Page 70 of Mistletoe and Mayday
I’m good at cargo. Cargo moves. Cargo flies. Cargo doesn’t watch news coverage of happy reunions or wonder if his hands are still warm or if he really meant it when he said I wasn’t too much.
Happy endings belong to people like Rebecca, who know how to fit inside perfect snow globe worlds. Not to people like me, who collect them from the outside, watching the snow fall around lives we’ll never have.
Twenty-One
BAILEY
Mom and Dad burst through the emergency room doors in a tsunami of Christmas cookies and frantic energy. Mom’s Santa earrings flash like warning beacons with every jerk of her head, and Dad’s clutching his Tupperware, wearing that ridiculous reindeer sweater with the nose that blinks in accusatory red.
Behind them, Gabriel ducks through the doorway, his six-foot-four frame making everything in the hospital room look miniature.
They stick out in this antiseptic space like snowmen in a desert.
“Bailey!” Mom launches herself at me, somehow crushing my ribs while avoiding my leg. Her vanilla perfume—the same one she’s worn since I was six—floods my senses. “We thought we’d lost you!”
Dad hovers at the edge, his calloused fingerstight around the plastic container, knuckles white. “Brought your favorites. The mint chip ones.”
“Thanks, Dad.” My voice catches—thin and brittle, belonging to someone else.
Gabe stands at the foot of my bed, his usual older-brother stoicism cracking around the edges. “You look like hell,” he says, but his voice wavers.
“You should see the other guy,” I attempt a smile. “Or rather, the other wolves.”
“The airline called us,” Mom says, straightening my already straight blanket. “Said your plane went down. They notified us again just before we got your text, saying that you had been rescued and they were flying you here.”
“Did you know Mr. Lockhart sent a private jet for us?” Dad’s eyes shine with a childlike wonder that breaks my heart. “A jet, Bailey. For us.”
Mom nods, patting my hand. “That young man arranged everything. They had those little hot towels that smell like lemons.”
“Said he felt responsible.” Dad places the container on my bedside table with reverence. “Got you the best doctors in the state.”
Of course he did. Perfect Sebastian with his perfect solutions for the imperfect pilot who crashed his plane and his heart.
The universe really needs better hobbies.
Gabe's eyes narrow. "This Lockhart guy. He still around?"
“Yes, is he still here? We wanted to thank him.” Mom’s already scanning the space like Sebastian might materialize from behind the IV stand.
“He’s—” My throat closes, the truth lodged somewhere between my heart and my mouth, impossible to dislodge.
How do I tell them Sebastian’s busy playing the perfect son with his perfect family and the perfect fiancée who cheated but still gets to stand by him? How do I explain that my parents’ light-up earrings and blinking sweaters would be cataloged and dismissed by the Lockharts before they finished their first handshake? How do I admit that the man who gathered pinecones for Christmas, who fought wolves with a branch, who touched me like I might shatter—that man vanished the moment civilization reclaimed him?
Mom buzzes around my bed like a Christmas-themed hummingbird on espresso, fluffing pillows and arranging cookies in a perfect spiral on the napkin she pulled from nowhere while I relay the story of our harrowing experiences, leaving out all the parts too painful to admit.
“You need more water,” she declares, snatching up the plastic pitcher. “And another blanket. You always run cold when you’re hurt. Remember third grade? Three blankets and you still shivered.”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I lie.
She’s already flagging down a nurse with surprising authority for a woman barely five feet tall.
Gabe moves closer, lowering his voice. "So this Lockhart guy fought off wolves for you, huh?" His expression is carefully neutral, but I know that look—it's the same one he wore when I came home crying about Billy Peterson in sixth grade, right before he coincidentally decided to teach Billy's brother some new wrestling moves.
"It wasn't like that, Gabe," I say, though it was exactly like that, plus so much more. "Just two people trying to survive."
"Uh-huh," he says, unconvinced.
My phone vibrates against my hip. Cora’sface fills the screen—her perfect smile captured mid-laugh at her birthday last year.
