Page 109 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“New house?” Mom’s brow pinches and she shakes her head. “But you have your apartment in New York. You’re there now. I can see it. Why do you need a new house? And why were you pretending? I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Her face is flushed and her eyes a little watery.

This is what I’ve done to them. This is how I’m making them feel. This is how much of an ass I am.

“Couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to play and having to watch the games from a box.” Christ, the truth sounds so fucking pathetic. “So I wanted to get away for a bit.”

“And the answer to that was tobuy a house?” Mom’s words come out slowly as she tries to put together all the pieces of this complex puzzle.

“I’ve wanted a house for a while anyway. And there’s this small town a couple of hours north of the city that Wyatt mentioned a while back. Said he always decompressed when he was there. So I looked around, found the perfect place in a couple days, and snapped it up.”

They stare back at me, nodding their heads in silence.

“You’d love it up there. I’ll take you when you get back.” Well, actually not until a couple of weeks into the new year when I’m sure Natalie will haveheaded south. “You’d adore Main Street, Mom. It’s full of cute little stores.”

“So who’s Natalie then?” Mom asks. “If she’s not a physical therapist.”

How do I explain that? Maybe with the bare minimum of the truth. “She’s a local teacher. Who got stuck at my house because she hurt her ankle. When a tree fell across the road.”

“What?”Dad asks. “Maybe I haven’t recovered as much as I’d thought. This is all very confusing.”

“None of it makes sense,” Mom says. “Because if you hadn’t gotten us this cruise, we’d have been home and you could have just stayed with us while you recovered. Like a longer Christmas vacation.”

Now the fabulous Chinese food flips in my stomach. But Natalie was right. If I can’t be honest with the two people I care about most in the world, who can I be honest with? Not even myself probably.

“Thing is…” I rub my forehead and bite my top lip for a moment.

“Go on.” Mom’s tone is caring and full of love.

I can actually hear the stress-beats of my heart. Here goes everything. “I don’t like Christmas.”

They lean toward the phone, their brows furrowed, like they’re trying to examine a tiny bewildering object they can’t quite make out.

Then they look at each other.

Then back at me.

“What?” Dad asks at the same time as Mom says, “What do you mean?”

The tightness across my chest loosens slightly as I inhale. At least I’ve forced out the words. Now I have to deal with the consequences.

“I don’t enjoy Christmas. And I…never really have.”

Mom’s mouth drops open and her hand flies to her neck. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. You’ve always loved it.”

That tremor in my guts, that roiling in my belly, that ache in my chest, that’s shame. Shame for all the years of deceiving them.

I drop my forehead into my hand and close my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“You mean you’ve always justpretendedto like it?” The hurt in Mom’s voice is obvious. “Pretended to have fun? Pretended to like the gifts?”

“Oh, it’s not like that.” I look back up at their pained faces. It’s so simple to me, but now that I’m trying to put it into words, I realize how complex it is. “I love the time with you and appreciate the gifts. It’s just the…I guess the pressure of it.”

“Pressure?”Dad says.

“Honey, we have never pressured you.” Now Mom’s hurt has morphed to defensiveness, like she thinks I’m accusing her of ruining all my Christmases. “We’ve always said you should live your life. We have never once pressured you to spend the holidays with us.”

“I know,” I tell them. “It’s not you. It’s all my fault.”

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