13. The Fifth Day Before Christmas
The Fifth Day Before Christmas
Scene I
[The Chocolatery in front of the staff laundry.]
Viola, dressed in baggy clothes enters holding a paper bag.
On the fifth day before Christmas, I accept my fate and walk right through the employee gates and up to Duke, who sits in front of the Chocolatery, waiting for me. His long legs stretch out lazily in front of him, while a wide grin stretches onto his face.
Despite myself, I smile. There’s something so warming about having someone be excited to see me in the morning. Every morning, Duke’s there, looking for me like I’m about to make his day. Me. Like my presence alone is a gift.
What would it be like to wake up to that smile every single morning—to have Duke turn to look at me with his head still on his pillow, and be excited to open his eyes because it meant he got to look at me?
Mornings with Mal never felt this way. He scarcely even looked at me in the morning—said he needed time to wake up.
Maybe that was true. Maybe he just really needed his morning coffee.
Between all his lies and games, the only thing I can ever know for certain about mornings with Mal, is that every morning my day started out with me feeling like crap.
Like I wasn’t worthy of attention. Or love.
How was I ever okay with being brushed aside when there was someone out there who could look at me like I was the one bringing the morning sun? Twice, because I know later on, he’ll give me the same smile when he sees me as Sebastian.
Which is maybe why I did something bad this morning.
Something very un-aloof, un-cold, un-distant.
“You brought me a bagel,” Duke says, nearly jumping out of the chair to stand in front of me. His body vibrates like a little kid on Christmas morning. Between the Christmas music in the background and the crunch of snow underfoot, it’s exactly what this feels like.
“I bought Sebastian a bagel. The person at the window must have accidentally given me an extra one.” I look away from him, trying to play it off like I don’t care enough to watch him.
Really, though, it’s because looking at him is like looking at the sun.
He’s a taste of July amid the long, cold gray of December.
Duke reaches into the paper bag and pulls out a bagel, looking and smiling at me all the while. “So rather than eat the allegedly mistake bagel yourself, you’re choosing to give it to me?”
I shrug. Duke laughs and immediately shrugs back at me. “Seb told me how you mentioned you were out of groceries and wouldn’t have time to shop until after work today.”
Duke stops unwrapping the bagel, his smile going from dazzling to dazzled. “And he remembered that?”
I nod, remembering how Duke had mentioned it earlier on in the day. He was going to go after work yesterday, but stayed late to help his elf with the station after there was an unfortunate vomit-related incident. “He didn’t want you getting hungry.”
“And you?”
“Me? Oh I don’t care. I assumed you would just start eating the fake snow once you got hungry enough. It’s most likely non-toxic. Probably.”
Duke finishes unwrapping the bagel, still grinning enough to make his right dimple pop. He glances down at the bagel, then, slowly, so slowly, he looks back up at me. “You’re trying to tell me that they accidentally gave you an everything bagel with strawberry cream cheese?”
Unfiltered joy radiates from him. Over a bagel.
A stupid bagel. I tried so hard to make Mal happy in the last bit we were together.
It didn’t matter what I did, it was never enough.
Except now I see that it’s not a question of if the gesture is big enough.
No, it’s a matter of if the person is big enough.
It takes a big person to be happy with a small gesture—like a disgusting bagel and cream cheese combination.
“They probably accidentally made that abomination and threw it in because they couldn’t stand to have it in the restaurant.”
Duke dips his thumb into a bit of the cream cheese on the rim of the bagel and sucks it off. “Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I told Sebastian it was my favourite combination yesterday, could it?”
Oh, Duke. Of course it does.
I roll my eyes. “Either eat your gross bagel or I’m going to toss it in a fire, so no one else will be accidentally subjected to it. Just stop wasting my time.”
He doesn’t. He just stands there a little longer, tilting his head and taking me in like I’m the breath of cleansing air before the first snowfall. “I really like that you show the worst part of yourself to me.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought I looked cute today.”
He blanches. “No, no. Not like that. I just mean, there’s nothing fake about you.
A lot of people put on their best face to pull you in.
Like, my ex would only show me the best parts of her, the lies.
She made me fall for someone who didn’t exist, someone who wasn’t even single.
She hid all her bad parts from me and made me a villain in the process.
” He takes a deep breath and steps towards me, speaking in a low voice while his eyes shimmer with adoration, “You do the opposite. You show me every single wart you have and hope I won’t see the beauty underneath.
But I do. I see you, Viola, and I’d like to see more of you. Like maybe on a date?”
My heart leaps and breaks at the same time.
There is nothing more I’d like than to go on a date with Duke.
Any date with Duke would be special. We could do nothing at all and have it be absolutely everything.
I want to walk with him in the charcoal of the winter’s night.
I want our footsteps to fall into sync as we walk near each other for warmth in the brisk and drizzling December.
I want to have the backs of our hands brush as we wonder where this might go.
It’s not a matter of not wanting to. I do.
I want so badly to give into this feeling with Duke.
I want his smiles and his kisses. I want his warmth and his love.
I want to show the broken-hearted and, well, broken girl inside of me that I’m worthy of so much more than I let myself have. But, I can’t.
I can’t because of this lie, this charade.
If I could, I’d go back and undo it all. I’d throw away the end-of-season bonus in a heartbeat if it meant I got a chance to see where things could go with Duke. I can’t though.
I told a lie, an odious, damned lie. I’ve made my bed, and either way I’ll lie in it alone—either because I’ve pushed Duke away or because he’s found out the truth.
I shake my head. “No. Sorry.” I take a step back, away from his orbit. “I’ve got to go find Sebastian and give him his bagel.”
“Is it because I said ‘wart’ while asking you out? That was not the way I practiced it.”
“You practiced asking me out?”
Duke grins at me. “You got to take some practice swings before stepping up to the plate for the big game.”
He practiced asking me out. Why is that the single most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me? I press my lips together, crushing my lovesick smile that bubbles up.
“I’ll have you know that I ignore all sports-related metaphors due to my vehement dislike of sweaty competition.”
“But are you okay with getting sweaty?” he asks, biting his lower lip and looking at me with trouble in his eyes.
It takes everything I have not to find the Santa shed and pull him in to finish what we started yesterday. Except, he has no idea that I had any part in yesterday’s activities.
“See you later,” I mumble, forcing the swoon out of my voice.
Since I’m a coward who can’t stand to look at Duke’s crestfallen face, I turn as quickly as I can. Before I’ve even gone a step, there’s a hand grazing at my own. It’s not a grab, not a forced confrontation, just a question in the brush of fingertips against mine.
I don’t turn, but I do stop. Behind me, I hear the crunch of a footstep as Duke takes a step towards me. Then, he places something in my hand and curls my fingers around it.
I can still feel him a breath behind me as I look at what he’s placed in my hand. It’s an ornament—a little figurine of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes peeing in the snow. He’s wearing a Santa hat.
“I don’t know if Seb told you what happened yesterday, but I thought it was funny…”
I smile. It’s the perfect ornament after what happened yesterday. Although, surely this ornament must remind him more of Sebastian than of me?
Wait, yesterday. The peeing thing only happened yesterday.
“Duke, you bought this yesterday after work. Instead of getting groceries?”
He laughs. “This was more important.”
Still not turning because I don’t trust myself to say what I need to say if I look at him, I muster up every bit of callousness that I’ve learned from Mal. “I still don’t want to go on a date with you.”
“That’s okay. I’ll still be here tomorrow morning—just in case Seb ‘forgets’ something again.”
“Why?” I can’t help but ask.
There’s a crunch of snow as Duke takes another step towards me.
He’s so close that I can feel his warm breath on my ear, a stark contrast to the chill in the air.
“Because seeing you and your brother is the best part of my day.” The heat moves away from the curve of my neck, as I hear him take another footstep away.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a debatably delicious bagel to eat before it gets cold. ”
He leaves, which is exactly what I wanted, what I needed him to do. Funny how getting everything I want can feel like losing everything I've ever wanted.
Exit Duke, who tears into his bagel.
Viola remains, staring at the ornament in her hand. A tear splashes down onto the fake snow.