Page 38 of Scrooged for the Holidays
“Greer!” Avery tries to reach for Past Me’s arm, but she pulls away.
“If you still want to work with me, I’ll see you in the office the day after Christmas.” Without another word, she spins away and strides off, not waiting for James. Present Me watches as he stands from the table, cheeks flushed and an awkward look on his face.
“It was nice meeting everyone. And thanks for the food; it was great.” Nobody says anything to him as he rushes off. I think Kai is going to make me follow, but when I go to move, he keeps me in place.
“Not yet,” he says.
I grind my jaw together. I know how this looks and what he must be thinking—that I was rude and overreacted—but he doesn’t understand. Nobody understands but me.
A small cry from my mother draws my attention back to the dining table. My dad rubs her back, and for a time, nobody says anything. The silence builds in my gut, and I’m left simmering on feelings I’ve tried not to feel for years: self-loathing, pain, sadness, anger. It’s a reminder of why I’ve spent years learning to control my emotions, to detach from them all.
“I’m so sorry about Greer,” Mom eventually says. “She’s changed so much.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Avery says. “I think she’s just under a lot of pressure at work.”
“You’re too sweet. You should be mad at her for how she treats you.”
“Mrs. Mallory, it’s okay. Really.”
I frown. My idea of what they spoke about after I left was not this. I imagined them laughing and calling me an Ice Queentogether or maybe recounting stories of my “rudeness” over the years. I didn’t think Avery would stick up for me again like she did in the last memory I saw.
It’s not as if I asked her about what happened after the fact, either. She tried to talk about it when she returned to work, but I wouldn’t let her. Eventually, she stopped trying to get me and my parents to make up, too.
Silence takes over the table again as Dad continues to console Mom. The longer we stand here watching them, the more my stomach hurts. When I can’t take it anymore, I turn to Kai, grabbing him by the scarf he’s wearing.
“Why did you show me this, Angel Boy?”
“Because you needed to see it.”
“So you say. But why?”
“Only you can answer that now, Princess.”
Another small cry from my mom echoes in my ear, and I tug on his scarf. “You said this was the last thing I needed to see. Let me wake up; I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Greer—”
I shake him harder. “No. I’m done, I get it. I was an Ice Queen then, and I’m an Ice Queen now. Let me wake up.”
Kai’s lips part like he’s about to argue, but instead, he gives a single nod.
He lifts his hand, eyes never leaving mine. “Alright.”
And then he snaps his fingers.
Chapter twelve
Greer
Iflyupinbed, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. My gaze darts around like I’m a spooked horse, my eyes wide and muscles taut. It’s no longer evening—gray morning light streams through the gauzy curtains covering the window on the left wall.
The gas fireplace is still on, the Christmas tree’s lit, the room lights are on. It’s exactly how everything was when I fell asleep last night.Fell asleep. I was asleep. A laugh of happy disbelief bursts from me at the realization that what happened was, in fact, a nightmare. A nightterror.
“I knew it,” I say to nobody but myself.
I rub my face, the quiet of the room encroaching on me. The effect is a little eerie, and for a brief moment, I miss Kai’s company and the sounds of being around the people in my memories—even if said people wanted nothing to do with me nor I them.
I shake my head. It was anightmare. Kai was not really with me. I wasn’t really in the past or on some warpedA Christmas Caroljourney with a half man, half angel. That would be utterly ridiculous. So ridiculous that if I told anyone about it, they’d ask if I was high or needed to take a trip to a padded room. Fuck, maybe I do. Maybe the nightmare was my mind’s way of tellingme I need a vacation, even if I don’t want to take one. I have work to do, a promotion to get.
