12. Lonely Christmas
LONELY CHRISTMAS
Christmas Eve in Southside was supposed to feel loud.
Families, fireworks, karaoke that no one asked for but everyone tolerated. Everything about the city this time of the year felt like it was trying too hard to be joyful.
And yet, inside LULLA, it felt like the opposite.
Tucked somewhere in a quiet residential street, the place didn’t even look like a bar from the outside—just a house you wouldn’t notice unless someone told you it mattered.
Getting in felt like a secret. A passcode, a door that didn’t open unless you deserved it, and then suddenly, you were inside something dim, warm, and a little too intimate for strangers.
The lighting here was low enough to make everyone look better than they probably were, walls lined with art that felt curated but not explained, and a quiet hum of conversations that never quite turned into noise.
It was the kind of place people want to feel something—but quietly.
I sat alone at the bar, nursing a Long Island Iced Tea I hadn’t touched in the last ten minutes, waiting for Honey and her friend like they were the only thing tethering me to this night.
Around me, everyone seemed to be in pairs… or pretending to be.
A guy to my left leaned in too close to his date, laughing a little too hard at something that wasn’t funny. His hand rested on her knee like it had been placed there during a team meeting.
Across the room, someone was saying, “I’m not like other guys.” Which, statistically, made him exactly like other guys.
I picked up my drink and raised a toast to no one in particular. I told myself I came here for one drink only, but I was on my second—which in situationship math, meant I was doing amazing.
A couple walked past me, fingers intertwined, moving like they had nowhere else to be but with each other. Effortless. Unbothered. The kind of connection that didn’t feel like it needed to be explained.
I looked away, because there was something deeply offensive about witnessing a stable relationship in public… especially on Christmas Eve.
I shifted in my seat, pulling my phone out just to have something to do with my hands.
But there were no notifications.
No messages.
Nothing from him—which was ridiculous, because I wasn’t expecting anything. And yet nothing says emotional stability like sitting in a speakeasy on Christmas Eve, waiting for a text from someone who never even called you his.
I exhaled, leaning back against the bar, eyes drifting lazily across the room again—cataloguing strangers, building stories I didn’t need, distracting myself in small, harmless ways.
It was easier to watch other people’s lives.
Easier than sitting in my own.
I took another sip of my drink and glanced at the door.
Still no Honey.
This meant two things: either she was late, or she was about to walk in with a line so accurate it would ruin my entire night.
Honestly, both felt equally possible.
I let my gaze wander again, slower this time, until it landed somewhere it shouldn’t have.
And just like that…
I was back there…
Flashback to the days I knew my heart would cross universes for him…
Back to when I didn’t know how much I had to lose…
The day had just started, and I was half under the sheets—already hiding, already pretending I wasn’t smiling.
“You’re so dramatic,” Victor said, his voice somewhere between amused and completely unbothered.
I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m not.”
“You are,” he insisted. “You act like everything is a scene.”
I pulled the blanket higher, covering my face now. “Maybe because you keep giving me material.”
There was a pause.
Then the bed dipped.
And before I could react, the sheets were pulled down just enough for him to find me.
I looked at him, narrowing my eyes—playfully unimpressed, like I was trying very hard not to give him the satisfaction.
He just smiled.
That soft, easy smile that always undid me.
And then he kissed me.
Quick. Casual.
I pushed him lightly. “You’re annoying.”
“Mhm,” he said, already leaning in again.
I turned away, pulling the sheets back over my head, like that would somehow stop him.
It didn’t.
It never did.
“James,” he said, laughing now.
“No,” I muttered from under the blanket. “I’m done talking to you.”
“You say that like it’s ever worked before.”
The sheets were pulled again—this time faster—and I barely had time to react before he was right there, kissing me again, softer this time.
I tried to hold my expression, tried to stay in character, but it broke the second he started tickling me.
“Victor—” I laughed, twisting away, trying to push him off. “Stop—”
“You need more kisses,” he said, grinning, before pressing another one against my neck.
“I hate you,” I shot back, breathless.
“No, you don’t.”
I didn’t… and he knew that.
I loved him.
So much.
“You’re mine,” he whispered, his lips a breath away from mine.
“I’m yours,” I said, gently pulling him in again.
I loved him more than anything the world could ever offer.
That if it ever ended, it would shatter me…
I just didn’t know it yet.
But we stayed like that for a while, somewhere between teasing and something softer.
Like the kind of happiness that didn’t ask questions.
The kind that just… existed…
But it wasn’t always like that.
Or perhaps, maybe it was, and I just didn’t notice when it started changing.
There was a night—nothing special, just one of those in-between days that didn’t feel important until later.
He had his arms around me, tracing slow, absent circles against my skin.
“You’re cute,” he said, out of nowhere.
I looked at him. “That’s it?”
He smirked. “What, you want a speech?”
“Yes,” I said, half-serious. “I deserve a speech.”
He laughed, leaning in to kiss me—easy enough to quiet me.
“You’re so needy,” he murmured.
I smiled. “Only for you… forever.”
It came out softer than I meant it to, like something I shouldn’t have said out loud. Because something in his expression shifted right after.
Not completely. Not enough to name. Just enough to feel.
He pulled away a little, taking off his hand around my shoulder, reaching for his phone like the moment had already passed.
I had imagined the weight of it.
But I told myself it was nothing.
It was always nothing.
And then there were nights that felt like a different version of him entirely.
The kind where I had to pause before saying anything, like I needed to figure out who I was talking to first.
I remember staring at my phone, thumb hovering, rereading our messages like there was a pattern I just hadn’t cracked yet.
Sometimes he was all in.
Calling me out of nowhere.
Texting me he missed me.
Making plans like I was already part of his life.
And then, just as easily… nothing.
No warning. No shift I could point to.
Just a silence that made me feel like I had said something wrong, even when I hadn’t said anything at all.
I started choosing my words more carefully.
Shorter replies. Less emotions. Less of me. Just in case today wasn’t a version of him that could hold it.
Because I never knew which one I was going to get. Like lottery—a game of uncertainty.
It was either the one who made me feel like I was forever or the one who made me feel like I was asking for too much just by existing.
And when he finally did reply, hours later, it was always the same.
‘Hey.’
Like nothing had shifted. Like I hadn’t spent the last few hours overthinking. Like I hadn’t shrunk myself.
And I would meet him there.
Every damn time.
Because somehow, I kept choosing the version of him that felt certain—the one who made me feel like I was easy to love, even when loving him started to feel like learning rules that changed every day.
“Okay, first of all—he did not look like that on Tinder.”
Honey’s voice cut through my musings.
The bar came rushing back: the low lights, the quiet hum, the glass still in my hand.
I blinked, turning slightly as she slid into the seat beside me like she had always been there.
“And I’m not saying I was catfished,” she continued, already mid-story, “but if the police asked me to identify him, I’d have to say ‘sir, that man doesn’t exist’.”
I let out a small laugh, the first real ones I’d felt all night.
“Correction,” she said, raising a finger. “I was delayed by deception.”
Honey gestured behind her.
“This is Michelle—the emotional support I needed after being lied to.”
Michelle stepped forward with a grin, sliding into the seat on Honey’s other side. “Hi! I witnessed Honey getting catfished. It was traumatic.”
I nodded at her. “James.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “And just so you know, the Tinder guy used a photo from like… 2013.”
Honey scoffed. “2013? Baby, that man was using a filter from a different era. I showed up expecting ‘mysterious chinito with soft boy energy,’ and what I got was—” she paused, searching for the right words, “—a man who looked starved for five years and still felt he’d eaten enough.”
I huffed a laugh into my drink.
“So that’s why you’re thirty minutes late?”
“Thirty?” Honey repeated, offended. “That was a character-building experience. If anything, I’m early for the next phase of my life.”
She turned slightly, catching the bartender’s attention with ease.
“Can I get a cosmo?” she said like she was Carrie Bradshaw.
Then Honey glanced at me, eyes scanning my face for half a second longer than usual.
Not enough to call it out, but enough to notice.
Michelle slid off her seat, already spotting someone across the room. “Oh—wait, I know someone,” she said, leaning closer to Honey. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t fall in love,” Honey called after her. “We don’t have time for that tonight.”
Michelle laughed, disappearing deep into the bar.
And just like that, it was just the two of us.
Honey turned back to me.
The humor was still there, but softer now—more careful.
She didn’t say anything yet.
She just waited.
“So,” I started, “are we gonna gossip or what?”
“Darling, queens don’t gossip. We spread awareness,” she said.
I laughed—though it faded into a sigh two seconds later.