Page 25 of Wishing for Christmas
“Clara, is there something else going on?” Lily asked, her ever-present patience coming through in her voice. Clara could imagine her using that voice on her students.
“It’s complicated,” she said. As nurturing as Lily could be, Clara was not one of her third graders. She was a fully grown adult in a very adult situation.
“Clar, what’s the matter? You’re not sounding like yourself.”
With her eyes still closed, Clara blurted out the truth before she could chicken out. “Lil, I think I time-traveled.”
Lily was silent.
“Are you there?” Clara asked.
“Yeah. Um, what are you talking about, exactly? Are you getting philosophical on me again?”
Clara balled up a fist in frustration. “No. I actually time-traveled. Listen, I know this sounds nuts, but I made a wish the other day—well, technically, last year—to skip over a year. You know, so I could skip over that whole deployment thing. And it worked. I’m in the future now.”
Lily snickered. “Okay, Clar. Well, that sounds fun.”
Clara pinched her lips together. “I’m serious, Lily.”
“Hm. Well, you’re obviously up in your head about this engagement.”
Clara swallowed, the frustration building.
Lily exhaled, probably realizing her best friend was off her rocker. “Listen, I realize whatever is going on is stressful for you. Why don’t you come over later and we can talk more about it. You probably just need some time to get used to Brent being back. But I’m going to need to wake up and have some coffee before I can properly help you through this one.”
Clara blew out a slow puff of air and shook her head. It was useless. None of this made any sense at all. Of course Lily wouldn’t believe her. How could she?
Clara gave an unconvincing chuckle. “Never mind. I think I’m tired too. I’m still a little overwhelmed from yesterday and haven’t processed everything. I probably woke up too early. I just need to go back to bed and reset. Forget I said anything.”
“But Clar?—”
“I’ll call you later.” Clara hung up before Lily could say anything else.
It did sound crazy.Shesounded crazy. If she couldn’t explain this to her best friend, there was no way she’d be able to explain any of this to Brent.
She looked down at her phone to see she had missed a call from her mom while she’d been talking to Lily. She clicked on the voicemail message.
Hi, sweetie. I hope Brent got home safely. We hate that you can’t be with us for the holidays this year, but we completely understand. We hope you two have a great Christmas together, and I can’t wait to hear about everything. We’re in London now, but we’re about to take the train to Paris. I’ll call soon. Oh, and your favorite toy was that Magic 8 Ball, remember? Love you!
Clara hung up, annoyed with her family for all being together without her. She knew it wasn’t rational. Why shouldn’t they be enjoying a European holiday together? Even so, she shook her head in frustration. Clearly, not much had changed with her parents over the past year—still traveling the globe and having a great time. She could feel the miles between her and her mother now more than ever. She wanted to tell her everything that was going on. To ask her about everything she’d missed over the past year.
Instead, as usual, she’d have to wait. Once her parents got to Paris and met up with Grams, she was sure she’d get this sorted out. She just needed to explain everything to her grandmother. Grams would help her figure out this whole mess.
Clara wrote back a simple text message in reply.
Have fun!
She tried again to log into her social media account, enteringMagic8 Ballthis time. She scoffed. Wasn’t it just like her to want a magic ball to fix her problems? Some things neverchange, she supposed. Still, no access was allowed. She threw the phone back into her pocket. It may as well have said what that ball used to tell her back then: reply hazy, try again.
Clara let out a tired breath. She remembered that she and Brent had plans to go to the tree farm together after she got off work, which she was no longer going to. The thought of facing him, of pretending to be his fiancée, sent a new wave of hysteria through her already stressed body. She could feel her palms beginning to sweat. She set her tumbler on the ground. She took off her gloves and began to fan herself with them despite the cold. This entire situation was out of control. She wanted to stop the rapidly spinning world and hop off for a moment to gather her thoughts. To come up with a plan. She just wished she had a little more time for everything. To figure out this situation with Brent. To get a hold of Grams. She needed more time before this major meeting with Mr. Spencer.
She needed someone to step in, slow her life down, and work out everything for her. And right now she needed someone to calm her down. But the someone who was always able to do that was somewhere over the Atlantic at the moment.
She thought about calling Matthew. If there was another person who could fix a problem for her, it was him. She realized how ridiculous it would be to bring this up withhim,though. If Lily had thought she was crazy, Clara couldn’t imagine what Matthew’s response would be. No, she had nobody to help her out of this mess. She was on her own.
She took a few minutes to breathe slowly and focus on the beauty of her surroundings—instead of her anxiety-inducing circumstances. It was a method Grams had taught her a few years ago after an especially tough breakup with Matthew. It was all about letting go of what you couldn’t control and instead finding the positive in each situation. There was opportunity in everything, no matter how hard it seemed at the time, hergrandmother had told her. Sometimes, it just took a change in perspective to find it.
Clara could feel it beginning to work. The scenery around her truly was breathtaking, and she forced her mind to focus on that. The combination of morning sun and freshly fallen snow made everything look like a frosted cake. She could hear the light padding of snow falling from the tree branches above her. The feathery, cold touch of the flakes fell gently on her face.
