Page 34 of A Little Merry

“Should I ask for how many decades?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said.

“Oh, it’s a secret.”

“No. We elves don’t have a sense of time, so I truly don’t know.”

“Okay, but what did you think about your kiss?”

“It was, as you humans say… life changing. Now I really want the rest. I want sex. Real balls against the wall, sex.”

This time, I really did spit out my cocoa.

On day six, Lucas passed me in the hallway, but his hello was less than friendly.

“Lucas, can we talk about this, please?” I asked him once he walked by.

“Nothing to talk about,” he said. “It is what it is.”

I sighed and said, “I filed for the annulment. Billy Ray signed all the documents. That must count for something.”

I wanted him to know that the annulment was moving along.

“That’s great, if that’s what you want.”

“You know it is. Why are you being so cold? I thought we had a real connection. I thought… I mean… your kisses. Those were real. Why are you acting like you don’t care?”

He hesitated, then he looked straight into my eyes and said, “Because you broke my heart.”

A tremendous hurt, deep in my soul, overtook me, and I hurried back inside my apartment and went directly to bed.

On day seven, Noelle showed up looking distraught and harried.

“Sweetie, that tingling in my hands and feet has stopped. We only have one more day to get this wish fulfilled. What’s going on?” she asked as she stood next to my bed. I had made it my home for the last twenty-four hours. I only left it a few times for bathroom breaks and to get a banana, a candy cane, and some water.

“It’s Lucas. He hates me,” I told her. “I’m so sorry, but I don’t know how I can ever bring him back around. It’s impossible.”

“Darling, one thing I’ve learned in all these years… nothing is impossible if you keep going. It’s only when you quit or give up that everything turns to shit. You must keep trying.”

“Why? Didn’t you hear me? He hates me.”

I started crying again and buried my face in my pillow.

She stroked my head. “It can’t be as bad as that? You must be mistaken. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like you’re the one. You’re the girl of his dreams. Why would you ever think he hates you?”

“Because he told me so.”

“That can’t be true. What did he say, exactly?”

I sat up and looked at her, sniffling. “That I… that I broke his heart.”

She brightened, causing me to cry louder and harder. “Sweetheart, that means he loves you or at least he did. And if he loved you once, he can love you again. If you broke his heart,you can repair it and find love again. You just have to want him to love you more than he wants to walk away.”

Sometimes, she said things that didn’t make sense. It was the elf in her. After all, she said she wasn’t human. “What?”

She sang out the words, “You’ve got to show him that you care, just for him. Do the things he likes to do…etc.”

“Why are you singing? What does this mean?”

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