Chapter 37 #3
“When I was little, we always visited my grandparents—my dad’s folks—on Christmas Day.
My grandpa was really into model trains.
He had an entire miniature town set up in the basement, with little stations, tunnels, and bridges.
It was beautiful.” She let out a wistful sigh.
“One year, he got a new engine for Christmas, and he proudly took Fi and me downstairs to show it off. We watched the train go around and around, and I don’t know why I did it, but…
I reached out and touched it. There was a flash and smoke.
Or maybe I just remember it that way. All I know is that none of the trains worked afterward. ”
“Oh, Willow.” Scottie ached to pull her close, to wrap her arms around her and shelter her from that painful memory, but she sensed that Willow was too full of reproach for herself to allow it right now.
“My parents didn’t talk to me the entire two-hour ride home. After that, we stopped going to my grandparents’ for Christmas.” In the dim light, Willow’s lips formed a tight line. “Natural consequences, right?”
“What? Oh my God, no! Willow, that’s not the same!” Scottie sat up in bed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Of course you touched the train! You were a kid! That’s how kids learn. By touching things, exploring, and—”
“But I’d already learned! Or at least I should have. My parents had told me a thousand times not to touch other people’s stuff.”
“You think my parents didn’t tell me to stay away from my mom’s scissors?
” The words poured out of Scottie, and she couldn’t make herself stop—didn’t want to make herself stop.
“But when I didn’t listen, they didn’t punish me by refusing to talk to me, taking away the dollhouse, or forbidding me from ever playing with Jen and Hazel again. ”
“Of course they didn’t,” Willow said.
“Yeah, but that’s basically what your parents did to you!
” Scottie cut in before Willow could say anything else, too agitated to stay quiet.
If she ever got to meet Willow’s parents, she’d have to use up all her self-control so she wouldn’t yell at them until they understood what they had done to their daughter.
“Giving you the cold-shoulder treatment and taking away visits with your grandparents… That’s just cruel! You didn’t deserve that!”
“But I touched the engine,” Willow said, as if stuck on that one thought. “I destroyed it.”
“Did you mean to?” Scottie asked, already knowing the answer.
Willow wildly shook her head. “N-no, of course not. It was just so fascinating, and I wanted to see…to…to…” Her voice broke.
Scottie let herself sink back onto the mattress until her face was right in front of Willow’s and she could make out her eyes in the dim light. “Willow, you weren’t the one who messed up that day. Your parents were. Big-time.”
“It’s not their fault. They were overwhelmed. Didn’t know how to handle things,” Willow got out. “Handle me.”
“It wasn’t your fault either. You didn’t choose this.” Scottie made a helpless gesture, indicating the glitches and jolts. “So why the hell were they treating you like you were Darth Vader with a jackhammer?”
Laughter exploded from Willow. Then, within a heartbeat, it turned into sobs. She pressed her hands to her mouth to muffle them, but the raw, heart-wrenching sounds slipped past her fingers.
Scottie’s heart ached for her. She understood. This wasn’t about the model train. It was about the people Willow had lost because of her tech quirk, the bonds she’d never been able to make. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Willow, please… Can I hold you?”
“You’ll get zapped,” Willow choked out.
“I don’t care if you don’t.”
Scottie opened her arms, and when Willow crawled into them, she braced for a painful jolt.
A faint spark arced between them, visible in the dark, but instead of the sharp sting she’d expected, it felt more like a tickle, as if Willow’s body and mind were too exhausted to build up a more powerful charge.
Willow burrowed into her, face pressed to the spot where Scottie’s neck met her shoulder.
The hot breath on her skin sent a rush of sensations down Scottie’s body, but the fierce protectiveness she felt was the stronger emotion.
She trailed her hands up and down Willow’s back in a slow, soothing rhythm. “You did nothing wrong,” she whispered again and again. “You didn’t deserve that.”
Every now and then, a shudder ran through Willow, as if decades-old tensions were draining from her body. Her breath came in shaky gulps, but no tears dripped onto Scottie’s shoulder. That little bit of reserve made Scottie ache for her even more.
She held her close until Willow’s breathing finally started to calm and the stiffness in her shoulders melted away in their tight embrace.
“You did nothing wrong,” Scottie whispered one last time. “It was never your fault. Never. Do you get that?”
Willow didn’t answer.
For a moment, Scottie thought she was still reprimanding herself, struggling to believe that she hadn’t deserved her parents’ punishment. But then she realized that Willow had fallen asleep in her arms.
A feeling she couldn’t name swept over her. It wasn’t just that she was falling deeper in love with Willow every day, though she knew that was happening too.
But Willow—reserved Willow, who kept her heart behind a firewall—letting Scottie see her so vulnerable, allowing herself to be held, dropping off to sleep in sheer exhaustion half on top of her…
It took Scottie’s breath away and humbled her in a way nothing ever had.
Scottie stayed awake a little while longer, holding Willow close, listening to her soft breathing in the darkness.
When her eyelids grew heavy and her muscles twitched, at the edge of sleep, she pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Willow’s head. “Sweet dreams.”
Willow murmured something unintelligible, clearly still sound asleep.
Scottie settled the covers more comfortably around Willow’s shoulders.
Then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep with one final thought: Was it too late to switch out the paper snowflake she’d hung on the corporate tree?
If she got just one wish for Christmas, it would be for Willow to finally be at peace with herself.