Page 4 of You Can't Ruin Christmas

“He’s long gone,” I whisper, “and all those dreams became a little less possible. I wasted so many years on that relationship with Seb. I don’t know how to start all over again with someone new. How am I supposed to do that? Use Tinder? How can I just throw it away and find something new? It takes so many years to get to know someone, and I want to stop wasting my years. He said he wanted the same things. We had a plan, and we had a timeline. I tried my best to be good to him, you know? I didn’t screw anything up. I was a good girlfriend. Why was it so easy for him to walk away? Why did he lie to me?” Realizing that there are tears cascading down my cheeks, I place my face in both my hands.

Did I just drunkenly rant about my ex to his brother? Did I just gratuitously spill all my fondest hopes and dreams and fears? Wow. Real classy, Mary. Really cool.

You know what would be even cooler? Just copy-and-pasting everything I just said onto my Tinder profile. That would definitely attract the gentlemen. Especially if it was 1946, the year this movie was made, and possibly the last time in history that my dating skills were relevant. I try to bury my face so deeply in my hands to hide my embarrassment and tears that my hands end up pressed against my knees, and soon I am crying into my hands and my knees. I feel so humiliated that I am quite certain I should never show my face in public again.

Did I mention I’m also emotionally about as graceful as a hippopotamus?

But to my surprise, Sven doesn’t awkwardly go running away. Instead I feel his hand on the back of my hair, comforting me. I feel him caressing my back, in a reassuring and protective manner.

“Do you want me to kick his ass?” Sven asks. “I’ll whoop his ass so hard that he won’t be able to sit down until next December.”

This only makes me cry harder. I hate that I’m crying in front of him. I hate it. But hell, itdoesreally suck that I have lost a chunk of my life loving someone who didn’t love me back. It’s really fresh, really raw. Like a wound that is going to keep opening up and bleeding until it closes. And my greatest fear, that I can’t even say out loud, is what if it takes me so long to have kids that it’s too late for them to even meet their grandparents? Or what if my parents are too old and sick to really spend time with them? What if my kids are too young to get to know and remember the amazing people their grandparents are, before they are gone? What if weneverget to spend a single magical Christmas together in Snowflake Creek as a family. What if losing these years has set me back so far that everything I hoped for has been ruined forever?

Sven does something then that blows my mind.

He slides one hand under my knees, and with the other hand around my waist, he easily uses those massive muscles to lift meinto his lap.Like I’m a sack of feathers. I guess those arms are not just for show, and they are pretty capable, too. So, I find myself sitting there, with my bottom nestled against his gargantuan steel thighs, which somehow feels more like resting on a cloud of bliss than the concrete I would have imagined.

He wraps his arms around me and holds me against his chest.

He is giving me a fucking hug.

It takes my mind a second to process what is even happening, because the tears are still coming at full force, and making my shoulders shake. But my sadness eventually begins to subside. It takes a moment for me to relax against him, but when I do, I completely sink against his body as though I have no bones and I am made of Jello. His embrace is warm, and I feel like I desperately needed this human affection.

The breakup may have officially happened today, but I haven’t seen Sebastian in three months. Three months of barely hearing from him, watching his hockey games from afar, watching him cozy up to other girls on social media, and fearing the worst. Three months of mostly being isolated alone in my recording studio, or alone in my room surrounded by Sebastian’s belongings and going insane wondering if he would ever reply to my texts.

I didn’t realize how lonely I was. Thousands of miles away from my family and closest friends. Hanging on the ghost of a boyfriend past. Refusing to admit to myself that he was in the past.

But I don’t feel alone anymore.

I feel like Sven is my friend. And maybe he cares.

It is hardnotto feel that way with how perfectly he is holding me.

Somehow, I feel more safe and protected than I have since I was a child. I allow my cheek to rest against his chest, which feels strangely more like a pillow in this moment than unyielding hardwood floors. It’s astonishing how a man who looks so muscled and powerful can actually be impossibly tender. I let myself be enveloped by his scent of cinnamon and whiskey, which gives me a heady feeling, like being hit by several strong cocktails, all at once.

“You haven’t wasted any years,” he says against my hair. “You’ve lived and loved, and that’s the best any of us can hope to do. Don’t worry, Mary. You’re going to have a wonderful life. Just like the movie.”

I think it’s possibly the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me. It’s so sweet, uplifting, and heartwarming that I don’t know how to respond. I hold my breath, wondering if this is a dream I’m going to wake up from. Just a drunken, feverish, sugar-induced dream. It would be easier to believe in Santa Claus than someone being this nice to me. Is Sven even real? Or is he a guardian angel, sent down to save me from diabetes and give me buns of steel?

I only know one thing for certain: sitting on Santa’s lap never felt this good.

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