Page 73 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

She says my name as I’m leaving, but I don’t turn around. My blood is pumping in my ears, and I feel fucked up and wrong, like everything I do is a mistake. Even this, leaving now, feelslike a mistake. But I don’t know how to do anything differently. I don’t know how to do things the way they should be done—if I did, I’d do them right the first time.

I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want to talk to anyone. But I have the misfortune of living with two roommates, and when I arrive at my house, the overhead lights are on in the living room—the Christmas lights too. Seeing them feels like being knifed in the gut, but I swallow back my emotions. I hope to God Cole and his daughter are gone by now. Maybe that’s a shit thing to think, but I guess I’m a shit person.

I try to go in quietly, but the house is old, and despite all the time I spend tuning it up and oiling the hinges, it creaks like a casket in a horror movie.

Fuck.

The three people on the couch in the living room turn toward the door as one, preventing me from escaping up the stairs like I was hoping.

Oliver. Harry, with pink welts all over his face. Holly.

They’re sitting by the tree, which looks much better than you’d think, considering it was decorated by an eight-year-old. They all have mugs of something. It’s a cozy scene, and I feel a little prick of loneliness because I’m not a part of it. My mind returns to Kennedy, shut up in her room in that cavernous house, with only those assholes and some production assistants and cameramen to keep her company.

I shouldn’t have left her like that, but I can’t even call to apologize. And what would be the point? Ididturn her orange. Is there any coming back from that?

“Want a drink?” Oliver asks, lifting his mug.

I’d prefer to climb into my bed and forget everything for a while, but that feeling of loneliness intrudes.

Kennedy is alone. Maybe you should be too.

But I ask, “Is there alcohol in it?”

Harry laughs this time. “Your friend makes very stiff drinks.” He pulls a face. “Your grandmother too, but at least I knew this one was alcoholic going into it. That makes a difference.”

“Should you really be drinking after—”

“He was only given a topical cream,” Holly says in an undertone, as if it’s a sensitive subject. Judging by the unhappy tilt of Harry’s lips, I guess it is. Oliver gets up to fix me a drink, thank God.

“They refused to take me seriously,” Harry says. “The same thing happened to Willow one time, and they gave her a steroid shot.”

“Huh,” I say. “Yeah, I remember that.” Back when Harry lived in Asheville, he and Willow were roommates, and they made the mistake of using some cheesy unicorn face masks that triggered an allergic reaction in my sister. “Maybe the ER is more reactive there.”

“I wish she hadn’t left tonight,” Harry says mournfully. “But I also didn’t like her seeing me like this.”

I jolt a little. “She came by the house after visiting Jay?”

Holly studies me and nods. Is that the nod of someone who knows I’m the product of an affair?

“She seemed upset by something,” she tells me. “Any idea what that’s about?”

“You assume it was my fault?” I snap.

She sets down her drink, cocoa, I can see now, and lifts her hands palm outward like I’m a feral dog. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, because she says, “No one said it was your fault, Cujo. She just mentioned she’d seen you at the hospital, so I figured you might know what’s up.”

Oliver chooses that moment to return with the drink, thank God. I take it from him and then take a big slug because right now, I couldn’t give a shit if it burns my mouth. It does. But it’snot a bad burn because it’s chased by the taste of whiskey, and the burning in my gut is not unpleasant this time.

I lower into a chair across from where the three of them are nestled on the couch, Oliver and Harry on one side, Holly on the other.

“You decorated the tree,” I say.

“Yes,” Holly says. “We like to make merry around here.”

“Jane told me it was hard to look at me,” Harry says sorrowfully. At another time I would have laughed. Cole’s daughter is nothing if not direct, but I can’t muster any humor. My mind is Willow’s visit. Had she wanted to tell Holly about the Jay thing?

Probably. She’s gotten more into talking about her feelings lately.

I should just get it over with and tell them he’s my father. Except Bryn might get offended if she finds out last.

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