eyes. I wanted to know that he and Amelia would be willing to go door to door to find me. I wanted a Hollywood perfect romance and not the ‘I’ve got a crush on my boss’ reality that shouldn’t be.
My phone started to buzz.
I picked it up without even looking at the caller ID. “Whoever this is, it is entirely too early to be calling me on Christmas morning,” I groaned into the phone.
“Merry Christmas!” Veronica’s cheerful voice sounded through the speaker phone. “That’s exactly why I’m calling. It’s early and it’s Christmas. And I wanted to be the first person to wish you a Merry Christmas.” She sounded too exuberant.
I sat up. “I take it Santa was good to you this morning.”
“Not Santa, silly.” She laughed.
“Okay, not Santa. Then somebody was good to you this morning.” I was not in the mood to play games right now.
“You could say that again,” she practically purred.
Gross. “I do not want to hear the details of your relationship right now, trust me.”
“Nova,” Veronica started. “You really do. Put me on video.”
“I don’t want to be seen this morning,” I grumbled.
“You may not want to be seen,” she said, “but I have something to show you.”
“Okay, hold on.” I flopped over onto my stomach, resting on my elbows, running my thumbs over the front of the phone until I got the video feature turned on.
“Ouch, you do look rough. Party too hard?” Veronica asked.
If by party too hard, did she mean I spent half the night crying and throwing up because I was crying so hard, then yeah, I partied too hard.
“Something like that,” I answered.
“Did yesterday not go well?” She sounded like she cared, and I started to sniffle again.
“My Christmas Eve reality clashed greatly with my hopes and dreams. I had to work. Let’s just leave it at having a service industry job over Christmas is way harder than I remembered.” I took a moment to refocus myself. I did not want to cry. My eyes still felt scratchy, and the last thing a happy Veronica needed was a morose Nova ruining her Merry Christmas.
“The reality is, I’m stuck up here alone,” I finally said, “without anything really to look forward to. I was hoping to sleep in today, but?—”
“Did I wake you up? I am so sorry. I’m just so excited.”
“No, no, you didn’t wake me up. I was already up because I’m so used to getting up for teaching. I’m not able to stay asleep much in the morning anymore. So, what’s your good news? Are you standing outside? You’re outside. That’s snow.”
There was bright blue sky behind her, and she wore a wooly hat. My body might be awake, but my mind was having a hard time catching up and being fully functional. I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
“The boyfriend took me on a surprise getaway so that I could have snow for Christmas.”
“That’s so sweet,” I lied. I had snow for Christmas, and it didn’t make me nearly as happy as I thought it should. Then again, the snow this year set me up for a heartbreak and an added financial burden. I grew up thinking it would be magical to have snow at Christmas. I realized now I only thought that because I had grown up never having snow at Christmas.
Snow was cold and wet. All those warm and cozy depictions of people drinking hot cocoa and sitting by a fire were fake. The coziness didn’t last. The illusion melted away with the snow. Hopefully, this boyfriend of Veronica’s wouldn’t ruin it all for her.
“What does your family think of your missing Christmas?”
“At first, Mom was disappointed, but after I called her this morning?—”
“My God, Veronica, how early did you get up? You’ve already talked to your mom this morning?”
“Of course I already called Mom. Why haven’t you called yours?”
“I talked to her last night. I told you, I was trying to sleep in. Sorry, I interrupted. You were saying…?”
“Mom was disappointed, but after I talked to her this morning, she’s really happy.” She let the end of her sentence hang in the air.
“Why would your mom be happy that your boyfriend took you away for Christmas?” I prompted.
“Because, silly, the fiancé took me away to propose!” She held up her hand and wiggled it so that sunlight flashed off the diamond ring on her finger with a squeal.
I immediately sat up. “Holy crap. Veronica, That’s awesome. Congratulations.”
I stared at the ring for a long moment.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“It’s amazing. Is that thing heavy? Your finger is going to get jacked having to constantly lift that rock,” I said in awe. I didn’t know diamond sizes. It looked really big to me, and it threw light like a disco globe.
“I was thinking it was a little on the small side,” she said. “It’s not quite a full carat.”
“It doesn’t matter how big the diamond is if you love him. It’s on your finger, so I’m assuming you said yes.”
“Of course, I said yes. And I do love him.” She was all smiles. She posed like a hand model showing off the ring, framing her face before shifting and striking another pose.
“Does this mean I finally get to meet him?”