Page 30 of Christmas Cheer

Every box, every bag, every trinket or, like, hand-vac has been a minor stab. A pin prick. A jab of a needle that I suffer through because I know it’ll keep me healthy. But this one feels more like a knife when I hand it to him. The way he gives it a single glance before unceremoniously adding it to his pile is a twist of that knife.

“You don’t even care what’s in there, do you?” I ask, hating my accusatory tone. I didn’t care enough to keep it. How is it my business to care if he looks inside? He could be taking it to throw out when I’m not looking, and why should I care? He could be planning to stack it in his closet and mindlessly move it from place to place this summer just as I did from room to room over the years, carrying on the grand tradition of hoarding.

Why should I care?

He glances back at it, at TROPHIES handwritten in permanent marker on the flap with TRASH underneath it, plain as day. Instead of pointing out the obvious, he calmly says, “Would you like me to open the box?”

He showered this morning but didn’t wash his hair, because I was there with him. He says he can only use cold water on it, and since it’s the end of the season, he won’t be dying it again until probably Draft Day. Maybe not even then. His hair doesn’t have quite its usual loft. He’s not wearing designer brands today, not anything obvious. Even his shoes are a more casual pair of Vans I’m pretty sure he’s owned since high school.

I feel like I remember them on a random summer day when I was attempting to sunbathe at his pool and he breezed by to pick a fight with Ryan and huffed off when Ryan didn’t take the bait. Ryan’s a D-Man, loves knocking teeth out on ice, but he keeps it there.

I hate those shoes, I decide. I hate that Evan’s this mellow version of himself today. I hate that he’s just watching me go about my business. I hate that he’s being supportive. I hate that I’m leaving tomorrow and he’s dead set on spending every minute between now and the airport with me but this is the way he’s doing it.

I hate the placating look in his eyes as he asks if he should open the box, like no matter what I say, he’ll happily do it.

“Well, what do you want to do with it?” I throw back at him.

I wish I could remember what he was pissed about that day by the pool. Nothing, I know that, but what was the nothing?

He holds his hand out to me, clearly wanting me to take it, so I tuck my hands right into my armpits. With a smile and a nod like he gets what’s going through my mind, like he’s not thinking about how unhinged I’m being, adding a healthy dose of latent misogyny because women can’t control their emotions and don’t make any sense, he sets the box on his lap and opens it.

I don’t want to look, but I can’t help but glance at what he holds in his hand when he takes a deep breath, the sort of sound that indicates not so much calm but an effort to return to calm.

He’s holding a small gold megaphone mounted to a glass base.

“Do you want to tell me about how you earned this?” he asks.

No.

Yes.

No.

But the words start anyway. “It’s from Battle of—”

“Battle of the Dance, our junior year of high school.”

“It says it on the base.”

He holds it up closer to his face, peering at it as he says, “Wait, was that junior year? Oh right, spring of junior year. Yeah, Ryan showed me the video he took of you winning this. But he didn’t tell me what you did to win it.”

“I . . . danced.” I take as deep a breath as I can manage, but my pounding heart isn’t giving my lungs a whole lot of space to expand. “It was my first year on the spring dance team. Remember, the cheerleaders split off between regular cheering and dance team for basketball? And I thought I’d be terrible. I wasn’t a dancer. But everyone thought I’d be great at it and—”

The words pour from my mouth for a long time. Sometime in the middle of it all, Evan runs his finger up my cheek, catching the tears leaking from my eyes. When did I become such a crybaby? It’s just cheer. This isn’t me.

I’ve been telling myself all semester that I’m leaving behind nothing of any value. And this last week with Evan was definitely a speed bump, but now all these other things? How much am I giving up?

No, how much did I give up? How much did I refuse to let myself have the last four years since I lost my dad, the last eight years since I lost my chance to be an Olympian, the last ten years since my mom walked out?

There’s a moment where I can’t speak anymore, and Evan is there with open arms. Quick to hold me close on the bare mattress of my dorm room and whisper meaningless words of comfort and assurance.

“It’s okay to be sad that you’re leaving this behind,” he tells me as he strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. “I’d be sad too. Terrified. I’ve had every chance to leave, but I haven’t left Wilmington. I’ve never lived far enough I couldn’t drive home simply because mom thought dad needed help moving a sofa across the room.”

I sniffle on my laugh. Evan’s impossible to stay mad at for too long, it turns out.

“It’s just about the coolest thing in the world to me that you’re moving to Europe like this. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t know someone there, I can tell you that much. So yeah, I’m going to keep all this stuff. Your trophies and your old textbooks and your stuffed animals, and that way if you ever decide you really need a chunk of home, or if you ever return and you feel like you’re missing an anchor, I’ll have what you need. And you’ll never have to worry about being completely alone because you’ll have your ribbons but I’ll have the trophies and you’ll have my game ball and there will be—”

“What? I don’t have your game ball.”

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