Page 9 of Christmas Cheer

Keira

Finding out yourvillain is actually a normal, thoughtful person dealing with their own issues and just doing the best they can is hard to accept.

Especially when they kiss you ever so gently underneath the glow of the street lamp as wisps of snow flitter around you outside your dorm, and they don’t push at all to be invited up.

He was quiet on the walk back to my dorm, strange for him. He’s not exactly known for being a big thinker. And I know after that kiss, he wants me to invite him in, but that feels like a lot. Especially with so much packed up already. My world is going to look so tiny, and he’s the sort of person who will fully eclipse me.

“Well, have a good night,” I say awkwardly.

“You’re really leaving after the bowl trip?” he blurts out. “You’re leaving forever?”

I chuckle. “I mean, I don’t know that I’ll never be back, but the foreseeable future.”

Evan’s crystalline gaze glances up the seven-story dorm, right to my room — after some of the shit he’s said tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows which one is mine — and out to the snow-covered field across from the patio. It is impossibly quiet. “If this is your last week here, I think we should make it your most memorable week here.”

It’s going to be hard to top some of my previous weeks, but they were mostly memorable for terrible reasons — my mother walking out on us, my gymnastics career ending, my father dying, getting evicted from my own house by the bank — that I have to say, “Oh yeah, what do you propose?”

“I’ll be your boyfriend for a week.”

He says it so sweetly and innocently that I snort.

“I’m serious! What do you have to lose? You’re gonna fly off into the sunrise in a couple of weeks and start over. So tomorrow morning, I’m gonna come by with breakfast and your pill, and I’m gonna take you to the gym, and then we’re gonna hang out and be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

This is dumb. So dumb. Ridiculous. But he’s not wrong. There’s nothing to lose if there’s no time for him to get bored and move on.

No time for me to catch feelings, either.

“Fine. You can be my boyfriend for the rest of the year.”

He fist pumps like he’s actually excited about it, kisses my cheek, says, “Have a good night, girlfriend,” and runs off.

Unknown

what should I bring for breakfast, girlfriend?

Keira

How’d you get my number

Evan

Ryan still had it

Keira

How is Ryan? I forgot to ask

Evan

good. Still strapping blades to his feet and trying to kill anything that moves. He and Reggie are getting married in the fall, NHL’s having a field day with the pride press

Keira

Good for him. Send him my congratulations

Evan

You could be my date to the wedding. Like an epilogue to girlfriend week.

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