Page 117 of Perfectly Complicated
But most of all, I hate that I might be too late.
THIRTY-THREE
Rourke
It doesn’t look like the night before Christmas here. No stockings. No lights. No decorated tree reminding me of her.
Instead, I’m sprawled on the couch in the same clothes I’ve been wearing since I got here, surrounded by empty takeout containers and gas station junk food not worth the cardboard it came in. The TV drones in the background with some Christmas special I’m not really watching.
This is another reason why I hate Christmas. Thisexactfeeling. The crushing loneliness that settles into your bones and reminds you that everyone else in the world is with the people they love while you’re here trying not to think of the only person you want to be with on Christmas. Make that two people—JanieandAria.
I hope she’s happy.
Because I’m not. I’m miserable.
I stumble off the couch, reaching for my empty glass before catching sight of my reflection in the dark window. I look like the unhappiest man alive.
But I did it for her.The thought should make me feel better, but instead, it just makes the emptiness bigger.
I reach for my phone and then remember I forgot my chargerand my phone’s completely dead. I grab the remote, flipping through channels, which all seem to be showing the same Christmas movie on repeat—same happy ending with different faces.
Basically, everything I never had.
When my parents died, I had to learn to live with unfinished business. I never got to see my dad stay sober for more than a few weeks. Never got to experience a Christmas without someone shouting or passed out. I used to think that meant I was doomed to repeat their mistakes, that their dysfunction had been somehow passed on to me.
But Janie showed me that broken beginnings don’t have to mean broken endings. That I could be different and maybe even better. And that the holidays weren’t a life sentence I had to repeat each year.
I just wish Nick hadn’t gotten in the way.
The rational part of me knows I did the right thing by stepping aside, but sitting here alone in this cabin, watching other people’s happy endings play out on screen, I start to wonder if I really did.
I move to the kitchen and peer into a mostly empty mini-fridge when I hear the strangest sound: a wail in the distance. For a second, I think I’ve imagined it.
Then I hear it again.
My heart stops. Iknowthat cry. I’ve heard it at three in the morning, in the dark, when she just wants to be held.
I cross the cabin in a few strides and bolt outside, following the cry like it’s pulling me by an invisible thread.
Just past the neighboring cabin, I see someone on the ground, holding a baby, surrounded by bags and what looks like…Christmas decorations?
Even in the darkness with her back turned, I’d know her anywhere. The way she holds her daughter, rocking her softly.
“Janie?”
The baby’s crying stops and Janie’s head snaps toward me asshe stumbles to her feet, her eyes widening. Her hair is a mess, her cheeks stained by tears, and her coat smudged with dirt from the ground.
And I just stand there, speechless—because she’s here, like the ghost of a Christmas dream I didn’t dare believe in.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
She blinks rapidly. “I came for you.”
“For me...why?”
She motions toward the pile behind her. “You forgot it all. So I came…” She shifts on her feet slightly. “To bring Christmas to you.”
I stare at the pile. The gesture. What it all means. “But how did you know I was here?”
