Page 46 of Holiday Love
I clench my jaw but sit back down. “No. Why don’tyoutell me what I’m like?”
“You know, you don’t like it when things get hard.” Jamie laughs, easy but not unkind, almost like he expects me to agree. “You take the easy way out.”
Ouch.
At my glare he holds up his hands. “Hey, it’s no big deal. I’m the same way.” He says it like that makes it better.
It doesn’t.
I want to argue with him. To point out how I’m working and going to school while he’s given up any pretense of doing that. He’s just cruising along, living off his parents’ money. The picture-perfect cliché of a trust fund baby. But can I really argue? Just because I’ve managed to hold down a job and take a couple of classes? The fact is that most of the time I’m like a bottle floating in the ocean. Occasionally bumping into something solid but never anchoring.
Jamie stands, stretches with his hands on his back. “Well, we should get going. You’re coming home for Thanksgiving, right?”
“No,” I say, already bracing myself. Jamie likes to think of us as a tribe with him as the chief. He’s going to hate what I have to say next. “I told Helen I’d go to her parents’ place in Laguna Beach.”
His jaw tightens. “Seriously? First Halloween, now this?”
A flicker of guilt. But the truth is, I didn’t even miss Halloween. The party. The people. I barely thought about it.
“Helen’s mom is sick, and I told her I’d go to, you know, support her.” I debate telling him the whole story, about Helen’s mom having cancer, our fake dating arrangement, but discard that idea, not wanting to go into all the details.
He gives me a disgusted look, then turns to Anthony. “Can you believe this? Teddy’s bailing on usagain.”
Anthony, still clearly pissed at me, shakes his head like I’ve just proved his point.
Guilt twists my insides. I hate letting them down, but Helen needs me more. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Forget it,” Jamie says without looking at me.
“Thanks for the clothes.” I try to stand up and walk them to the door, but Jamie motions me down.
As he passes, he claps my shoulder, the weight heavy, deliberate. “Just remember, Teddy.We’rethe ones who have your back.”
Anthony passes behind me and mutters, “Yeah. Always,” but there’s a hollowness to how he says it, like it’s the opposite of a promise.
Jamie’s words echo long after they’re gone, louder than the slam of the door, louder than the crash of the waves outside.
If my friends have my back, why was I drowning?
***
An hour after Jamie and Anthony leave, Helen comes home from ballet. “Teddy?” she calls from the small entryway behind me. I turn to find her standing with the door still open. She stares at the side of it that faces the outside hallway. “Did you get this wreath and put it on the door?”
“The one with scenes fromFrozen? Like the animated Disney movie? Umm, no. I love Olaf the snowman as much as the next guy, but that was all your mom. She had it delivered while you were gone. I put it up per herveryspecific instructions.”
“What is going on with her?” Helen says, releasing the door so it can swing shut. “She’s always been Christmas crazy, but usually she kept it to her house. Now it’s like she’s trying to infect our place with holiday cheer.”
Our place?
I try not to read too much into that, knowing it was an innocent slip up. Just a placeholder word.
“Frozenis her favorite movie,” Helen continues, kicking her shoes off by the door. “I’m lucky I was born before it was released. Otherwise, I’d be named Anna or Elsa.”
Grumbling about animated snowmen and meddling mothers, she walks into the room, wearing her leotard and the short flowy skirt that I can’t help but find adorably sexy. I’ve had some very impure fantasies about that skirt.
Swallowing through a suddenly dry throat, I ask, “How was it? Did you talk to Lindsey?”
Helen slinks closer with her head down, her hair covering her face. I know her answer just by that gesture. She likes to hide behind those glossy strands when she’s embarrassed or feeling guilty.
