Maybe This Christmas

by Susannah Nix

  Alex was wearing glasses. A pair of tortoiseshell frames perched on the bridge of her nose, making her look even cooler and smarter than before.

  She was waiting in the living room to greet them, and her face lit up when she saw Lucas. He ducked around his father and Theo as they greeted Mr. and Mrs. Bonner, and walked straight into Alex’s arms.

  Lucas hadn’t hugged her last Christmas and he’d regretted it. No way was he letting another whole year go by without feeling her in his arms.

  She hugged him back like she needed it as much as he did, and he picked her up off the floor, swinging her around like he used to.

  “You got glasses,” he said as he set her down again.

  “I know! All the street signs were getting too blurry to read.” She pushed them up higher on her nose. “What do you think?”

  “I’m jealous of how cool you look,” he answered, grinning. That was when he noticed the young woman standing nearby watching them with interest. She had straight red hair, freckles scattered across her nose and cheekbones, and seemed to be about the same age as Alex and Lucas—a college friend, maybe?

  Alex hadn’t mentioned she was bringing someone home with her. But then she hadn’t mentioned she’d gotten glasses either. There were a lot of things she hadn’t mentioned.

  “Hi,” Lucas said, extending his hand and his most welcoming grin to the stranger. “I’m Lucas.”

  “Lucas, this is Riley,” Alex said, putting a hand on both their shoulders as they shook. “My girlfriend.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Riley said, smiling back at him.

  “Likewise,” Lucas replied, managing to keep his smile in place despite the roaring sound that had filled his ears.

  Alex had a girlfriend. This must be what she’d wanted to tell him that had to be done in person.

  But…Alex had a girlfriend?

  Lucas felt blindsided. Shouldn’t he have had some clue or hint before this? As close as they’d once been, how could he not have known?

  “So…how long have you two been dating?” he asked. His cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much, but he didn’t dare stop.

  “A few months,” Alex said. “Since September.”

  He’d texted with her dozens of times since September. All these months she’d been dating someone—a girl, she’d been dating a girl—and he hadn’t had any idea.

  “But we first met last year, at a dorm mixer,” Riley added. “I’ve had a crush on her ever since.”

  “That’s great,” Lucas said. “Really great.”

  Alex squeezed Lucas’s shoulder, searching his face like she was trying to figure out if he meant it. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “I’m happy for you,” he said, imbuing the words with as much sincerity as he could. He was happy for her. This was huge, and it didn’t change how he felt about her. It didn’t matter that he was surprised, or that he’d let himself think she’d meant something else entirely. It didn’t matter that he’d let himself hope for something that was clearly impossible now.

  “Really?” She still didn’t look like she believed him.

  “Really.” He hugged her again, not quite as tightly now that he knew she wasn’t single, but tight enough to reassure her. “I think it’s awesome.”

  “I’m glad,” Alex said, exhaling as she let go of him. “I was a little worried how you’d take it, to be honest.”

  “I’m gonna pretend not to be insulted by that.” Lucas turned to Riley and gave her a hug too. “You picked a good one,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

  “I do.” Riley grinned as she stepped back and slipped her arm around Alex. “You better believe it.”

  Riley was great. Lucas couldn’t help liking her.

  He watched her at dinner, making easy conversation with both of Alex’s parents. Even Mia seemed to like her. She was eminently likable.

  Lucas had always worked hard to be likable, but Riley didn’t seem like she had to work at it. With her it seemed more like an innate quality. She was like magnetic north: all attention naturally diverted to her.

  The rain stopped around sunset—no snow for Theo this year—so Alex drove Riley and Lucas to the beach after dinner. When she introduced Riley to all their high school friends as her girlfriend, Lucas steeled himself for someone to say something stupid, but no one even batted an eye. They all liked Riley as much as he did. It was impossible not to like Riley.

  It was a smaller crowd at the beach this year. The rain might have let up, but it was still cold and damp, and not many had braved the elements tonight.

  “How long have you known?” Linh asked Lucas, following his gaze across the fire to Alex and Riley. They were talking to Farley now. He must have said something funny, because they were all red-faced and laughing.

  “She just told me tonight,” Lucas answered. He cocked an eyebrow at Linh. “How long have you known?”

  “She told me a few weeks after they started dating. I think she was nervous about it, but she tried to act like she wasn’t.” Linh held her hands out toward the fire and rubbed them together. “She was definitely nervous to tell you.”

  “She shouldn’t have been. I’m happy for her.”

  “Sure.”

  “I am.”

  “I know it.” Linh gave him a perceptive look. “I mean, as happy as anyone can be for an ex-girlfriend moving on, right?”

  “Were you surprised?” Lucas asked, squeezing his beer can. “Did you have any idea?”

  “I don’t know.” Linh shrugged. “I guess I never really thought about it because I always assumed you two would be together forever.”

  Lucas took a long swig of beer.

  “I’m sorry.” Linh gave his arm a squeeze.

  “Don’t be. That’s all in the past.” Like, way in the past, because Alex liked girls now. That was a thing.

  Lucas was glad she’d found someone who seemed to make her happy in a way he couldn’t. And he was really proud of how matter-of-fact she was about it.

  If he’d wanted to date men, he wasn’t sure he’d have the courage to tell his father. Not that his dad was a homophobe or anything. He just…he didn’t know how to have a conversation like that with his dad. A conversation that involved emotions and sex and weighty social issues. It just wasn’t the sort of conversation they ever had.

  Maybe that made him a coward. Or maybe it didn’t matter since he wasn’t gay, and therefore the whole issue was moot.

  Anyway, Alex liked girls, and Lucas wasn’t a girl. So there was that.

  Lucas was having a hard time gauging how much to talk to Alex. He didn’t want to seem like he was hanging around her too much, cramping her style, when she was here with a date. But he also didn’t want to seem like he was avoiding her.

  It was really important that she didn’t think he’d suddenly started avoiding her.

  He needed to talk to her just the right amount to show that he was still interested in being friends, but not so much that Riley would feel threatened or annoyed. But how much was that?

  Also, how long did he need to stay, because it was cold tonight. He spent enough time freezing his dick off outside on job sites. He didn’t need to do it in his free time too.

  Except Alex was his ride, so he needed to stay as long as she and Riley stayed, unless he could get another ride home. So far Alex and Riley hadn’t shown any signs of leaving anytime soon. They seemed to be having a great time.

  Riley had been talking to Gabby about music for like twenty minutes. Riley was deeply into music apparently. Lucas thought of the mix CD Alex had made him and scowled.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex asked, coming over to stand beside him at the fire.

  “Nothing.” He forced the scowl from his face, replacing it with something friendlier as he glanced over at her. But not too friendly, because then she’d think something was up.

  “Liar.” Alex jabbed him with her elbow. “You’re standing over here by yourself scowling.”
/>   Dammit. That was the exact opposite of what he’d meant to project.

  Alex leaned toward him, turning her head so her breath warmed Lucas’s neck. “It’s okay if this is weird for you.”

  “It’s not.”

  She leaned away and rolled her eyes. “Like I said, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not weird, it’s just…I was surprised, I guess.”

  “That’s okay too.”

  Lucas looked over at her. He really did like her glasses. “When we were together, did you know that you didn’t like boys?”

  Alex punched him in the arm.

  “Ow!” He rubbed his arm, which really hurt. Alex didn’t pull her punches.

  “I like girls and boys, dumbass.”

  “Oh.” Lucas tried not to look surprised—or relieved—or anything at all. “Right. Okay.”

  Alex still liked boys. That changed everything.

  Except it didn’t, because Lucas had still lost her either way.

  “Don’t be weird,” Alex said.

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to understand.”

  “You didn’t make me gay, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “I know it doesn’t work like that.”

  “I liked girls even before I liked you. And then I liked you.”

  “And now you like Riley.”

  “Yeah.” Alex looked over at Riley and smiled. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you liked girls too?” Lucas asked.

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Right.” He tried not to be hurt that Alex hadn’t felt she could share that part of herself with him. He’d thought they’d shared everything, but obviously she’d been holding parts of herself back.

  “It’s not like that,” Alex said as if she knew what he was thinking. “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you. It’s more like…I knew but I didn’t know. I guess I thought since I was with you that I’d picked a side and that was who I was. I hadn’t figured out yet that who I was didn’t change according to who I was with.”

  “You could have told me, you know—if you’d known. I wouldn’t have freaked out.”

  “I know,” she said. “Nothing freaks you out.”

  “Snakes freak me out.”

  Alex smiled. “Okay, nothing other than snakes freaks you out.”

  “I’m not wild about jellyfish either,” Lucas said, trying to make her smile even more.

  “Well who is? Is anyone actually going around claiming jellyfish as their favorite animal? Plenty of freaks love snakes, but jellyfish?”

  “You don’t think there’s a fan club devoted to invisible floating blobs of pain goo?” Lucas said, and Alex laughed.

  It felt good to make her laugh. It felt like old times, before every interaction between them had become difficult and harrowing.

  He could do this. He could just be her friend and nothing more. If that was all that was left for him, he’d take it.

  A little bit of Alex was better than none at all.

  Five

  Alex

  December 25, 2014

  Alex was not feeling the Christmas spirit this year. She pushed her mashed potatoes around on her plate, trying to psych herself up to take another bite.

  It was just her, her parents, and her sister at Christmas dinner this year, and no one was really talking much. The O’Haras hadn’t come over because Lucas’s father had a new girlfriend and they were having Christmas dinner with her.

  Alex had never appreciated how much having the O’Haras there had lightened the mood. Had her family always been this quiet at holiday dinners? They weren’t ordinarily a sit-down-to-dinner-together bunch, especially now that she and Mia were off at school, so holidays were pretty much the only times they all ate together. Had they forgotten how to do it?

  “Are you feeling all right, sweetie?” her mother asked, frowning across the table.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Alex tried to put on a happier face so her mother would stop asking questions.

  “I’d think there was something wrong with my cooking, but you barely touched your tamales last night, and you love Mrs. Castillo’s tamales.”

  Christmas Eve tamales were one of Alex’s favorite traditions. Oscar’s mother and aunts made huge batches of them every year and sold them out of his father’s donut shop. Alex loved them, but this year she’d barely even been able to choke down one.

  “She’s depressed because her girlfriend dumped her,” Mia piped up helpfully, and Alex shot her a scowl.

  “Still?” her mother asked. “Hasn’t it been weeks now?”

  Sixteen days, but who was counting? Riley had broken up with Alex right before finals. Apparently, Alex was “too clingy” and Riley “needed more space.” It was too much for her. Alex was too much for her.

  The fact that Riley was applying to law schools on the East Coast probably had something to do with it as well. Better to jettison the deadweight now, she’d probably decided.

  “I’m fine,” Alex said, because she didn’t want to talk about it, and she especially didn’t want to talk about it with her family.

  “I didn’t realize it was so serious for you to be this upset.”

  “We were together for over a year, Mom,” Alex answered through clenched teeth.

  Her parents had handled the bisexuality thing pretty well, but Alex couldn’t shake the sense that it was an act on her mother’s part. Her mother was all about appearances, and she’d want to be seen as the cool, enlightened mom who didn’t have a problem with her child’s sexuality—regardless of how she actually felt about it.

  Even though she’d been outwardly supportive since the breakup and tried to say all the right things, it set Alex’s teeth on edge whenever her mother brought up Riley. She couldn’t help thinking her mother was secretly relieved they’d broken up. She was probably hoping Alex’s little phase was over now and she could go back to dating men like her mother preferred.

  “Did I tell you I spotted a rough-legged hawk on the Christmas Bird Count this year?” Alex’s father said, changing the subject. “Don’t see too many of those.”

  Alex had never loved her father and his dumb obsession with birds more.

  Alex’s family watched A Christmas Story every year, after the dinner dishes had been done and before her parents went to bed. Alex didn’t know why they always had to watch this same lame movie, but they did. She’d asked once, when she was younger, if they could watch Elf instead, and her mother had looked insulted.

  “It’s your mother’s favorite Christmas movie,” her father had gently explained. “We always watch it together. It’s tradition.”

  As was also part of their tradition, Alex’s father was currently snoring through the movie in his favorite armchair. Beside Alex on the couch, Mia’s attention was glued to her phone. Their mother was the only one actually watching the movie.

  “I’m going to bed,” Alex announced at nine o’clock when she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Now?” her mother asked. “The movie’s not over.”

  “I know how it ends,” Alex said, pushing herself off the couch. She didn’t need to sit through the last half hour to find out if Ralphie got his Red Ryder air rifle.

  “Aren’t you going to the beach this year?” Mia asked, looking up from her phone.

  “No,” Alex said. “You can borrow my car if you want it.”

  Mia frowned at her. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister? Have you been replaced by an alien? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, honey?” Alex’s mom asked.

  Alex headed for the stairs. “I’m fine. I’m just tired so I’m going to bed.”

  “Is this about Riley?” her mom called after her, because she was chronically incapable of letting things lie.

  “No,” Alex yelled back, and locked herself in her room.

  Are you coming to the beach? Lucas tex
ted a few minutes later.

  I don’t think so, Alex texted back. Too tired.

  She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Not even Lucas.

  Alex changed into her favorite pajamas—the fuzzy ones with the penguins on them—took off her glasses, and got under the covers. For a few minutes she just lay there and stared at the ceiling, too listless to sleep or even turn off the lamp.

  Her parents had decorated the ceiling of her room with glow-in-the-dark plastic stars when she was little. She’d been staring at the same fake constellations for fifteen years. If she closed her eyes, she could draw them all from memory.

  She didn’t really feel like going to sleep this early. It had just been an excuse to avoid people. Except the problem with avoiding people was it left her alone with her own thoughts. There was nothing to distract her from replaying all her conversations with Riley in her head, trying to parse where she’d gone wrong, and if there was anything she could have done to save them.

  “You can be a lot sometimes,” Riley had told her once when they were fighting. It had started out as one of those dumb fights about something insignificant that had deteriorated into a much bigger fight. Alex couldn’t remember anymore what had triggered it, but she remembered the great make-up sex they’d had afterward.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alex had asked. “I don’t know how to be any less than I am.”

  “It’s like you take up all the oxygen in the room. I just need more space sometimes, so I can breathe too.”

  That had been months ago, but in retrospect it had probably been the beginning of the end.

  Well, Riley had plenty of oxygen now. She had all the space in the world.

  When the doorbell rang downstairs, Alex didn’t bother getting up to see who it was. She assumed it was one of Mia’s friends coming to pick her up.

  “Alex!” Mia shouted a few seconds later. “Someone’s at the door for you!”

  Alex got up and opened her bedroom door.

  Lucas was standing in the entryway below. He looked up the stairs at her and smiled. “It’s only me,” he said, as if there could ever be anything only about Lucas.