While You Were Creeping

by Poppy Rhys

  WHILE YOU WERE CREEPING

  Science Fiction Romance

  by

  Poppy Rhys

  Copyright 2020 by Poppy Rhys

  Proofread by C.L.S.

  Proofread by Jessica Pennell

  Cover Art: Reese Dante http://www.reesedante.com

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  WARNING

  This story contains a non-human alien hero, mature content, graphic language, and possible triggers.

  But also, tons of Grinchy-Scroogey vibes and holiday cheer!

  Standalone novel

  ONE

  “Are you still creeping your ex?”

  My therapist was blunt if nothing else. I loved and hated her for it.

  Busted.

  I tore my eyes away from my palm-sized glass comm and slid it into my back pocket. Instead, I stood by the large window and fixed my gaze on the snow-covered road three stories below.

  Christmas decorated buildings of every size lined the main strip of town leading up to the square where—even if I couldn’t see it right now—an enormous, perfectly trimmed balsam fir tree stood, surrounded by snowy hedges, dusted benches, and iron-curled street lamps.

  I hated it.

  Tinsel—the real name of this place—was a Dor Nye tourist trap modeled after charming Earth towns, and it was known for its winter solstice celebrations.

  Namely, Christmas.

  Which was a big thing since most of old Earth’s religious holidays were only observed by niche groups as a fun blast-from-the-past event.

  Anyway. Maybe I’d been creeping on my ex, maybe I hadn’t been. Maybe I’d been looking at his newest holiday photo with his sparkly fiancée and their matching sweaters and their so-adorable-it’s-painful newborn.

  Maybe I hadn’t.

  “How many times per day have you checked his social threads this week? More than five times, or less?” Dr. Molina asked in her frustratingly calm voice.

  It annoyed me. The decorations annoyed me. The bundled-up humans and aliens crowding the sidewalks on the cozy street below as they did their gift shopping annoyed me.

  When did I become such a Scrooge?

  I knew the answer to that as well as I knew my own freckles.

  Today was December first. The worst day of the year, besides December twenty-fifth. It meant the official start of the winter solstice festivities.

  Christmas.

  Ugh.

  “A little more,” I hedged, finally answering her question. How embarrassing. What had I become? It’d been three years since George, my ex-boyfriend, left me for another woman—the sparkly fiancée—and I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

  Pathetic, really. I knew I had a problem—well, more like many problems—but I couldn’t stop it. It was like watching a train wreck—you just can’t look away—only I was the train. Fuck the rails, I was forging my own path right through a neighborhood, bulldozing whatever was in my way.

  “And the other thing?”

  The other thing.

  My face flushed red, I could feel it. My skin betrayed me every time. It was probably redder than my hair right now. If stalking my ex’s social threads was embarrassing, then my newly formed compulsion to flush toilets made me want to climb into a foxhole and die.

  Yeah, you heard that right.

  Any time I’m near a commode, I can’t leave the room until it’s been flushed. It doesn’t matter that they’re sensor laden and flush on their own. Even if I’m just in there to straighten my hair or wash my hands...

  I have to flush the fucking toilet.

  I was doing good for a while a couple years ago. Six months after George left, I’d only checked his social threads about twice a day—in the morning and just before bed—but then he went and announced he was engaged. To her.

  That’s when the toilet flushing began. Innocent at first. An extra flush here and there, but then it got worse. Sometimes I went into the restroom just to trigger the sensor and listen to the tank empty.

  It’s a problem. A real fucking issue.

  And here I am, talking to my therapist about it. It must really suck to be her. She probably laughs about all this at night. I wouldn’t blame her. I laugh at myself. And sometimes cry.

  I’m a damn mess.

  “The other thing is still a problem,” I declare with a sigh. The colorful Christmas lights twinkle against the buildings across the street as the darkness creeps up. It gets dark so much earlier than I’d like this time of year.

  I can’t look at it any longer. Turning, I round the comfortable beige couch and plop down. It blends into the décor of this office. Everything is a shade of brown—boring and neutral. Probably that way on purpose.

  Eventually, I rest my gaze on Dr. Molina. If I thought my eyes were a pretty green, hers blow mine outta the water. Vibrant and crystal clear. Hypnotizing and stark against her pale skin and black hair.

  “Have you tried the method we talked about?”

  “Yes. Counting doesn’t help.”

  “It doesn’t help, or you don’t want it to help?”

  Why the hell wouldn’t I want it to help? Who the hell wants to compulsively flush toilets?

  I try not to grind my teeth. I don’t need another problem on top of the ones I already have. “It doesn’t help.”

  “Let’s talk about something else. It’s December first. Have you decided if you’ll let your students participate in the elves’ visit next week?”

  I think I’d rather talk about flushing toilets.

  The annual Elves Day happens every year at the school where I teach. A horde of alien elves flood the school, bringing small stocking gifts for every student and faculty member.

  It’s sweet, really. Or I used to think it was sweet. I used to love Christmas. This was my favorite holiday once upon a time, believe it or not.

  “They’ll still get their gifts. I’m not holding my students back, I just don’t let the elves in my classroom.”

  “Do you think that’s fair, Holly?”

  “No.”

  Yet I couldn’t bring myself to allow it the past few years. It was just a painful reminder.

  “What if you tried it this year? All you have to say is yes.” Dr. Molina leaned forward in her chair, her voice gently coaxing. “You could think of this as another method. What if you said yes this week to things you’d normally say no to?”

  “I don’t know...”

  The thought made me itch.

  “One week. Nothing that can harm you, of course. Just small things. Why don’t we start with the elves?”

  We. She always said we like we were both flushing toilets and creeping our exes and hating everything Christmas related.

  One week. Only one week of saying yes. Maybe I could do it.

  Dr. Molina lifted a brow. “What do you think?”

  I took a deep breath. “...Yes?”

  TWO

  I took off my knitted gloves once I got into my hovering transport pod and stomped my snowy boots on the floorboard. “Home,” I told the built in AI.r />
  “Estimated arrival in twenty minutes.”

  The transport navigated through town, the decked-out buildings and streetlamps twinkled with an array of lights, silver and gold bells, and shining ribbons among the profuse amount of pine swag.

  I used to think this place was a picture-perfect digital post card. I suppose it still was, but it didn’t fill me with warmth like it used to.

  Tinsel hadn’t changed—I had.

  The buildings faded into the night, only wreathed streetlamps guiding the way as the transport ventured into the surrounding neighborhoods and their massive estates. So many old bloodlines lived in Tinsel, including mine.

  I pulled out my comm and, embarrassingly, opened George’s social threads.

  What’s wrong with me?

  I’d just left my therapist’s office and here I was, feeding my misery with this nonsense. His holiday photo popped up again. A moving image of them smiling and waving.

  I sighed. They looked so happy. His love of Christmas hadn’t changed. Meanwhile, he’d sucked the joy out of this season for me.

  Like I said, Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. That was something we shared, a love of the winter solstice. I knew that’s partly why I hated it so much these days. It made me feel better—and simultaneously miserable—to hate something he loved so much.

  It wasn’t logical, but my father always told me I was a walking contradiction.

  The transport slowed and turned onto the snowy, winding driveway that cut through the frosted pines. The many glowing windows from the Zax residence—my family’s home—flickered through the trees.

  The rustic log and stone estate sprawled over a chunk of land that’d been passed generation to generation in my family. Wings had been erected and reconstructed through the years, making room for connected family units—as was custom on Dor Nye—until it was one of the largest beauties in town, rivaled only by the Vance and Pill’o family homes.

  Tinsel was so far north, we mostly lived in perpetual winter. It was only green and sunny a couple months out of the year here. I never minded. I still loved snow.

  No one could ruin that for me.

  This place was my home and made me feel the warmth I was missing. It made me smile...

  Until, at that very moment, someone turned the Christmas lights on, lighting up the whole exterior.

  “Son of a bitch...”

  The transport dropped me off at the front door before moseying to one of the garages tucked under the residence.

  I stood there, frosted breath puffing in front of my face as I scowled at the twinkling evergreen boughs and dancing holographic snowman on the front door.

  I stomped up the freshly shoveled stone steps and opened the door only to be hit with the overpowering, warm, and caramelly scent of gingerbread.

  “Ugh!”

  Did I forget to mention my family was huge on Christmas? So huge in fact, they threw the town’s most popular winter festival party every year right in this house.

  The thought of cheerful townsfolk dancing and munching on peppermint bark and sipping my uncle’s fizzy cranberry punch made me grumble like an old man.

  “Honey, you sound like a dog.”

  I jumped at the sound of my great aunt Dot’s piercing voice.

  “I—”

  “Dotty? Did you say there’s a dog?” My other great aunt, Helen, peeked around the corner of the large foyer, her kitten heels clicking against the glistening wood floors.

  “No, you old bat, I was talking to Holly. She’s growling about something.”

  “Who’re you calling old? I just had a treatment!” Aunt Helen gingerly touched her cheeks. She was the vain one of my late grandmother’s sisters. Aunt Dot was the rough-around-the-edges sibling.

  Aunt Dot made a rude sound at that. She didn’t have to say anything. We all knew she didn’t believe Aunt Helen’s treatments were worth the money.

  “Ya can’t be eighty havin’ a youngling’s hind end for a face and sagging titties,” she’d often say.

  For the record, Aunt Helen was always quick to insist her boobs didn’t sag. It was a real room-clearing topic for the men in our family. They’d suddenly disappear when the state of Aunt Helen’s tits entered the conversation.

  Well, except her husband, Uncle Giuseppe, who quietly snickered.

  It was all fun and games until the handful of younglings in the house started asking what ‘sagging titties’ meant.

  “Holly, you missed the decorating,” Aunt Helen fussed at me.

  Thank the five trade planets.

  “Yes, I see that.”

  She stood there, staring down her straight nose at me as if waiting for an excuse.

  “It’s... pretty?”

  “Thank you dear, but why weren’t you here?”

  “C’mon, Helen, you know she was talking to that head shrinker.”

  Aunt Helen frowned and turned on her sister. “Why are you so rude?”

  I used that as my opening out of this conversation and slipped into the kitchen. A couple of my uncles were huddled over a moco holo-board in the middle of a game while two of my cousins, Wendy and Willow—twins—were prepping another batch of gingerbread.

  So they were the ones making the house smell like Christmas.

  “Hey Holly-bough,” Uncle Giuseppe fondly greeted, not lifting an eye from the moco game for fear of Uncle Jer cheating somehow (even if it were impossible).

  I patted Giuseppe on the back and revealed a five-point move that had Jer clamping his lips together and scowling.

  “This is why she’s my favorite niece,” Giuseppe declared, rubbing his hands together. “Take that, you old goat.”

  “Hey!” Wendy and Willow cried. “We’re the ones slaving away over here.”

  “Uh huh...” Giuseppe was gone. Too distracted by the game to give much attention to the twins.

  I felt their daggers. The twins loved being the center of attention and hated it when they felt anyone tried to take it away.

  The limelight was all theirs. Trust me, I didn’t want it. I was content to sequester myself in my part of the house and let them be the all-stars of the family.

  They could keep that trophy, and their damned gingerbread.

  “You’re home!” My mother swept through the purposefully rustic kitchen, her red velvet housecoat cinched around her trim middle and her auburn hair piled high atop her head.

  For some reason, my mother always looked straight out of a digital housekeeping publication while my father could be mistaken for a hobo. Sweats and flannels were his thing, and the only day mom could talk him into trimming his dark beard and donning clean, traditional robes was during the Christmas party.

  “You missed the decorating,” she echoed Helen. “Have you tasted the gingerbread?”

  “I’ve got a lot of assignments to grade.” That wasn’t a lie, I really should’ve been working on those by now. “The house looks... nice.”

  I nearly choked on that word.

  Mom’s lips flattened. “Your father and cousins worked very hard on it—”

  “I believe y—”

  “—and I’m sure they’d love to help you decorate your apartment.”

  “N—”

  Dr. Molina’s words hit me like a brick.

  ‘What if you said yes this week?’

  “Darling?” Mom blinked owlishly at me, clearly expecting to be immediately rebuffed.

  Ugh. I can’t do it!

  “I...” The kitchen grew quiet. Even my uncles were staring at me like I’d grown a second head.

  Everyone knew I’d turned into a Scrooge. A Grinch. A real sourpuss this time of year. I hadn’t decorated in three years.

  My insides felt like they were boiling.

  “I can decorate my apartment myself.” Mom gasped and I cringed. “But thanks for the offer.”

  “O-o-okay...” she stammered, her shock plastered to her face as I skirted around her.

  “Night guys.”

&nbs
p; Silence followed me all the way through the dimly lit halls until I got to the other side of the house and unlocked my door.

  I didn’t wanna do it. I didn’t want to open my storage room and rummage through my neatly organized Christmas decorations that I’d been meaning to throw away but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I didn’t want to, but how was I supposed to get through this, to heal, if I didn’t start somewhere? Anywhere?

  Skully groaned from the couch once I flipped my living room lights on. A sho-sha, a hip-high canine crossbreed.

  I’d gotten him with my ex. I may have also threatened to light George on fire if he thought he was taking Skully from me.

  I probably would’ve, too. Unhinged was my permanent state of mind in those first few months.

  “Hey boy,” I whispered, giving his fluffy indigo fur a good ruffling. A thorough neck scratching had his cup-whacking tail wagging and all four of his pink eyes happily drooping.

  The storage door could’ve been flashing red, a beacon in my head. I needed this. Had to start somewhere.

  I opened the door, quickly pulled open the lid on the closest bin and grabbed the first piece I saw—a snowflake ornament—then I got the hell out of there.

  Hanging it in one of my windows, I brushed the glitter off my hands and stood back.

  There. I decorated. Now no one could say shit to me.

  “C’mon Skully.” I ushered him toward the door and grabbed my scarf. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  THREE

  The class was quiet, my students in the midst of a quiz when a trio of knocks broke the silence.

  I knew who it was.

  We all knew who it was, evidenced by the way my teenage students anxiously eyeballed me.

  The elves.

  I’d been anticipating this all damned week, waffling about whether I’d take my therapist’s advice and let the elves pass out their gifts in my class.

  I remembered when I was a Tinsel High student and how fun Elves’ Day was. All the quirky, creative gifts they brought. I still had every one of them. They were packed away, out of sight, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss ‘em.