Page 40 of Christmas With the Jerk

“I’m like that,” she continues, her voice trembling slightly. “I’ve been running, and even when I knew it was dangerous, even when I knew I could end up stranded, alone, I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to go back. I couldn’t.”

I’m not quite sure what she’s saying or how to respond. I don’t want to stop the flow of her sharing, so I pause and give her some space.

“You didn’t want to go back to what?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

Woodley takes a deep breath, her gaze dropping to the table. “To them. To my family. You’ve been thinking this whole time that I came from nothing, haven’t you? That I’ve been trying to claw my way out of some kind of poverty.”

I don’t answer, because yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. I built this whole story in my head about who she is: this tough, scrappy woman who fought for her place in the world.

My brain can’t fathom what she is talking about if that isn’t the case. Is her dad a mafia don or something?

She shakes her head, her voice quiet but steady. “That’s not my story, Thorne. I didn’t run away from a poor family. I ran away from wealth. From privilege.”

Her words knock the wind out of me. I sit back, staring at her, trying to wrap my head around what she’s saying. What Ithought I knew and what she is saying doesn’t square. “You... ran away from privilege?”

Woodley nods, her fingers gripping the edge of the table like she needs something to hold on to. “My family, they’re powerful. They are wealthy in a way that most people can’t comprehend, the type of wealth that makes people bend to their will. They use money to control everything: people, decisions, lives. I didn’t want to be a part of that world. So I walked away.”

“You disowned your family because you didn’t want their money?”

Her laugh is bitter, almost pained. “It wasn’t about the money. It was what that money represented and how he made it. Let’s just say my father is not a good man. I didn’t want that life. I didn’t want to be like them.”

The vulnerability in her voice cracks something open inside me. This whole time, I’ve been watching her fight, admiring her resilience, her strength. This whole time I had it completely wrong. She wasn’t fighting to get somewhere. She was fighting to get away.

“And that girl,” Woodley continues, her voice trembling now, “she reminded me of myself. I mean, I know she was just a little girl upset with her mom. That’s very different than what I’m talking about. But she was out there, determined not to go back, even when she was in danger. It was that resolve that reminded me of myself.”

Her words land with a weight I wasn’t expecting, and in that moment, I see it—the defiance, the strength, the sheer determination she’s carried all along. I still don’t know the full story, but it’s clear how deeply she feels about walking away.

Most people would’ve been swayed by the money, by the comfort of staying in line. But not her. Whatever her family’s business was, she had the guts to turn her back on it, to choose her own path over a fortune. That kind of resolve... that takes a rare kind of courage.I lean in, my voice softer now. “But you don’t have to run anymore.”

She doesn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes says it all. For the first time, she’s letting someone in, letting herself be seen. And for the first time, I see her—the real her.

FIFTEEN

Woodley

Then how the reindeer loved him / As they shouted out with glee / "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer / You'll go down in history!"

5:47 pm

The lobby is warmer now,the fire crackling softly in the background. I’ve finally warmed up from our tubing and then all the excitement of finding the young girl in the cold.

I’m not sure what made me spill everything about my family to Thorne. Maybe it was the emotion that’s been building over the past few days, or the weight of the holidays, always reminding me how alone I am.

Seeing Thorne jump into action, finding that lost little girl and bringing her back to her mom, stirred something in me I couldn’t ignore. It was like he wasn’t just helping her—he wasreaching something inside me, something I’d kept locked away for a long time. After that, there was no holding it all in.

Even now, I can still feel the comforting weight of his hand on mine, the quiet comfort he gave after I told him far more than I ever intended. The little girl is back with her mom, safe, but the storm inside me? That’s far from calm.The little girl is safe, back with her mother, but the storm that kicked up inside me hasn’t settled. Not by a long shot.

“Thank you for trusting me enough to talk about your family,” Thorne says, his voice low, almost a rumble. His eyes search mine, like he’s still trying to piece together the whole puzzle I threw at him.

“Thanks for listening and not judging me,” I say, giving him a tight smile. Its freeing to have someone who knows more about me than I’m the scrapper who works hard. It’s almost comical to me that it is Thorne, the person I would have guessed would have been the last person I would tell.

He nods, and he offers a warm smile. No words are necessary. There is something in his eyes that tells me everything I need to know. He shifts in his seat, glancing down at his damp coat and shirt, the snow that clings to the edges of his clothes.

"I should probably get out of these wet clothes," he says, his voice casual, but the words pull me back to the present. After everything we just talked about, I realize how safe I feel with him—feeling safe around another person, a man at that, is something I’m not used to. I nod, suddenly aware of my own damp clothes clinging to me. "Yeah," I respond, "I’ll come up and change too.”

The way he looks at me, steady, like he’s asking me something without really saying it, makes it clear it’s not just about the cold.

“Let’s go.” The directive is soft, but it hangs between us like it’s so much more than two words. I know exactly what going with him up to the room is about, and it has nothing to do with simply changing clothes.

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