Page 46 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
“Yeah, you did.” Sunny’s voice was as frosty as the night air.
“I’m awful.”
“You’re a bitch. Say it.”
“I’m a bitch. I just...” Arianna heaved a sigh.
“Thought the worst of me.”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t even let me finish my sentence.”
“True.”
They stood in silence a moment, looking at each other, one still with a hard stare, the other holding her breath.
Arianna broke the silence. “That whole other-woman thing, it left me...”
“Scarred,” Sunny supplied. “I get that. I really do. But I don’t want to be dumped in the same category as the other woman in your marriage. I had no part in ending Travis’s. That was all between him and the Weed. I was never so desperate that I had to go around taking what belonged to someone else.”
“I just...” Arianna stopped. How to finish that sentence? Her heart hurt and her thoughts were a jumbled mess. “I was wrong.”
“Yeah, you were. We were friends, and you were ready to throw me away like trash. No one should be that quick to judge someone else. There’s always more to the book than the cover.”
Sunny was right, of course.
“And when it comes to your husband...isn’t it just as well someone did take him away? If things were falling apart.”
“I didn’t realize they were falling apart. How clueless was I?” Arianna said, then burst into tears.
Sunny pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry you didn’t see it coming. Nobody notices a small tear in a relationship until it becomes a big rip.”
“He broke my heart,” Arianna sobbed.
“You’re mending it. You’ll be okay. You’ve got friends.”
Arianna let out a small sob. “Including you?”
“Including me.” Sunny dug a tissue out of her coat pocket and handed it over. “And because I’m such a good friend, I’ll let you pay for my dinner.”
Arianna gave her nose a final blow and managed a smile. “Deal. We’d better get inside. Molly’s waiting. I guess she texted you, too,” she added as they turned back toward the pub.
“Yep, told me something important was happening and I needed to be here.”
“Something important was. A big life lesson for me,” Arianna said.
“Okay. Dry your eyes, friend. Now, we have another important thing to take care of—our next Christmas party,” Sunny said and smiled.
10
“Those Christmas-in-February pictures you posted were so cute,” said Ginny Banks the next morning as Arianna got ready to double check the meds she was about to distribute. “Are you going to do Christmas in March, too?”
“We’re going to do it all year long.”
“It’s such a fun idea. And it’s nice to see you smiling again and meaning it,” Ginny added.
“It’s nice to be able to smile and mean it,” said Arianna.
