Page 150 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
That stomach cramp intensifies.
Kriscan believe that Dad wants her back. Because some part ofhimwants her to come back too.
But Kris’s eyes go glassy when he looks up at me, and he doesn’t respond to that, not really. “Why didn’t I make that connection?” he asks. “You; wedding. She’d be invited. I thought she was texting me about other bullshit, so it was easy to ignore, but it was aboutthis.I didn’t think for one second she’d be here.”
I smile. I smile so big it can only break into a laugh, exhausted and shocked.
Neither of us thought about her being here. Neither of us worried over her or stressed about it. It didn’t take up any space in our heads or our hearts.
It’s a mark of healing, a goalpost of growth we’ve reached.
Which makes it all the more obvious now how all Dad’s bullshit about solidifying Christmas, making it the best, making itlast,stemmed from not only her leaving, but from him trying to make this Holiday fit an unreachable vision of perfection.
Love destroyed him too.
Does he know that that’s what happened to him? Does he know she’s part of why he’s doing all this? It doesn’t make anything he’s done okay, not in the vaguest sense. But it explains it.
And it sets a resolve in my heart to not let my own grief swallow me up. I’d promised Kris and myself, weeks ago, that I wouldn’t let the pain our mother caused continue to infect our lives. No matter what happens, I will keep that promise, and I’ll add on to it thatnogrief, no matter the source, gets to make decisions for us anymore.
But I’ll start by dismantling the product of my father’s grief.
Kris still looks heartbroken, and I hook his neck with my arm.
“You wanna talk about it or be distracted from it?” I ask. “Wallowing in it isn’t an option.”
He grunts. “Jackass.”
“Distracted from it, then.” I haul him off, angling us back for our suites. “I will make you talk about it soon, though.”
He grunts again. After a pause, he goes, “I do know one thing that’d make me feel better.”
“Name it.”
His face is still so pensive and emotional that when he looks up at the ceiling and whispers, “Ball tag,” my brain doesn’t process what he said.
Until he pops his fist down and punches me in the groin.
I plummet to my knees and Kris takes off cackling up the hall.
I have no plans to marry Iris today. But I get dressed when the stylists come calling in the early afternoon—the whole marriage sham is supposed to start before dinner so Dad can be there then slip away to oversee his Christmas Eve Santa duties. Which means he won’t be present for the ball afterwards. Any fallout from the winter Holidays will only stretch until like seven, latest.
So I need to make it to seven without losing my nerve.
I can do that.
And honestly, it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be to find that nerve. I’m oddly calm as the stylists help me into my, ahem, wedding outfit, and by the time they’re putting the final touches on me, the fluttering panic in my gut hasn’t overtaken me.
A navy blue suitcoat is trimmed in gold, with full epaulets on each shoulder, tassels too, and red pants feed into brown leather boots. The stylists slick my curls down—we’ll see how long that lasts—and brush body glitter across my face and neck. And even though I look like a wind-up toy soldier come to life, it’s polished and poised and I don’t hate it.
It isn’t until I see Kris in the hall, dressed similarly but in full navy blue head to toe, that I realize—
“Are we supposed to be nutcrackers?” I tug on the hem of my jacket.
Kris falls in step alongside me, a cavalcade of stylists and staff ushering us to the ballroom. It feels almost… normal. Like we could be where we were a few weeks back, ambivalently heading to the Merry Measure tree decorating.
Except I have Hex’s ring on my thumb.
Kris gives a sad shrug. “That’s the theme.”
