Wishing You Well This Christmas (The Wishing Well)

Aspen

I

NAI CHRISTMAS EVE

Nai was supposed to be over it. She was supposed to be over her, over the life she left behind. But Christmas had a habit of making liars out of everyone. And every year Nai was its biggest culprit.

“Nai, sweetheart, you made it,” Jillian’s aunt called from somewhere inside the house, her warm voice warm reaching for her before Nai had even shrugged out of her coat.

Nai smiled automatically and waved at the people inside who turned her way. Uncle Barry grinned as he hurried towards her to take her coat. “Long drive?”

“Just slow. Guess everyone thought arriving after rush hour was smart.” She greeted him with a cheek kiss and a light squeeze of his shoulder.

He chuckled and shook her coat before putting it on a hanger. “Same thing every year. You must be starving, sweetheart. Delia’s got those little cheeseboards ready. But stay away from the salami”—Barry lowered his voice—“it smells like puke.”

Nai laughed and lifted her bags. “Thanks for the heads up.”

The living room was all beams and height, the ceiling rising up like a cathedral of dark timber. It was already full of people and life. Conversations braided through the space, laughter rising and falling in waves.

A TV murmured in the background with some holiday program no one was watching. A fire snapped and popped in the hearth, and someone had draped a string of lights over the mantle crookedly, as if daring anyone to straighten them.

Jillian’s family was spread around the room with their usual ease.

Her older brother and two uncles had settled near the stone fireplace, glasses in hand.

A group of adults clustered in loose knots, hands moving as they talked.

Someone leaned against the back of the large sofa, listening more than speaking.

Cousins in their late teens and early twenties sprawled on the floor by the coffee table, surrounded by wrapping paper and half-finished drinks.

A couple of friends hovered near the windows, silhouetted against the dark glass.

Children darted past her legs, their socks slipping on polished wood.

Another child—her child—rushed after them, laughter sharp and unrestrained.

“Hey, hey”—Nai flicked her hand at her youngest—“no brushing past your mom without kisses.”

Alina stopped mid-sprint, turning with an eye roll. “Mom,” she whined, stomping back just long enough to plant a quick kiss on Nai’s cheek before darting off again.

“Love you too,” Nai called after her, grinning, used to taking the win where she could.

“Ugh, I said it already!” Alina insisted, absolutely not having said it, as per usual. Her laughter rang once again as she vanished down the hall. Nai lingered a moment longer than necessary, until the sound of Alina’s steps faded.

“Nai.” She turned at the sound of her name. Jillian’s voice, familiar as a heartbeat after a decade-long relationship. Ten years together, their marriage having been unmade just that morning.

Jillian was already on her feet, brown hair swept over one shoulder, a smile breaking wide across her face as she pulled Nai into a hug. It was warm and effortless, lingering a second longer than it needed to.

“Hey.” Nai hugged her back, pressing a quick kiss to the pale skin at Jillian’s temple.

“It’s official,” Jillian said quietly near her ear. “Everything went through this morning.”

Nai nodded. “Yeah.”

Jillian’s arm stayed around Nai’s waist as she leaned back to look up at her, warm green eyes studying Nai’s face in that careful, observant way she always used to. “Are you okay?”

Nai nodded. “Yeah. The girls are good. They’re happy.” She paused. “You’re happy.”

Jillian’s gaze lingered as her thumb brushed Nai’s cheek. “And you? Are you happy?”

Nai hesitated. “I’m…steady.”

Jillian’s eyes softened. “You always were. I love that about you.”

She squeezed Nai at the waist and kissed her cheek, her hair falling forward.

“Come on, let’s go mingle and endure everyone’s judgmental looks.

” She said ‘mingle’ the same way Alina had said ‘Mom’ just earlier.

Living in Los Feliz apparently didn’t stop her girls from picking up a Valley accent.

Her girls and her ex, she corrected herself.

Nai chuckled. “You go right, I go left?”

Jillian let out a laugh, that big, easy smile lighting her whole face again. “You know it, babe.” And with that she let go of Nai.

Nai stood there a moment longer, the warmth of Jillian’s touch still on her waist. Steady had been enough for a long time.

Enough to build a life. Enough to raise children.

Enough to keep things moving even when feeling never quite caught up.

But there were parts of herself she’d never learned how to open.

A whole coastline she’d kept inland. Memories she hadn’t known how to name, let alone feel.

It all started that summer twenty years ago, in Crickalade Bay, when she woke up and realized the world had gone quiet inside her. Every feeling, every sensation blunted, emotions arriving as echoes instead of sound.

Jillian had felt the effects, even if she’d never known Nai any differently. She sensed the invisible limits, the way Nai held parts of herself just out of reach. The way Nai’s steady affection stopped short of real intimacy. For a while, steady had been love. It just hadn’t been enough.

Nai inhaled and put her perfectly curated influencer mask on. Then—as promised—she headed left towards the kitchen.

The house was all warm timber and pale stone beneath the vaulted ceiling. The golden glow of the fireplace and overhead spotlights pooled across leather and wool. Everything about the interior design was perfectly arranged in a way that suggested wealth and privilege.

Beyond the living room lay the kitchen, its polished wood and marble warmed by lamplight. Outside, snow pressed close to the tall windows, and in the distance the snow-covered forest glowed under the full moon.

The kitchen was almost as full as the living room, and Aunt Delia stood red-faced but glowing by the cooker. Steam curled into the air above the pots, vegetables, and other ingredients cluttering the counter.

Someone pressed a glass of chardonnay into Nai’s hand. Someone else asked if she’d eaten yet. A cousin she had met once, maybe twice, hugged her without hesitation, cheek to cheek, smelling faintly of sweet perfume. One of the perfumes that had once sponsored Nai.

“Help yourself,” someone said, gesturing toward the cheeseboards on the kitchen island. “There’s food coming, but honestly, just start.”

“Yes, hon, you need some meat on those bones.” Delia brushed past with a pinch at her waist.

“It’s called a bodysuit, and it’s going to make me sweat profusely within the hour,” Nai joked and nabbed a cube of cheese from the board.

Delia laughed. “Well, you always look so lovely.” The others in the kitchen nodded, still smiling from her joke.

She hugged people, gave them compliments and laughed like she felt the same warm joy as everyone else.

But it didn’t hit home. It only registered in her mind, never settled in her heart.

She was good at it, though. Good at pretending.

At performing warmth that didn’t demand intimacy, good being seen without ever being known.

When Delia returned and gestured for everyone to help themselves to more wine, Nai caught her own reflection in the darkened window.

Sharp features set against pale skin, the silver hair falling in a smooth line to her jaw.

Her reflection stared back at her from under dark brows that framed eyes lined with precision, giving her an air of smoky elegance.

Her reflection was the woman people saw when she entered a room: poised, unbothered, and dressed the part.

For a moment, Nai almost fooled herself.

But even now, in the glimmer of the glass, she could see what no one else ever did.

The subtle tension in her jaw, the hesitation in her eyes, and the armor that came from growing up alone.

Her clothes were flawless, her posture unyielding.

But beneath it all was an ever-present current of longing.

Quiet and barely visible, yet always there.

The reflection vanished as someone passed behind her, the window filling again with light and movement. Nai turned towards the room again, wishing her familiar sense of emptiness could disappear as easily.

Someone asked her about work. She answered easily, keeping it light.

Someone complimented her earrings. She thanked them.

Someone asked how long she was staying. “Just a few days,” she said.

“Back after the holidays.” She listened with half an ear when someone talked about their corporate job and while Petra, Jillian’s cousin, spoke of an art retreat in Seattle and the woman she swore she’d marry if she knew where the woman lived.

Nai nodded along and smiled, wine glass heavy in her hand, shoulders relaxed, smile in place. Present and charming. Perfectly digestible. Surrounded by people and yet utterly alone.

The loneliness didn’t arrive all at once.

It never did. It threaded itself in quietly, slipping between moments that should have felt whole.

It settled in the quiet seconds when she poured herself more wine or when she found herself alone looking out the window.

It surfaced when people touched her arm or called her brave or strong, then turned away, never realizing how little of her they’d actually reached.

Nai felt it most when she stopped moving. When her hands were still, when conversation no longer held her attention. In those heartbeats, the noise of the house seemed to move around her like water splitting around a stone.