Chapter 5
Chapter Five
MATTHEW
Hearing the downturn of Avery’s trip has put me on edge.
It’s too much like my own story with McKenzie.
It pains me to know this beautiful, annoyingly happy elf knows the pain of the long, dragged-out process of thinking we had our happily ever afters, only to find out that our relationship was completely one-sided.
Now that McKenzie has crossed my mind, it gives me more stress about this trip back home.
My heart rate picks up and I grip the steering wheel tighter, pushing the thoughts of my ex-girlfriend away and focus on the road.
The snow falls harder and is building on the roads quite quickly.
It’s getting hard to see in the whiteout conditions, making the choking feeling of dread crawl deeper into my chest.
“You’ve gone through this, too?” Avery’s unsure voice drifts across the console, sniffs hidden under the sleeve of her jacket.
“Similar, yes. It’s actually why I’ve been avoiding going back to Woodland Creek.”
“You mean Gingerbread Grove?’ she asks. I don’t need to look over to know she’s got a sneaky smile on her face.
“Yes. Gingerbread Grove,” I sigh. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive the city for changing the name.”
She chuckles and takes a moment before she speaks again. “What happened?”
“My girlfriend in high school and for most of college. We both left our hometown for school. She went to school in Kelowna while I went to Vancouver. It was fine for the first couple of years until we both came home for Christmas one year and I find out she’s engaged to someone else.
” It may have been almost ten years since it happened, but it doesn’t make it any easier to talk about.
Especially since McKenzie has since moved back to Gingerbread Grove and my mother keeps insisting on updating me on her.
“Engaged? Wow! She never mentioned anything to you?” Avery shifts in her seat, her voice stronger.
“No. She said she didn’t think we were ‘exclusive’ since we lived so far away from each other and assumed that I was also moving on as well. Apparently, we had different definitions of what a ‘long-distance relationship’ looked like.”
“That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.” Avery places her hand on my arm, sending a rush of nervous energy of what I could only assume is what people call butterflies in their stomach.
It shocks me how much my body responds to her touch, even through my jacket. I haven’t felt anything like that since McKenzie. Even my time with Emily when we first started dating didn’t provoke this gut reaction at a simple touch.
“Uh, yeah. So, I haven’t been back to town in a while.
” I clear my throat and straighten in my seat as her hand falls away.
I immediately miss the connection, but I can’t dwell on that.
Not when she’s a stranger I won’t ever see again after we hit Kamloops, and I’m trying to focus on not driving the rental car off the road.
“So, why now?” Avery asks, placing her hands back in her lap.
“My dad fell and there’s no one else to help run the family store,” I mutter.
While my relationship with my dad has always been strained, I don’t wish him any ill will.
Just because I don’t have any desire to run the family store, or have any interest in selling hardware at all, doesn’t mean I don’t care about my family or the business in general.
I just prefer to support it from the city.
I would probably visit home more if I didn’t have to hear about my ‘poor life choices’ every time I visited.
My dad started the store when he and Mom first married.
I grew up in the store, and while I appreciate everything that my dad has done building it up and supporting the family with it, it doesn’t mean that I have any desire to take over from him.
I wish he understood that his love for hardware is like my love for computers.
And that it wasn’t a source of an argument every time we spoke.
“Wow, that’s nice of you to drop everything and come back home.”
Avery’s soft voice draws me out of my thoughts. Some might see this as an honourable act of a son, but really, it’s motivated by guilt.
“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” I mutter.
“What do you mean?”
“My mom.” I feel the anxiety rising in my chest as I think back to the phone call that started it all.
It takes everything in me not to take my hand and rub at the gnawing ache in my sternum.
I need to focus and have two hands firmly gripping the wheel as the snow starts to fall unbelievably harder.
“Ah,” Avery muses, turning to face me again. “Is that who you were talking to on the phone back at the gate?”
“When you eavesdropped?” I joke, sneaking a glance at her.
“I did not!” Avery gasps as she playfully swats my arm. “You were right beside me!”
“Sure,” I laugh, finding myself feeling freer for the first time in ages.
The tightness in my chest starts to ease and I notice my grip lessen on the wheel.
“But, yes, I was talking to my mom. She saw that our flight had been cancelled and was making sure I wasn’t just going to turn around and go back to my apartment. ”
“It sounds like she really misses you.”
I want to believe Avery’s words, and I know that she does miss me, but I also know it’s more than just a mom missing her son.
It’s the loss of a life my parents thought they had planned out for me.
They never understood the draw of the city, or my love for computers and programming.
Instead, they skirt around it, acting as if it’s a short stint to get it out of my system until I come home and take over the store.
“I’m sure she does, but they mostly just need someone to run the store. That’s why she’s in a hurry to get me home.”
“You don’t have any brothers or sisters to help?”
“One brother, but he works in Sun Peaks and had to rush back.”
“I see,” Avery says, her gaze straying to the road.
I can tell that she wants me to elaborate, but I can’t.
My voice won’t form the words that since he’s the younger son, he’s not expected to take over the store like I am.
Or how because he works in the hospitality industry that it’s like working in the store and seen as better than ‘hiding behind a computer.’
So instead, silence falls over the car, and only when I find it more distracting than Avery’s questions do I let her turn on the radio.
A classic Christmas song comes through the speakers, and I can’t help but smile as Avery hums along with the crooner singing about a White Christmas.
How fitting. I even find myself starting to tap my fingers to the beat as we let the music surround us.
I like that even with her million questions, she can find peace in the silence and doesn’t have to talk to avoid it like most of the other women I’ve dated.
What astonishes me is that the more we are silent, the more I find that I have questions for her.
I want to know more about her. Mostly, I want to know why she was with that jerk for so long.
I don’t know the guy, but I can’t picture this elf with someone named Maxwell. No matter his name, she didn’t deserve what happened to her earlier tonight.
“So, uh, I know you were in town for a conference but…” I look over at her, taking in her green and red elf dress with matching hat, with her blonde hair running down over her shoulders. “Do you normally dress like an elf?”
I relish in the moment as she throws her head back and laughs.
“No, definitely not. Let’s just say I thought it would be fun as part of the surprise for Maxwell and a ‘Christmas surprise.’” The joy drops from her words at his name, and I find myself with a renewed sense of anger on her behalf.
It seems short-lived as the smirk returns as she continues.
“And being from Gingerbread Grove, I thought you’d be more of a Christmas guy. ”
I think about her statement. I used to love Christmas. As a kid, it was my favourite time of the year. We would always go to the events in our neighbouring town, Candy Cane Creek, to take part in all the festivities. I guess somewhere in growing up and the strife with my family, I lost that magic.
Plus, my town is going overboard with the ‘rebranding.’
“I don’t hate Christmas. I guess I’ve just grown out of it.”
Avery gasps. “What? How do you just grow out of Christmas?”
“I dunno,” I stammer, shifting in my seat. “Life happened, I guess. The magic was gone. It just sort of…happened.”
“That’s so sad.” And I believe her. She sounds genuinely sad for me. She takes a moment, and the crushing weight on my chest starts to come back.
I don’t know when it actually happened, when I stopped feeling the holiday spirit. It was well before I moved to Vancouver, that I know. It was probably somewhere around me graduating from university and my parents realizing my passion for computers wasn’t just a hobby.
“So,” she continues, “did you forget your sleigh at home?”
I risk a glance at her, raising my eyebrow. “Sleigh?”
“Car? Truck? Snowmobile? Why rent a car if you’re from the city? I can’t imagine fighting for the last of the cars in that nightmare was ideal.”
I chuckle. “No, I don’t have a vehicle—sleigh or otherwise. Well, not anymore. I had a truck, but I sold it once I got settled into the city.”
“Why?” she asks.
“No need for it there. I live and work downtown. I rarely leave and if I do, I can take transit or get a cab. It didn’t make sense for me to keep it. So instead, I rent out the parking space in my condo building and make some extra money.”
“That’s smart, actually.”
Silence falls over the car again. I find myself needing to concentrate harder and harder on the road as the snow begins to cover the road lines.
The pitch-black sky isn’t helping with the visibility as my headlights only reflect off the fast falling snow, making it a virtual whiteout.
I try my best to remember the curve of a road I haven’t driven in years, praying we don’t end up in a ditch.
Another reason why I never return home. The road conditions can be so unpredictable, especially in the winter.
I can feel my breath return back to normal when there’s a small break in the snow, or more accurately, the intensity of it.
I look over to find Avery slumped against the passenger window, hands curled under her head as she sleeps.
I don’t dare risk taking my eyes off the road for more than a second with these conditions, but I’m completely enthralled by how peaceful she looks.
She no longer appears to be the stressed out, frustrated woman that she was at the gate.
Nor is she my inquisitive, unexpected passenger.
Now she’s a beautiful blonde elf, finding her peace for the first time in what might be a long time.
I don’t know why but looking at her sleeping makes me feel a fraction of the stillness that I used to feel.
A peace that I thought I had found in McKenzie.
I’ve never put much stock in finding someone that could give me that sense of security again, thinking nothing short of a Christmas miracle could do that.
But spending time with Avery makes me think that maybe anything could be possible.