Page 59 of War on Christmas

“Ryan, for those of you whodon’tknow,” Freya nods to me, then Sam, “is a guy I dated in my mid-twenties. Things got serious quickly, and he was planning to propose, but when I met his parents at Thanksgiving, they made it pretty damn clear that I amnotthe kind of girl you marry. They pulled him aside in the afternoon, and when they didn’t come back after a while, I went looking for him. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky or anything,” she explains, shaking her head. “They just ditched me with his sister, who would barely look at me, so I got bored and went looking for them.” She raises her eyebrows. “Well, I found them. His parents had cornered him in the living room—sorry, theparlor—and as I walked up, I heard them giving him a talk. I believe his dad’s exact words were, ‘Go ahead and have your fun, but girls like her arenotthe marrying type.’”

“Fucking douchebag,” Thad mutters, and Sam nods in eager agreement.

Freya, however, shrugs. “He wasn’t wrong, though. I’mnotthe marrying type. Ryan taught me something…” She pauses for a moment, considering her words. “I’m more content on my own. I’mfree. I don’t have to worry about anyone’s approval. I have no pressure to compromise who I am. And you know what happened when I stopped trying to settle down? I gothappier.”

She shoots me a sad, lopsided smile, as if she knows how her casual statement is making my heart twinge. Most of the time, if I dared to feel concern for Freya, she’d go all prickly and sharp like a cactus, but she’s been different the past couple days. There’s an undercurrent. An agitation. The barest crease of a frown pulling down her face when she thinks I’m not looking. Even before this whole Ryan debacle came up.

The whole situation—Freya’s quiet unrest and now this “I’m free” business—puts me on edge. Like her unrest is contagious.

Then Freya turns away and throws up her hands. “And, since we’re playing Truth or Dare and I’mnota filthy liar…that wasn’t the only part.” She rolls her eyes. “I was super upset, because Iknewthat Ryan wouldn’t stand up to his parents, so after dinner I needed a few minutes to myself.” Her nose wrinkles as she admits, “I needed to have a good cry before the car ride home. So…I snuck into his dad’s study for some privacy.”

Aw, hell.I can feel where this is heading, and my leg muscles jerk. Part of me needs to stand up and pace. To move this anger and this fear out of my body. But I can remember too well the late nights I spent in Freya’s room as a kid, whispering my darkest truths to her. Freya never made it about herself. She accepted my rambling confessions calmly, her gray eyes serious and steady, and it meant everything to me. The fact that she could listen without turning away, without rejecting the truths I entrusted her with…it’s what convinced me I was going to be ok.

She sighs as she sifts through her memories, and I hold steady. For her.

“His dad found me in the study and cornered me. Jesus, it was all so cliché.” She scoffs, then drops her voice to mimic a man’s. “‘Nobody else would need to know. He had the money to take good care of me.’ You get the picture.” She shakes her head, sending her waves bouncing. “I said no—obviously—then he tried to get handsy, so I kneed him in the balls and I ruptured his testicle. And that”—she blows out a noisy breath —“is what happened with Ryan.” Her mouth twists as she mutters, “Talk about an awkward ride home.”

A long, heavy silence descends on the basement, and my heart starts to pump so hard that dark spots cloud the edges of my vision. My hands, tingling and numb, clench into fists.

“I’m going to fucking kill them,” I say at the exact same moment that Thad mutters a furious, “I’m going to fucking hack their computers.”

Sam, however, is having a completely different reaction. She’s staring at Freya with…admiration. Then her mouth lifts into a cheeky grin and she whispers, “Freya, you are aliteralballbuster.”

And Freya grins back at her.

Thirty-Seven

FREYA

“Frey?”Thad’sfamiliarvoiceaccompanies a soft knock on my bedroom door. It’s late. Our parents have been in bed for hours, and they’ll be getting up early to open the shop, so we’ve been tiptoeing and whispering as we dispersed from our ill-fated game of Truth or Dare to get ready for bed.

“Come in,” I say. I was halfway out the window, but I step back inside and slide it shut behind me. Thad lets himself in and flops into the papasan chair in the corner. Hecate immediately jumps into his lap, and he pets her back as he looks me over.

Thad is in plaid pajama pants and an old T-shirt. I’m wrapped up in a thick sweater, a scarf, and my winter boots. He raises an eyebrow at my apparel. Clearly, I wasn’t about to get into bed. (Well, notmybed anyway.) I raise one back.

“Going somewhere?” he smirks.

“Iwas,” I say, but I flop onto my bed, arms outstretched.

I should have known Thad would show up here. My breakup with Ryan is one of the only things I refused to tell him about. Ever. I’m not surprised he leveraged Truth or Dare to finally learn what really happened. Ruptured testicle and all.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Thad asks, the glow of the Christmas lights highlighting the concern etched onto his face. “Youdidn’t do anything wrong.”

I sigh. “I was embarrassed. Not by the testicle. That was bad ass,” I clarify, and Thad chuckles darkly. “I was embarrassed by his parents’ reaction to me. Looking back, Ryan and I were obviously all wrong for each other. I knowyounever liked him.”

Thad shakes his head. He never said anything to me outright, but he’s not a hard person to read. Especially for me.

“At the time, though, I really believed in us. I had this whole fairytale built up in my head, and then to be found so…I don’t know…lacking? It was humiliating. And the things is, I’d tried sohard, Thad.” My nose wrinkles at the memory. “My tattoos were covered. I bought a new outfit to wear that seemed all proper and ‘meet the parents.’ I didn’t shoot my mouth off or say anything controversial—which you know takes some effort for me,” I joke, but Thad doesn’t laugh. “I was on my best behavior, and it was like they could still tell—and I meaninstantly—that there was something different about me.”

When I close my eyes, it’s not Ryan’s mother I see, her thin lips pursed into a frown. It’s my own mom, her eyes distant to hide her distaste as I browsed at the mall through the dark, dreary clothes I favored in high school. Whenever I did something that didn’t make sense to her, which was alot, she never got on my case about it. She just focused on something else. The store, or Bethany, or whatever drama was going on with the PTA. She wasn’tmeanabout my sullen nature or the uncomfortable truths I had a habit of blurting out. She’s not a mean person. She just…drifted away. Because she didn’t know what to make of me.

And let’s be real, if my own mom finds me hard to deal with, I’m probably not going to be a dream come true for a mother-in-law.

“Of course there’s something different about you,” Thad jumps in. “You’re braver than the rest of us, Frey. Freer. You know that intimidates people until—”

“Thad.” I keep my voice gentle. Thad loves me. Thad sees the good—the strength—in my darkness better than anyone. Except maybe Jeremy.Nope. Not going there.I focus instead on my twin, the sweetheart of a guy who’s never wanted to admit my faults. “There’s a cost to being different. You’ve seen it.”

Obviously, my mom isn’t the only person who struggled to understand me. It was teachers and principals and professors and bosses. Over the years, I’ve learned to temper my strong opinions and my stronger way of communicating them, but the truth is I don’twantto fit in with all the bullshit. I don’t want to be that person who says, “It’s not like he’s hitting the boy,” and turns my back on a kid stuck with an emotionally abusive stepdad because I’m afraid to ruffle people’s feathers. People who look away from thatshouldhave their damn feathers ruffled. Hell, they should be plucked out, one by one, until they wake the fuck up and do the right thing.

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