Page 83 of Holiday Friend Zones
From Friends to Forever: Holiday Edition
BY CLAUDIA BURGOA
ChapterOne
WILLOW
Mom used to say that holidays were magical because of the people they brought together.
As a child of divorce, I never believed her.Not before my father walked out, and absolutely not afterward.
Every December, she’d swear up and down that the season wasn’t about gifts or traditions—it was about the people.She said it like a vow, as if she could reshape reality into something kinder than it was.We’d spend another Christmas alone, just her and me, pretending a crooked tree and half-burnt sugar cookies meant joy.She never admitted that maybe it hurt her too.She was stubborn like that—too proud to confess that hope sometimes lies.
Now, the garland is hanging behind the cash register, and I sigh.The tinsel scratches my wrist, and the glitter sticks to my palms, clinging like memory.
“You just had to leave in spring, Mama,” I whisper into the half-empty shop.“Couldn’t give me another reason to hate these stupid holidays?”
It’s been three years since a stroke ripped her out of my life, and I still don’t know how to function without her.She never understood why I wanted this bookstore so badly.
“It’s a dying business, Willow,” she’d say, lips pressed tight while scrolling through my chaotic inventory spreadsheets.“You’ll never make enough money to support yourself with this.”
She predicted it would ruin me.She laughed when I quit my city job, emptied my savings, and rebuilt the old post office into shelves and stories.She thought it was reckless.But she still came every day she could, fussing over my displays, shoving receipts into neat piles, humming along to the radio while insisting she didn’t have time to stay.
The grief isn’t as unbearable as it used to be.In the beginning, it felt like drowning—like every breath scraped against something jagged inside me, like the world had been drained of all its color and left me in grayscale.I couldn’t step through the door of this shop without hearing her voice in the hum of the heater, without expecting her to materialize from behind a shelf with that knowing smirk and a stack of receipts she’d already alphabetized.
Now it’s quieter.Softer, but no less present.It clings the way the smell of old paper lingers here, stubborn and impossible to scrub out.It seeps in like cold air through a cracked window, unnoticed at first, until it’s wrapped itself around me.I’ll be shelving books or measuring out coffee grounds, and suddenly her absence presses against me—like a chair pulled out across from mine that no one will ever sit in again.Some days, it still makes me collapse.But other days ...I can almost smile.
I can remember her fussing over the register or teasing me about my stubborn streak, and instead of breaking down, I feel something gentler.Not happiness exactly, but a warmth that reminds me I was loved, and that I still carry her in ways I don’t always notice—when I hum while working, when I keep the shop open too late, when I push back against advice because I believe in what I’ve built.
The pain hasn’t vanished.It never will.But it’s changed.It doesn’t flatten me the way it once did, doesn’t suffocate me until I can’t stand.Instead, it lingers, like a bruise that will never fade completely, but no longer throbs every time I move.
Some nights I still bury my face in a pillow and scream until my throat aches, until my chest feels raw and hollow.
I’ve learned, though, that I don’t have to hold all of it alone.I have neighbors who check in, friends who drag me out for coffee, customers who notice when my laugh sounds off.And then there’shim.
The only person who can still make me feel seen in the middle of all this silence is the one my mother trusted enough to call her own when his family didn’t want him.
“Riddle me this, Princess,” Roman calls as he saunters in from the loading dock, voice dripping with mock irritation.“Why did I unload five cases of Austen reprints this morning?”
“They’re popular,” I mutter, rearranging the garland as if it suddenly matters.
“Popular enough for five cases?”His brow arches.“We talking Hunger Games level mayhem in here?Book nerds tearing each other apart limb by limb for copies of stories that have been around longer than our grandparents?”
I shoot him a look.“You never know.”
He hums, folding his muscular arms across his broad chest.“And this definitely has nothing to do with the high school library losing its funding, right?”
I wince.Shit.
Roman smirks, that cocky grin that makes me want to punch him and kiss him in the same breath.“Busted.”
“I thought you unloaded them already,” I say defensively.
“I didn’t say where I put them, now did I?”His grin widens.“Figured I’d save us both some time and get them into my truck.”
I groan.“Your ego’s so inflated the town should charge you property tax.”
“Don’t lie, Princess.”He leans in just enough for me to catch the scent of his cologne, warm cedar and something darker.“You love me, and you know it.”
