Page 135 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

I thought of my mother looking for my dad in the butterflies. The way I adopted that strange, hopeful superstition into my life. There was a necklace hanging from Ophelia’s neck to prove it. And it was too perfect to be a coincidence.

“Did Tally drop her off at the airport yet?” I asked, bounding to my feet.

Mateo followed me into the house, cell phone to his ear. “Calling her right now.”

43

Somehowbeingdroppedoffat the airport in sunny Florida was worse than being left in the shitty snow at the terminal in Colorado. I would take negative temperatures and a blizzard any day over being forced to hastily hug Natalia goodbye with a symphony of car horns rushing us along.

“I can’t believe this is it.” She frowned, throwing her arms around me as I dragged my suitcase out of the backseat of the car. It landed with a thump that sounded exactly like how I felt. “We can’t wait this long to see each other ever again.”

“We won't.” I squeezed her tightly. “We have a wedding to plan anyway. I’ll see you in a couple months, tops.”

“Let’s hope Matty doesn’t kill me first. I’m pretty sure he’s organized all my emails into spam.” Nat rolled her eyes. “Men.”

The car’s hazard lights flickered, a stench of exhaust filling the tunnel we were idling in. I bent down and extended my suitcase handle. “Thank you for everything. I needed it. This was the best holiday I could have ever asked for.”

“Let’s do it again…next Christmas?” she offered.

Coconut Creek becoming a tradition was a somewhat terrifying prospect, one that required a level of self-reflection that I’d only just reached thanks to the last three weeks. Regardless, it tugged on a sentimental heartstring and gave me the bleakest taste of hope. “Definitely.”

A mist clouded over Natalia’s eyes, and like a yawn it was contagious to me. I pulled her into another hug and we wiggled back and forth. “It’s gonna be fine,” I assured her. “I’m going to get so drunk right now that I go full Kristen Wiig inBridesmaidson the flight and hopefully pass out for the entire thing.”

“Maybe notfull,”she suggested. “I can’t imagine something worse than having the spins at thirty thousand feet.”

“It’s happening.” I shrugged, backing away. “I need distraction. Mind-numbing forgetfulness.”

“God, he was really that good?”

“There are at least four mimosas speaking in my ears right now.” I pitched my voice higher, getting closer and closer to the terminal door. “Ophelia, drink us… Drink us!”

“I’m seeing a lot of regret and fancy airline paper bags in your future,” Nat groaned. Her phone started ringing and she slipped it out of her pocket. “It’s Mateo,” she announced as I retreated with a sinister smile. “At least eat a bagel or something first!”

“Tell him I said bye!” I shouted. “I love you!”

“Love you, text me when you land!”

I filed inside, finding first the dreaded check-in, then the mile-long security line. My back ached as I kicked my carry-on of perfectly organized gifts along the slow-moving queue, only to have every present removed and inspected as if it were filled with gunpowder.

I should have expected that.

I fucking hated airports.

When that was through, I had enough anxiety over losing one of my sibling’s gifts to TSA that I slipped through the metal detector without taking my phone out of my pocket, becoming enemy number one of every other person in the terminal standing on the floor in their socks. I got a very friendly pat down by a very unfriendly agent, and then ditched my phone entirely into the bottom of my bag out of spite.

Dad was picking me up; he’d already let me know he was tracking the flight by the minute, so it wasn’t like I needed it. At the beginning of December the screen would have been the distraction, but now it was a reminder of what I was leaving behind. Frankie promised me, though, it wasn’t the end. Simply a pause in the track. Life could continue on around us, but we would remain in place for at least a little while longer. Until the end of the month. That was one thing keeping me from coming apart completely. But not enough that I wasn’t tingling with a need to drink away some of that apprehension.

I made up for it with an hour of mimosas while I waited, chasing a couple with tequila against my better judgment and then swayed onto the bridge to the plane like a drunken pirate walking the plank.

To top off every emotion and depressant combining into their own mixed drink of sorts inside of me—it turned out I also had a middle seat.

Not only a middle seat, but one with a very large, excitable rowmate filling the aisle seat beside it. And he was dressed for Colorado. Sweater on top of sweater, fur-lined boots, a red beanie with the fuzzy pom-pom on top. The man was the live-action version of Yukon Cornelius. I pulled a deep breath through my nose as I stumbled forward, realizing I reeked of booze, and lifted onto my tiptoes to shove my carry-on into the overhead.

The compartment popped open and a giant, heavy boot came careening down and connected with the center of my forehead.

“What the—” I complained, rubbing the knot that formed immediately.

“Oh boy, that’ll be a nice egg,” the man commented. He stood, ushering me into my seat as he picked up the boot and put it back, then shoved my bag of gifts into the overhead for me, resorting to punching it repeatedly until the hatch closed.

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