“I can’t believe how much they hid around the place.” Dean smiles as he shakes his head.
“We’ll hide them in our room for now and wrap them after he’s gone to bed.”
As we enter back into the cabin, I notice a small, fake Christmas tree in the corner of the room. My eyes stay glued to it. I don’t even notice Rose and Dean rushing up the stairs.
“You okay?” Charlie’s hand wraps around mine and I finally pull my eyes away from the tree. I feel shaky seeing it and have to lean against Charlie, not trusting my legs.
“Dana’s favorite time of the year was Christmas. She loved Christmas trees. She would put hers and Drew’s up then go home to her parents and put up theirs and then come over to mine and put up ours. She was so pedantic about it. They had to be perfect.” I blink away tears and try to calm down.
“And this will be your first Christmas without her.” Charlie’s voice is soft. He turns me away from the tree and hugs me tightly in his arms.
“I can’t do this without her,” I sob, letting Charlie lead me to the couch in front of the fire. He sits us down and I try to settle my tears.
“I know this is hard and tomorrow is going to be horrible, I’m not going to lie to you, but you will get through it. You have me here, plus Will, Rose and Dean to help get you through it.” He wisely doesn’t mention Joel. “Where were you guys today? We’ve been worried.”
“I was worried, too, when you left.” I remember the anxiety I felt not knowing if they were okay. I swallow past it, not wanting to delve any deeper into those fears. “Rose wanted to go shopping, for Will,” I explain, thinking it might be best to avoid mentioning the bank to him as well.
“I suppose that was a nice idea,” he grudgingly admits.
“It is. She’s going to wrap them up later and I guess she’ll put them under the tree tonight.” My eyes drift over to it again.
“Come on, we’ve cooked ourselves a barbeque.” Charlie stands up and holds out his hand to help me up. He blocks my vision of the tree as he leads me to the kitchen and wisely no one comments on my tear stricken face.
***
Up in our bedroom, Charlie and I get ready for bed. We brush our teeth together which ends up being a bad idea. Charlie takes it upon himself to try to make me laugh and I know a sure way to make him laugh. Tickle him. I quickly spit out my tooth paste, balancing my toothbrush between my teeth, and then attack his open sides. He jolts away and I laugh, watching as tooth paste spills out of his mouth and down his shirt.
He sticks his head under the tap and washes his face before pointing his finger accusingly at me.
“You cheated.”
“You started this. You gotta be prepared for the consequences,” I warn.
Charlie smiles at me then and I realize too late what he’s going to do. He moves forward and pulls me in for a hug, wrapping his arms around me so I can’t move out of the way as my face goes into his shirt and rests over the spilled tooth paste.
“Ew, Charlie!” I try to push away, and when that fails, I place my hands at his sides when he jumps back, anticipating what I’m about to do.
“Truce!” Charlie holds up his hands, smiling at me while I wipe at the tooth paste that is now all over my face.
“You’re disgusting,” I whine and now it is my turn to wash my face under the tap.
“You gotta be prepared for the consequences.” He grins at me and I roll my eyes at him, smiling, too.
“Fine, truce.” I dry my face on my towel and walk back over to the bed where Charlie has to stop to change shirts.
I crawl into bed, and once Charlie is under the covers, I rest my head on his chest as he wraps his arms around me.
That night he tells me stories about his past Christmases with his dad, which leads to me hearing a lot of stories about him, too. They’re close and I hear the worry in his voice when he speaks about him. He is desperate to call home.
He listens to me talk about Dana, and even as the stories start up my tears again, I also feel better talking about them. I tell him about the traditions we had every year and how we once ate so much food that we couldn’t eat a thing the next day. I tell him about the awful sweaters her grandma used to knit us, and how my mom could never handle drinking eggnog. I tell him every memory I can remember about Dana and Christmas and I know I’ve been talking for hours. He laughs when I recall something funny and wipes away my tears when my stories upset me. He listens to my every word and I am so grateful to have him here. We talk into the early hours of the morning and I’m not sure who falls asleep first or if we fall asleep together.
***
I wake Christmas morning, still in Charlie’s arms, relishing in the feel of being so close to him. Our legs have intertwined in the night and I’m now half leaning on him. I want to stay like this forever except I’m bursting to use the bathroom, so I reluctantly move away from him.
I try to pat my hair down after I’ve washed my hands since, for some reason, in the morning it always sticks up at the back. I wash my face and do a quick brush of my teeth, hoping to avoid having morning breath. I walk back out into our room and listen as Charlie softly snores. His arm is still out inviting me back to him, however noises from below catch my curiosity and I move out of our room, grabbing a hoodie to fight off the morning chill as I go.
When I get down the stairs, I see the presents untouched under the tree and my eyes quickly look away from the sight. I hear voices coming from the kitchen, and as I enter, I catch Will and Joel sitting on the bench, talking.
“Morning. Wasn’t expecting you to be up so early,” I note, only looking at Will as I speak.
“It’s Christmas. Can’t sleep in on Christmas day.” Joel shrugs at me like my comment is directed at him and that his response is completely obvious.
“I just don’t sleep in.” Will also shrugs and I feel a bit irked by how similar their mannerisms look to each other.
I walk over to the fridge and pull out a bottle of orange juice and pour myself a glass.
“So what’s your tradition on Christmas?” Will asks Joel.
“I used to spend it with my parents. We would go to a different family member’s house each year. Since they’ve been gone, I haven’t really done anything.”
“Do you miss them more on days like today?” Will sounds genuinely interested.
“Yeah, the day used to be a happy time, now they’re just sad memories. Just days where I realize what I’ve lost.”
“I don’t remember ever celebrating a Christmas before. We just used to treat it like any other day on the streets, or when I lived with my uncle and aunt. Can’t miss what you’ve never had, I suppose.” I feel sadness for Will and I mentally pat Rose on the back for her good thinking yesterday.
“Well, you’ve got a lot of Christmas’s left in your life and you can make them whatever you want.” Joel tries to lighten the mood. It has the opposite effect on me.
“That might not be true.”
“What do you mean?” He looks confused over my words.
“Dana thought she had lots of Christmases left, but it turns out she used her final one up last year,” I snap at him.
Joel remains silent.
“In fact, Will, this could be your last Christmas, so you should just live it like it is. Do what you want.”
Will looks like he might be facing a landmine in front of him.
“You don’t tell someone that this might be their last Christmas, Zoe,” Joel rebukes me and anger flashes through me at his words.
“Well I wish someone had told me last year that it would be my last with Dana because I would have made damn sure I remembered every single thing that happened.” My voice rises until I’m almost yelling.
“Look, you’re angry and I get it, but don’t bring Will into this,” Joel counters, enraging me further.
“I’m not bringing Will into this. I’m just pointing out that he could get shot by some idiot before next Christmas and he shouldn’t rely on ha
ving ‘lots more’ Christmases to do what he wants.”
“What do you want from me? Do you want me to apologize to you every day for the mistake I made? Do you want me to leave? Because I get that you hate me, I know that you won’t ever forgive me, but I don’t see why you’re holding onto this; I hate myself enough for the both of us. I won’t ever forgive myself. You can be free of this anger.”
“Free? Are you kidding me? When you shot Dana you might as well have shot me. I won’t ever be healed, I won’t ever be whole. I won’t ever just move on.” I throw my hands up in anger.
“I didn’t mean it like that. You just deserve to be happy.” Frustration falls over Joel’s face.
“Yeah, well, Dana didn’t deserve to die and she did. Life sucks like that.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of Joel. I turn away from them and stalk over to the door, grabbing my socks and sneakers I left there from my run the other night with Will. I put them on outside and breathe in the crisp morning air deeply. I want to be away from Joel and away from this cabin.
I start jogging along the pathway and this time the daylight lights my way clearly.
Chapter 26 – The Christmas Presents
I let my anger at Joel fuel my energy as I race downhill, not acknowledging to myself that I’d have to try and brave this incline to get back to the cabin later.
I feel new hatred for Joel, and I wish for the hundredth time he wasn’t here. Why couldn’t they have left him in Florida? Can’t they understand that the very sight of him makes me feel sick? I’ve had to endure eight months of living with him, haven’t I suffered enough?
How dare he expect me to stop hating him. I won’t ever stop and I won’t ever forgive what he did. Sometimes I wish that we had left him to rot back at The Windmill. If we had, then I wouldn’t have to face him and the others wouldn’t be stuck in the middle. I don’t know how they view him, but I know they don’t hate him. They most likely view him as another set of hands to help. Can’t they see he’s a murderer? He’s taken a life and he doesn’t deserve to have Christmases to celebrate. He doesn’t deserve to be free.
A strong, cool wind hits me through the trees, distracting me from my thoughts. I slow down and veer off the trail, taking slow steps into the thinning bush around me. As the trees begin to clear, I find the elusive lake, and the view takes my breath away.
The water is deep blue with small pebbles surrounding its banks. Thin, tall trees encircle it, and it’s so big I can’t see where it leads to. I step out into the open, watching the water that has a small ripple gliding through it from another cool breeze. I hug my arms to my chest and sit down on the pebbles, feeling mesmerized by the view.
The weather has held out so far, but the sky looks grey and angry. I know it won’t hold off raining forever. Being aware that I’ll get soaked soon doesn’t motivate me to move. I’m stuck with grief.
This view reminds me of a similar one I had seen one year at a summer camp Dana and I had gone to. It had some stupid name, Camp Sucket, or something like that. It definitely had the word suck in it because everyone called it Camp Suck. The games they played were lame and the songs were worse. Camp songs aren’t meant to be all that great, but these were awful. I remember writing home, complaining the whole time. Dana loved it and she spent all her free time reading in the woods. She said it gave her books extra atmosphere, and she went through a stage of wanting to read thrillers, getting all these conspiracy theories into her head.
By the end of camp we were convinced that the cook was really a Russian spy sent to brainwash the American youth, so one day they could activate their soldiers and make them do whatever they wanted. It also explained why Piper Moss was so awful to everyone. She was brainwashed into also thinking she was cool, and she wasn’t.
I lay my back down on the pebbles, feeling a couple digging uncomfortably into my shoulders, and look up at the sky. Dana and I loved to lie on the ground and look up at the sky. We would each try to predict what the weather would do based on what we saw. Sometimes we got completely eccentric with it and one of us would predict the exact time the first rain drop would fall down on us. Or in the few summer cloudy days we had, we would describe a cloud, but only in the most random description. Instead of seeing a rabbit, we would see a prince and princess kissing while a frog tried to jump up the princess’s dress. Soon, it didn’t matter what we saw, we would simply tell a strange description of whatever we wanted.
I close my eyes against the dark sky and picture myself back home. Right now, I would have exchanged a gift with Mom, and I’d be changed and ready to head over to Dana’s parents’ home.
Dana and I didn’t always buy each other gifts, some years we would feel creative and try to make each other something. Last year, Dana had told me she was going to write me a short story for Christmas this year. She was determined I would have finished reading something before the year ended. Did she ever get the chance to start it? What would it have been about? Would she have based one of the characters on her? One of them on me?
“Zoe?” I hear the crunching of shoes on the pebbles as Charlie walks over to me.
I open my eyes and sit up, wishing I could have stayed in my memories of Dana longer.
“Hey,” I croak out, having to clear my voice afterwards. Charlie awkwardly sits down next to me and winces. “Are you okay?” My grief is shifted as a new worry builds inside me.
“I knocked into a tree running down here. Definitely would have gotten first prize on Funniest Home Videos if someone had filmed it.” Charlie rubs his knee and I feel bad that he was rushing down here to find me.
“Sorry you hurt yourself.” I touch his knee, watching him grimace when I carefully prod it. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah it’s just bruised… my ego, too. Are you okay? Rose woke me up to say you’d run off.”
“I just needed some fresh air.” I look back out at the lake, but his voice drags my eyes back to him.
“And you decided to run a couple hours to get it?” He raises his eyebrows, yet he doesn’t look angry.
“Has it been that long?” I ask in surprise.
“Yeah, you must be fit. I’m beat,” Charlie complains. I’m glad someone else doesn’t appear to have exercised while we were separated.
“Not really. I’m going to struggle getting back, I think.”
“Me, too.”
We sit in silence for a few moments before Charlie breaks it again. “Do you want to be alone?”
I stare up at him, taking my time to think about my answer. “Yes, but you can sit with me.”
He nods okay and then his face drops.
“What is it?”
“I got you something, but I just realized I put it in my back pocket.” Charlie leans forward and reaches behind him, grabbing something and bringing it in front of me like a prize. It’s a squashed yellow flower. I’m immediately transported back to my dream, the one where I’d been pregnant. Charlie was giving me a yellow flower then, too; several in fact.
“Sorry, it looks quite pathetic now. I saw it on my run over here. I think this probably happened when I fell.” Charlie frowns, and I can tell he’s about to throw it away, but I grab it from his hand before he can.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.” His words take my breath away and I don’t know how to respond.
A clap of thunder roars above us and the wind picks up.
“I think we might be in for a storm. We should head back.” Charlie grabs my hand as rain starts to pour down around us. I quickly jump up, helping Charlie steady himself on his sore knee before we hobble into the trees and find the pathway easily.
***
We have to stop several times to let Charlie rest. I fear he’s not telling me how much pain he really is in. By the time we reach the cabin, my stomach is rumbling in hunger. I’m so tired that all I want to do is go to bed and not wake up until tomorrow. We take off our hoodies and shoes outside
and then enter the cabin, welcoming the warmth that the fire brings.
“You guys were gone ages.” Rose whines, appearing to have been waiting by the window for us. She hugs me tightly to her and then complains when she notices how wet I am. She ushers us to the stand by the fire before calling out for Will to come in. She must have been waiting for us to return before she did this.
Will seems to only then notice the presents when Rose points over to them. He looks embarrassed and nervous as he approaches them. I take in every moment of his wonder, excitement slowly building as he opens his first present. Rose looks as pleased as I imagine I feel, seeing his happiness finally break through. Soon Dean and Joel come out to watch, too. The boys are ecstatic when they see both balls we bought him, and Charlie bounces the basketball through his legs, wincing when his knee twinges in pain.
Will looks eagerly through the comics Rose picked out, and Joel moves over to him to explain how to work the game console. Dean is moving the football between his hands while Rose is laughing with him about something. I take the ball away from Charlie, urging him upstairs to take a shower to warm up.
I walk into the kitchen to make us sandwiches to eat, knowing he wouldn’t have eaten anything today, either. I take them both upstairs and place the plate on the bed, grabbing his wet clothes that he’s just dropped on the ground and hanging them over the balcony. I quickly change out of my own wet clothes and into some dry ones before sitting on the bed, taking a bite out of my sandwich as I wait for him.
I stare at the squashed yellow flower I placed next to my side of the bed, on top of some freshly washed clothing as I eat my food. It has to be a coincidence, right? It’s not that weird that in that fake dream Charlie brought be yellow flowers and then today he gave me a yellow flower.
When Charlie comes out of the shower I’ve finished my food. He’s wearing only a t-shirt and sweat pants as he sits on the bed to eat. I lift up his pant leg to look at his knee. Frowning, I pull his other one to see if it’s swollen. His left is definitely bigger.
Taken By Force (Taken Trilogy Book 2) Page 20