This Time, Next Year

CHAPTER 1 NORA

“You’re late,” I hiss.

Finn pushes his way through my door before I can slam it in his face.

He slips off his boots, tiptoeing from island to island of dry tiling between lakes of melted snow and slush.

A cheer goes up from our friends when they catch sight of him from the kitchen and he grins over his shoulder at me, like a spoiled brat. I scowl.

I slam my front door harder than absolutely necessary. “It’s almost midnight,” I say through gritted teeth, my back to him. I shouldn’t be mad. It’s not like I expected Finn to be early.

I turn around and he’s right in front of me. I jump, my back against the door. He’s not smirking anymore.

“Here,” he says quietly, holding a small giftbag between us. His dark brown, shoulder-length hair that he constantly tucks behind his ears falls forward as he looks down at me; Finn is so tall, and I am so short, that even gravity has to make a point about it.

He tucks his hair behind his ear again.

“Hmmm,” I intone primly, very much not looking at him.

Instead, I focus on his pants, faded army-green trousers that could be too short for him or could fit him just fine.

I can’t tell since he insists on rolling all of his pant hems above his ankles.

I stare at the gold belt buckle at his waist, Medusa and her snakes staring back at me, and I am irrationally mad—madder, ugh—because that is actually a really cool belt buckle and I don’t want to give Finn credit for choosing it, wearing it.

I stare at his hands, the veins in his forearms, the tendons in his wrist. He’s never been a hairy man.

Compared to some of our other guy friends who started counting their chest hairs in grade seven, who were fundraising for Movember by grade ten, Finn has the body hair of a swim team star.

I’m sure he got endless shit for it in hockey locker rooms before he quit, since hockey bros are exactly the type to embrace that kind of toxic masculinity.

Personally—not that I’ve ever really cared about Finn’s body, hairless or otherwise—I’ve always been partial to the few sparse hairs of his forearms, a few shades lighter than his eyebrows, how they fade long before they reach his fingers.

I stare at those long fingers, hooked around the stiff twine handle of the brown paper bag with light pink tissue paper sticking out of the top.

Little storks and It’s a Girl in bubble letters patterned across the paper.

He shakes it. “Here,” he says, agitated now that I won’t take it.

“What is it?” I pull at the tissue paper.

He very obviously reused all of this from his sister Georgia’s baby shower in June.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he reused the gift, too.

He’d probably love to see the look on my face when I pull out one of those ridiculous pacifiers with a stuffed giraffe attached to it.

“It’s a fucking gift, Eleanor.”

I growl as I snatch it from him. Only Bea gets to call me Eleanor.

“Why, Finnegan?” I say in retaliation. His full name is not Finnegan. It is Griffin.

And besides, we don’t exchange Christmas gifts. Not as a rule in our friend group. As a rule between us. Finn and Nora. A Finn and Nora rule.

He rolls his eyes. “My mother raised me to bring hostess gifts.”

I roll my eyes back at him, but clutch the bag to my chest when he reaches like he’s going to take it back. Finn might suck, but Mrs. Collins is aces.

“Thanks,” I mumble, but he’s already walking away, melting into the crowd of people.

Most I know, though a few have invited friends who invited friends, so the party has that high school rager feeling, bursting at the seams. We’d get a noise complaint if we weren’t in my parents’ house, set back from the road in a generous lot that has always made it easy for my friends to convince me that this spot is the best spot to hold a party, New Year’s Eve or otherwise.

“Two minutes,” Bea yells from the kitchen.

I set the giftbag on the table by the front door and join the rest of our friends as they pop the corks on bottles of cheap sparkling wine, pouring—mostly spilling—fizzing liquid into every available vessel.

Finn is already on his knees, on the sticky kitchen floor, letting Brendan pour the golden liquid directly into his mouth.

It foams around his lips, gurgles up and out, down his cheeks, chin, and throat as he laughs.

Typical. Shows up late but will undoubtedly catch up to everyone else’s blood alcohol level within the next hour.

Part of me realizes that if this were anyone else, I would give them far more grace than I give Finn.

If Bea were to arrive late (though she would never because she knows it’s my biggest pet peeve) and immediately guzzle booze from a bottle, I’d cheer her on.

Part of me knows that I am being unfair to Finn.

It’s just that, if I have to host a New Year’s Eve party, couldn’t I, at the very least, get to host it without my archfrenesis hanging around?

Bea jump-dances toward me, scream-singing a pop song we have loved since we were sixteen, and I shake my head, laughing in spite of my white-knuckled grip on stubbornness.

I look around the room, taking it all in. The music, the smiles, that warm, liquid feeling in my chest that could be confused for a champagne buzz but actually means I’m grateful for all of it.

I may not like New Year’s Eve, but gosh do I love New Year’s Day.

I’ll spend all of tomorrow cleaning and not just because my parents’ house will need it.

It’s a reset. A new beginning. Fresh. If I had more of a choice in the matter, I wouldn’t host an annual New Year’s Eve party.

I’d sit quietly, in the dark, except for maybe a few candles.

I’d journal. I’d eat a comforting stew and drink mulled wine instead of champagne.

I’d go to bed right after the stroke of midnight, staying up only to greet the new day, the new year.

I’d get up early—earlier than whatever time I’ll drag myself out of bed tomorrow, at least. Do some yoga or go for a run, journal some more.

I’d reflect on what I’m grateful for and I’d look forward to the opportunities a new year presents.

And if I were to host anything, it would be a New Year’s Eve dinner, something hearty and filling.

The kind of meal that could keep us all fulfilled, sustained, well into the new year.

But this is fun, too. It’s hard to complain when you’re surrounded by your best friends in the whole world. And a bunch of strangers. And Finn.

He grins at me again from across the kitchen island, like he knows I’m thinking about him. The nerve!

“One minute,” Bea shouts directly into my ear.

I wince and move to a quieter corner. Couples find each other, friends link hands.

Bea looks for me, standing on her tippy toes to peer over her girlfriend’s shoulder, having lost me when I moved.

Usually, we kiss on New Year’s. A tradition we have held for almost a decade.

It always felt a bit like a concession Bea has made on my behalf.

Although, if Bea could have it her way, she’d kiss as many people as she could on New Year’s and I’d never stop her. Except this year she has Rebecca.

Bea pouts at me from across the kitchen.

It’s fine, I mouth.

She shakes her head, waving for me to go to her. She whispers in Rebecca’s ear, and Rebecca looks over her shoulder at me and nods, smiling gently, and no. Oh no. I am not letting my best friend kiss me on her first New Year’s Eve with her girlfriend.

I may not like New Year’s, but this is Bea’s night. She starts to plan her outfit in October. She orders sparkly headbands and those awkward year sunglasses in bulk.

Maybe it’s the fact that my parents haven’t renovated it since I was in the third grade, but standing in this kitchen—with its old wood panel cupboards and knob handles, with a refrigerator that still features photos of me with braces—staring across the room at Bea feels like déjà vu.

This high school rager isn’t nostalgia. It’s a shackle. We’ve all graduated university, most of us have even completed graduate degrees. Finn somehow made it through law school.

I am not clinging to another one of our silly traditions.

No, I mouth more forcefully, shake my head strong enough that my short wavy hair gets in my eyes.

“But you have no one to kiss!” my very best, very loud, friend says. She doesn’t mean to announce it to the room; she’s just not capable of volume control.

“No. It’s fine.” I hold my hands out to our group as they turn toward me. “I’m fine.”

For reasons I cannot—and refuse to—fully understand, I find him in the crowd again.

He leans against the counter, his hands tucked behind him.

He doesn’t look at me and another surge of irrational anger spikes my blood pressure because excuse you Finn Collins, how dare you look embarrassed for me when you have no one to kiss either.

Bea must follow my gaze, because she says, “Finn!” like an Ancient Greek mathematician might say eureka! or one of my speech therapy patients might say truck. Like he is a great new discovery, the long-sought answer to a most pressing question.

“No,” we say at the same time. I read the word on his lips. The absolute horror on his face at the mere thought of kissing me—rude!—shouldn’t hurt since I feel that same horror.

And yet.