Page 109 of Learning Curve

“Not trying to be rude here, Scottie,” Travis says with a cheeky grin. “But do you mind if we come inside? This tree is getting fucking heavy.”

“Trav,” Finn scolds. I shake my head and laugh. It’s impossible to be upset with someone when they’re being so damn honest with you.

“Uh…yeah…come on in…” I quickly glance over my shoulder to make sure there’s nothing too incriminating lying around behind me. I’m instantly thankful I speed-cleaned last night at midnight when I couldn’t fall asleep, when I remember the magazine art I’d made of Finn while I was watching The Truman Show.

I step back to hold the door open wider and gesture for them to come inside. Travis is the first one to clear the threshold, and Jack and Willow file in after him. Finn stops right at the entrance, his brown eyes probing mine with concern.

“Are you sure this is okay?” he asks, his voice a whisper. “Because we can—”

“Finn.” I hold my hand up. “It’s fine.” Good, even.

It feels surprisingly nice to get some unexpected Christmas cheer and even better that the majority of my guests know next to nothing about me. I know Finn would never have shared what happened with them, and the safety of knowing people aren’t making fun of me in their heads is thrilling.

Once Finn and I are inside and the door is closed behind us, I see that Travis has already found a spot for the tree—at the foot of my bed—and Willow has started putting ornaments on it. Jack is putting cookies and chips and other holiday-themed goodies on paper plates and setting them on my small coffee table. He’s also eating them while he does it.

“Wow,” I admit as I look around the already half-decorated room. “You guys came prepared.”

“Isn’t it great, Scottie?” Willow questions, a big smile on her lips as she puts an angel ornament on the tree.

“Yeah,” I say and mean it. “It’s definitely great. Thank you for doing this.” Thank you for making me not feel so alone.

The Holiday is still playing on the television, and Jack and Travis have made themselves comfortable on my futon, their eyes glued to the screen.

“I love this movie,” Jack says, and Travis cracks up.

“You would, dude.”

“What?” Jack steals a cookie out of Travis’s hands and shoves it into his mouth. “Kate Winslet is a goddess,” he adds, but cookie crumbs shoot past his lips as he talks.

“You guys are cringe,” Willow says, a scowl on her face. “Scottie is never going to invite us back.”

Finn’s eyes meet mine, and the smile that’s on his lips is half amused and half apologetic. It’s not my favorite smile of his, but I’d be lying if I said he had a bad one.

I want to ask him a million questions about his dad and Professor Winslow and how he’s handling it all. When Julia was at my dorm the other night, doing another one of her secret well-being checks that she disguises as being bored or wanting to watch Love is Blind with me, she told me about Finn’s dad showing up at the police station and everything that ensued after that.

Ace told her, of course, and then swore her to secrecy, which she then passed on to me. But I know no story is complete until you hear it from the primary source. There’s a reason that game called Telephone always gets the message so fucked up.

Until Finn tells me about it himself, I don’t trust any of the real details.

Mainly, though, I just want to know he’s okay. After everything we’ve been through, I’m still not over him.

Finn

“He did what?” Scottie questions and bursts into laughter. This is the fifth time my brothers have made her laugh like that in the last three hours, and I’m positively vibrating with satisfaction.

After Ace and Julia left yesterday, I spent an entire five hours warring with myself about going home for Christmas while Scottie was here by herself. I didn’t want to let my siblings down on the first real holiday for our family, but the thought of leaving Scottie here to rot in a bucket of sour feelings I’ve had the pleasure of marinating in my entire life seemed equally as cruel.

I finally compromised with myself on getting home a little late for Christmas with the Hayeses after making a quick stop at Scottie’s dorm this morning, but evidently, making crazy decisions truly is biological.

My siblings all showed up at my dorm first thing this morning, ready to spread some Christmas cheer to the “friend” I told them about with me.

I didn’t tell them any of the gory details—sharing something so personal is well outside my moral code—but they knew from our one million FaceTime calls about me being late that Scottie has been hanging out on the bottom rung of the down-and-out ladder.

Willow suggested that a Christmas surprise wasn’t a Christmas surprise at all without going all out, so on our way over, we stole a tree and its ornaments from the courtyard behind my dorm and bought way too many Christmas-themed snacks at the store in Brower Center.

“Oh my God!” Willow exclaims and throws herself back onto Scottie’s bed. She shoves a pillow over her face, and her next words are muffled. “Just shut up, Trav! Shut up!”

Travis smiles like a real bastard and continues telling Scottie about the night they found my sister’s then-boyfriend Steve in her bedroom. “That’s right, Scottie. Stupid Steve was so scared of Jack and me that he scaled the side of the house in his boxers.”

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