Page 5 of War on Christmas

The Good Twin: Your a pain in the ass.

Me: *You’re*

The Good Twin: Ha! I only did that to bug you.What are you going to do? Drag that hellion of a cat on a 20-hour bus ride? Will they even let you bring her?

See? This is what happens when you let your guard down and love something. People use it to manipulate you.

Me: Let the record show that I am not happy about this.

The Good Twin: Let the record show that you’re never happy about anything.

Touché.

Me: Fine.

The Good Twin: Good choice. Sam and I will be there in a week. It’s all going to be ok.

Four

JEREMY

15 days until Christmas…

IstandoutsideFreyaNilsen’s building and give myself a chance to breathe. To collect myself.

Since my mom’s call Tuesday night, life has been a blur. Filling out HR forms for family leave. Handing off projects to coworkers. Contacting clients to let them know I’ll be out of the office for a couple weeks. It was all sliding together, fuzzy and indistinct, until Thad’s video call a few nights ago.

“He’s dead?” Thad frowned at the screen, his forehead wrinkled with concern. In the background, I could see his girlfriend, Sam, puttering around their kitchen.

“Yup.” I popped the final consonant and took a long swig of warm beer.

“Well…good,” Thad said after a long pause.

“Yup,” I repeated, like it’s the only word I know.

We’re not assholes. At least we’re not assholes for being glad my stepdad is dead. Nowtherewas a real asshole. Gary Cassidy is—well,was—as mean as a rattlesnake and gave less warning before striking. That sorry-excuse-for-a-man’s only redeeming quality was that he stuck to words as his weapon of choice.

For whatever that’s worth.

I’m not sad about Gary. My biological dad ran out before I was born, and whatever hopes I had for a normal father-son relationship with Gary died not long after he married my mom when I was eight. It was Thad’s dad who taught me how to throw a baseball. My chemistry teacher, Mr. Diedrich, who showed me how to tie a tie for Honor’s Night. My high school football coach who taught me how to drive. I had to rely on a patchwork of father figures. Neighbors and teachers and mentors who took pity on a fatherless kid trying to figure things out.

No, I’m not grieving Gary.

It was Thad’s last question, as we were about to hang up, that felt like a drop-kick to my stomach.

“Any chance you can give Freya a ride to Northview?”

I haven’t seen Freya since our high school graduation, where she and I stood shoulder to shoulder on stage as co-valedictorians. The auditorium was filled, every seat occupied, and I knew I should feel intimidated or humbled—something that fit that milestone moment. Instead, all I could focus on was every breath Freya took, every rise and fall of her shoulder against my ribs, and that peppery floral scent she used to wear. Freya, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge my existence, surveying the crowd like a witch on a pyre.You tried to break me, her gray eyes accused them,but you failed.

The next day she got on a plane for New York, where she had a summer internship at a small, off-Broadway theater.

As children, we’d been close. Freya, Thad, and Jeremy: the trifecta. Always together, always in trouble. Like triplets, people joked. I never liked the triplets comments, though. I didn’t mind people calling Thad my brother—he’s as close as I’ll ever get to one—but Freya never felt like a sister. She always summoned a secret sense of awe in me, something magical and wondrous that I never sensed between her and her twin. I always got the impression that to Thad, Freya seemed as ordinary and familiar as breathing.

But Freya was never ordinary to me.

Now I haven’t heard a word about her since we were eighteen. At a party on graduation night, half-drunk and more than a little desperate about Freya taking off across the country, I’d harassed Thad for information. Would she really be gone theentiresummer? Did she have someplace safe to stay? Weren’t big-city guys creeps? Was he sure she’d be ok? How could she ditch out on her last summer vacation before college? Finally, Thad had turned away from making out with Molly Turner and told me, “Dude, I’m done playing middleman. I mean it. If you want information about Freya, askher. I’m not gonna be the sad kid stuck in the middle of your divorce anymore.”

And to give Thad credit, he’s stuck to it. I knew she lived in Chicago. That much slipped because Thad always spends time with both of us when he visits from Minneapolis. (He and I jokingly refer to it as our “shared custody” arrangement.) But other than that, I know nothing. The handful of times I broke down and asked, Thad’s answer was always the same: “Why don’t you pick up the phone and ask her?”

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