Page 42 of A DIY Christmas Miracle
“What’s going on? What has that little sourpuss done now?” Cassy crossed her arms in front of her chest, a stormy expression on her face.
“Don’t call him that. Everyone occasionally has a bad day,” I said, defending Eli even though Cassy wasn’t completely wrong. Eli had been in a remarkably bad mood for a few days now.
“Yeah. Everyone has a bad day — occasionally.” Cassy shook her head. “Emphasis onoccasionallyandday. Singular. That’s okay, but sitting around moping for days just because his harebrained plan didn’t…” She stopped mid-sentence, slapping her hand in front of her mouth, the color draining from her face. She’d clearly said more than she’d wanted to.
I drank a big gulp of tea, gathering the courage to ask the questions I wanted to ask even though Cassy obviously regretted saying anything in the first place. Those words hadn’t been meant for me, and the decent thing to do would be to ignore her verbal mishap, but…
A second gulp of tea followed the first one.
“What kind of plan are you talking about?”
Silence.
Everyone was quiet, and everyone was staring at Cassy as if they were waiting for her to decide how to proceed. Cassy herself avoided my eyes, which was strange. NormallyIwas the one avoiding eye contact. But not now. I was literally searching for answers on her face, for clues and the slightest hint of a reaction.
I shifted nervously on the couch, trying to find a comfortable sitting position. With every second that passed, the tension inside the living room grew. I tensed. My glasses slid down my nose until I was forced to move and jerkily pushed them back up.
“Can we just forget what I said?”
Usually, I’d agree because pressing her for answers was rude. However, I had the unshakable feeling this conversation right here could solve the mystery of Eli’s bad mood. Seeing as how everyone kept looking at Cassy, waiting for her to do something, told me they knew exactly what she’d been talking about. Everyone knew. Everyone except for me.
And maybe Jack. He didn’t look like he knew what was going on, either.
“What kind of plan are you talking about? Is that why Eli’s in such a bad mood?” he asked, looking first at his sister, then at his wife inquiringly.
“Bad mood? Pah!” Marc snorted. “The old drama queen is pissed because his grandly planned snowstorm was canceled.”
“Excuse me?”
The others were glaring at each other. Cassy basically tried stabbing Marc with her eyes. If anyone ever succeeded at killing someone with a look, it’d be Cassy.
At least I wasn’t the object of her ire. I’d have squirmed at her piercing, cold look, and I’d have been sweating and shifting until I couldn’t bear the situation any longer, but Marc just shrugged, completely unfazed.
“What do you mean by ‘grandly planned snowstorm?’” I inquired. Of course, I understood the words and knew what they meant, but in this combination, they didn’t seem to make any sense.
“There is no snowstorm,” Cassy quickly said, casting a warning glance around the room, obviously telling everyone to stay quiet.
There it was again. That uncomfortable feeling of being excluded, the feeling of sitting in a crowd but being all alone.
“Can you please stop with all this fucking cryptic shit?” Those were my thoughts, but I hadn’t been the one who’d voiced them so crudely. Jack was simmering with rage, jumping up to his feet, crossing his arms in front of him. “This was supposed to be a group trip, meaning we were supposed to have funtogether. Instead, Eli keeps running around looking like someone killed his fucking puppy and you’re all acting oh-so-secretive, thinking Will and I don’t notice you keep whispering to each other, but surprise! We do. And it really fucking sucks to walk past you and notice conversations quickly getting shut down or you changing the subject.”
Juliet slumped while Linda stared intently into her cup.
I drank another sip of tea, staring into the fire. Could I get out of this situation if I just got up and left? Sure, but I wanted to know what was going on with Eli. I wanted to know the reason for his strange behavior. I wanted to know what the others were hiding. Why they were excluding me and Jack, pushing us out.
But this situation, the charged atmosphere, the tense faces? It was unbearable. My stomach tied itself into knots, my hands were shaking, and there was a headache raging behind my temples.
But fleeing wasn’t really an option. The only place I could go was my room. And Eli was in said room. Eli, whom I’d somehow pissed off. Again.
I could escape one unpleasant situation but would just end up in the other one. There was no winning here.
In the end, I stayed where I was, seated on the couch, sandwiched between Josh, who was nervously wiggling his leg, and Sophie, who kept turning her cup in her hand.
“Jack is right,” Juliet finally said. Her softly spoken words shattered the silence like a gun shot. A shot that hit its target. “I think Will has a right to know the truth.”
Wait. I had a right to know the truth? I’d thought this was about Eli? What did it have to do with me?
I nervously adjusted my glasses, wiped my hair out of my forehead, and finally smoothed out my sweater even though the wrinkles would be back within seconds.
