Page 67 of Love Letters to Christmas

“But…I’m still not comfortable with being given breakfast,and lunch, and dinner…? It’s only been one day.” Her lower lip trembles, so she pulls it between her teeth. “It’s frightening how good you are at this. I…I just don’t know that it’s creating an environment conducive to improvement…? This is definitely just cultivating a codependency that will become concerning.”

“I think it’s far more concerning that I had to literally intercept you while you were trying to sneak a basin outside and wash my car, A-mail-ia.”

Her eyes slant off me. “No. That was…normal. What’s concerning is that you vacuumed under the furniture before I could.”

“The concerning part is thebefore I could, dear one.”

Pink blossoms in her face.

My arms cross. “I’m washing the walls and baseboards today, too. To deter you. Yet you really think the problem is what I’m doing? I slept with my door open last night, just in case you got any ideas about trying some funny business during the witching hours.”

“I wouldneverrisk waking you. Especially not when you work so hard.”

“Mm.” I sigh. “You know what? I’ll give you a reprieve this weekend.”

Hope ignites in her pretty brown eyes.

“You can help me switch the decorations from patriotic to Christmas. We’ll put up the trees.”

“Yes, please.”

I’m actually growing reliant on the desperate way she saysplease. There’s a quality ofanything for youin her eyes that makes me feel…special. Wanted. I don’t know. She’s just precious and really knows how to make someone else feel precious, too. I doubt there’s a single thing I could ask of her—outside letting me take care of her—that she wouldn’t willingly offer in spades.

Honestly.

She really knows how to make a man worry.

I say, “I’llvacuum the plastic pine needles that fall off.”

Her lip escapes her teeth to jut, positively princess.

Twirling, I lift a scolding finger. “I’ll hear nothing more of this! You shall help me have fun decorating. Then you shall sit in the cranked-up AC with a hot cocoa while I tidy.”

“You monster,” she whispers at my back.

So I cackle and scurry away to clean before she can discover a single oat out of place in the kitchen.

An Amelia Original. For me. On a letter addressedtome.Finally.

Staring at the transparent wax exploding with drops of deep blue and burdened with splashes of tiny white petals, I know joy. I knowlove. Wow.

Amelia, you…you really have outdone yourself.

I melt into a smile, grateful that I have a few moments to spend alone with my letter while Amelia is upstairs desperately assisting anyone she can like a frazzled little rabbit. I have been blessed. At last.

Careful as ever, I open the envelope and read.

My dearest Brian,

I hope you like what I’ve managed with the seal this time. I spent quite a long while researching and practicing to get it just right. I hope you know that my feelings for you aren’t a joke. I’m very seriously doing my best to become both someone who deserves you and someone who doesn’t hate herself.

Sincerely, I just hope that person is one in the same.

How do you know when something begins to budge? How will I know when the person I am doesn’t…suck quite so much?

It feels like I’m constantly fighting a self-centered nature that makes me hate everything about who I am. My immediate defense is to pour all my attention into someone who isn’t me. I keep myself busy, even if I do it bitterly, just so I don’t feel like a waste of space, just so I can distract myself from the constant uneasy knowledge that I am never going to be good enough.

I’m sorry this letter is darker than my previous missives.

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