Page 25 of One Night with My Lawyers
We got a bit of a late start.
Is that why I’m getting more than one present a day?
Sure. But sometimes, Shane and I don’t always agree on what to get. When that happens, you get both, obviously.
Obviously.
Conflicting emotions are tearing me apart. I want to protect my heart, yet I don’t want to give them up. I’m scared of relationships; I wish I hadn’t sent them away.
I should tell them to stop. I should tell them I made my decision, and that’s all there is to it. But I don’t. I want to keep the door open. I want to be persuaded.
Thursday’s gift is a box from Tiffany. I text them even before I open the distinctive blue box.
This is too much.
Shane texts back.
You don’t like it?
I haven’t opened it.
Maybe you should.
It’s a bracelet, the kind you hang charms from. I stare at the miniature typewriter charm, the coffee mug, the writing pad, the laptop, and the opened book, and I feel a lump rise in my throat. This isn’t something shiny and expensive and impersonal. This took effort.
All their gifts have.
The door cracks open a little wider. The ground on the other side of the precipice softens. The leap seems fractionally less terrifying.
Even so, I hesitate.
The presents keep coming.
On Christmas Eve,I walk into the playroom again, remembering that fateful day two years ago.
Elliot died on the last day of November. Nobody remembered to call the decorator and cancel. I came back from the hospital, my heart aching, and I stepped into a Christmas tableau. Yulia’s theme that year had been a winter bazaar. Decorations overflowed everywhere. I walked into the condo and looked around at the bright colors, at the thousand little details that formed her vision, and I wanted to throw up.
My mother had grudgingly invited me to Christmas that year. Part of me wanted to go, but I knew what I’d hear. My mother would rehash old arguments.He was too old for you,she would say.What did you think would happen? If it wasn’t cancer, it would have been something else. You should have found someone your own age.My father would have grunted in agreement, never taking his eyes off the TV.
I’d declined her invitation and stayed in Manhattan, and I’d never felt more alone.
That loneliness pales compared to the way I feel now. I haven’t heard from Theo and Shane all day. They’ve probably given up on me, and I don’t blame them. Or they’re busy with their families. At least, Theo will be. He told me that his sister gave birth in October. It’s going to be Baby Olivia’s first Christmas.
That first Christmas after Elliot died, I didn't want to go to my parents because my mother would have been wrong. Even in my grief-stricken state, I knew that Elliott had been worth it. It was better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.
When did that change? When did I lose that certainty?
I trail my fingers over the leather of the spanking bench. I remember every sensation from this room. Every touch. I'm prepared for a wave of grief to wash over me, but it doesn't come.
Instead, I feel Elliott's presence. It's not the man ravaged by cancer. It's my Dom again, and he's staring at me, steel in his eyes.Kitten,he says.This is unacceptable. Enough hiding. Life is precious and fleeting, and I expect you to get on with it.
The shrill ring of my phone jerks me from my reverie. Xavier's number flashes on the display. I thought he was in Thailand. With a frown, I pick up. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be in Bangkok?”
“Nothing is wrong,” he replies. “And no, I'm not in Bangkok. I am downstairs, double-parked outside your building.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s Christmas Eve, and you shouldn't be alone. I called you yesterday, and you swiped me to voicemail. I had to take matters into my own hands. Grab a change of clothes and come on down.”
