Letter Sixteen #4
You prepared our tea in the little gold-rimmed, blue-and-white china teacups that were normally reserved for special occasions—it was Christmas, after all—and we moved to the Garland Room, where we sat facing each other on the cream sofa closest to the Christmas tree.
The next day, you would help my dad take the Fraser fir down and carry her out to the road, so we quietly sipped our tea and took one last moment to fully appreciate her.
The burgundy ribbons draped from her branches.
The shiny glass ornaments that sparkled almost as brightly as the lights.
The crafty reindeers and Santas and angels my dad still insisted on hanging every year, much to my embarrassment.
“You know what I’ll miss most about Christmas?” you asked.
“What’s that?”
“The little craft angel up top,” you said, gesturing toward the tree. “She’s my absolute favorite.”
I pulled a face. “Oh, God. She’s made out of a toilet paper roll. She’s awful.”
“She brings me great joy, actually,” you said with a smile. “Her little eyes are slanted so intensely that I half believe she might launch off the tree to attack me.”
“Stop it,” I said, laughing so hard I gripped my cup to keep hot tea from sloshing over the rim.
“You know what she looks like,” you said seriously, both eyebrows raised. “A bit like you did when I first moved in.”
“Shut up.” Still laughing, I nudged your arm, which rested atop the back of the sofa, agonizingly close to mine. Your knee, too. “I already told you: I wasn’t the happiest kid.”
You made a pouty face. “Poor thing. If I’d been here, I would’ve made it my personal mission to make you laugh every day.”
“I believe that.” My gaze held yours as I sipped my tea. “Did you have a good Christmas?”
“Yeah,” you said, glancing off a minute, the glimmer of a smile still on your face. Your C tattoo winked at me as you raked that hand through the dark waves of your hair. “I mean, almost nothing can top meeting my nephew for the first time last Christmas. But even that was…”
“Was what?”
“Nothing,” you said, lifting your cup for a sip. “Being here was great, yeah.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask,” I said carefully. “Did you handle the Sienna situation?”
Your face clouded over, almost making me regret the question. “Not exactly.”
Those two little words set my teeth on edge. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m still in the process of handling it,” you said tightly.
“Does it also mean you’re not going to sleep with her?”
“It means I’ve got this, and you can stop worrying about it. Do we really have to discuss this right now?”
I bristled at your tone—at the annoyance, clearly manifested on your face—not to mention the complete dismissal of my feelings. Before I could stop myself, I said, “Yes. I don’t want her touching you.”
My statement caused your head to lurch back, your teacup to lower.
I cleared my throat. “I mean—just—I know you don’t want that.”
“I don’t want it,” you said, leaning over to place your tea on the coffee table. “What I suddenly want very much”—you pushed up the sleeves of a navy cardigan, eyes narrowed—“is to know why you can’t let this go.”
I squirmed against the sofa, made nervous by the intensity of your gaze as it swept over me from head to toe. Were you monitoring my body language that night, Casey?
“Because it’s Sienna,” I said, “and I hate her.”
“Yes, but you seem quite upset, even though I keep telling you there’s no reason to be.” A little head tilt here. “What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. I just…” Wanted to be sure you weren’t sleeping with her.
To know she’d never touch her devious fingers to your bare skin again.
To feel less ragey, just thinking about it: all the secret pieces of you—so deeply coveted by me—that had already been revealed to her, and how she might add a new piece.
A dark piece. One you might carry forever.
Because, no matter how hard you’d try, you’d never be able to carve that piece back out.
I knew all about dark pieces like that.
But to say any of this would be to admit I had feelings for you. So I set my tea aside and reached inside the pocket of my—your—cardigan for the little emerald green box with gold ribbon. Heart thumping especially hard, I handed it to you.
“What’s this?” you asked, eyebrows slanted in confusion. “Another gift?”
“You didn’t think I’d only give you a book and a scarf, did you?”
“I like books and scarves.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you have, like, fifty of each already.”
Your brows lifted. “So you’ve been in my bedroom counting them, have you?”
“I told you—I don’t do that anymore.”
“Right,” you said, drawing out the word. “How strange it is that things keep moving about, then.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I said, fighting back a smile.
You smiled really big, which prompted me to go ahead and smile, too.
“Go on,” I urged. “Open it.”
You pulled the ribbon loose, then pried open the box. Inside, nestled on top of white tissue paper, lay a leather bracelet. Dark brown and braided, just like my hair. You smoothed your thumb over the braid, throat bobbing as you stared down at it.
“I didn’t want to give it to you earlier—in front of my dad.”
“Why not?” you asked quietly, still staring at the bracelet.
“It just…felt like a moment that should only be shared between you and me.”
You glanced up, eyes sparkling as bright as the lights on the tree.
“I love it. It’s the perfect gift. Thank you.
” You leaned forward, clasped the back of my neck, and placed your lips to my forehead, lingering a bit longer than necessary.
A real kiss. One that zipped underneath my skin like burning wire and lit me up everywhere.
Frank Sinatra crooned in the background, the song velvety and familiar and bittersweet: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Judy Garland’s version, you couldn’t bear.
But Sinatra’s, you tolerated. You fastened the braided leather to your wrist, placing it above the black-and-white beaded one from Claire.
“For the record,” you said, clicking its brass magnetic clip into place, “no one has ever touched me quite like you have.” Your eyes flicked up to meet mine again. “Especially this Christmas.”
Through the sudden tightness in my throat, I said, “The scarf was that nice, huh?”
“I’m serious.” You said it almost pleadingly—as if you wanted me to be serious.
“Our holiday tours on the way home from school, seeing The Nutcracker last week, having Christmas dinner with the Harrises for the first time, tonight, the tea, this gift…” You paused to glance around the room before brushing your gaze over my face.
“I haven’t been quite this happy in ages.
Not that long ago, I didn’t think it was possible to be. ”
I thought of Christmases past and how I’d normally spend the evening, as the final hour—and with it, all the magic—slipped away.
I’d sit by the fire with my dad and Garland, reading. Move up to my room, read some more. Bemoan my lack of a dog. Lack of a mom. Lack of freedom.
My dad was right: you made our house a home. It had always looked like a home, but you filled it with the kind of cozy charm it often lacked unless the Harrises were visiting. You filled all the hollow spaces. You made it more.
You made us whole.
Which isn’t to say the house had never been enough prior to your arrival—when it was just me and Nic. Because it had. He’d made the Christmases of my childhood magical. It’s just that, with you there, it felt like some of the magic had been reclaimed.
I reached for the braided bracelet. “Me, too,” I whispered, twisting it once around your wrist. “I’m glad you’re here.”
And that’s when I knew: I couldn’t let Sienna take away a single ounce of your happiness. Not when you’d only added to mine, making me happier that Christmas—that whole year—than I’d been, to use your words, in ages.
When you returned from England, I’d teach Sienna a lesson. She needed to know: if she wanted to mess with you, she’d have to deal with me first.