Page 76 of War on Christmas

“Changed?” I ask, my voice small. “Why?”

“Why?” he echoes. “Freya, I stood in your driveway and told you I’min lovewith you. That I want to be with you. That I want to give youeverything. And your response was to leave—literally flee the city, no, thestate—and then come back a day later and ask me on a goddamndate?”

I cringe, keeping my eyes on my old, scuffed up Doc Martens sinking into the snow. A hoarse laugh escapes him, grating on my last nerve, and I groan.

“Fine.” I stick my freezing hands under my armpits. “What do you want then?”

“I want you to acknowledge that what you did yesterday morning can’t be fixed with a plate of fucking sushi,” he snaps. “What’s between us, Sunshine, isn’t small. It’s not easy. It’s not simple. And it sure as fuck isn’t safe. It’s big and terrifying, and if it goes wrong, it’s going to hurt like hell, andIneed to know that you’re not going to lash out every time you get scared.” He jabs a finger at me. “So, what are the new terms? Convince me that you’re not going to turn coward and run every time things get intense. Because quite frankly, Frey, intense is the only way we know how to be.”

And then he slams the window shut.

Forty-Seven

FREYA

Christmas Eve

Istareattheboxy brick building looming over me, and even though I know it’s abandoned for winter break, I can still smell the ghosts of pencil shavings, body odor, and Axe body spray. For the first time since I stomped out of this hellhole on the last day of my senior year, middle fingers raised in salute, I’m back at Northview High School.

And cue my own personal nightmare.

My stomach cramps around the blueberry muffin my mom forced me to eat this morning. (“You need your energy for pledging your love,” she’d singsonged.) I squeeze my eyes shut. Ebeneezer Scrooge only had to face the prospect of a cold, lonely grave waiting to swallow him whole. I would much rather face a dirt-filled symbol of my mortality than my high school alma mater.

“So, a romantic emergency with your sworn enemy…” a soft, familiar voice croons behind me. “How deliciously Shakespearean.”

Despite everything that’s gone to hell in the proverbial handbasket over the past two weeks, I smile.

“Hey, D.G.,” I say, turning to her as she walks up beside me.

Mrs. Davis-Green, cheeks flushed from the cold, stands staring at the building where she’s spent the past thirty years teaching the adolescents of Northview about Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon.

After a sleepless night spent plotting, I knew I needed D.G.’s help. And I knew, just as surely, she would give it to me.

“Sorry to bother you on Christmas Eve.” I follow her brisk footsteps to the front entrance, and she leans over to put in the security code that unlocks the doors with a soft click.

“Oh, Freya,” she sighs. We walk through echoey hallways, our boots thumping over the tile floors. I peek at her, and she is definitely smiling to herself. “Youknow better than anyone what a thrill it is to play a supporting role in a great love story. And I suspect that yours and Jeremy Kelly’s is pretty great.”

We arrive at the auditorium entrance, and I mull over her words as she takes out a gigantic set of keys and starts unlocking the wide double doors. Jeremy’s and my storyispretty great. That’s what this whole plan depends on. It’s also, as he said last night, big and difficult and terrifying.

“Have you ever noticed that in the greatest love stories, the lovers tend to end up, well…dead?” I ask D.G. That feeling of impending doom rushes toward me, that inevitable collision of my body—my heart—against an unforgiving surface. But D.G. looks over her shoulder at me and chuckles.

When I had her as a teacher, she was in her thirties, so she must be in her fifties now. Her long, wild hair is more silver than brown, and subtle lines crease her forehead. Her eyes are still kind, though, crinkling as she grins at me.

“I have,” she affirms as we make our way through the auditorium. My eyes eat up the dark expanse of the empty stage and the rows of wooden seats, scuffed and marked with decades of illicitly carved initials. Her voice ripples with amusement as she follows up with, “Why? Are you planning on killing Jeremy?”

“No.” I laugh. “Nothing like that.”

“Well, that’s good.” She opens the door to the costume room and flicks on the fluorescent lights. “I’d hate to end my illustrious career as a public-school teacher by aiding and abetting a murder. Now, what exactly are you looking for?”

I explain my plan. Well, it’s more a concept right now. I’d found an old journal last night and spent hours sitting cross-legged on my bed, staring at the blank pages, but all I had to show for it was a series of fits and starts, all crossed out. So, I’d decided to concentrate on the more practical parts of my plan first. Hence, why I’m here.

D.G. purses her lips and nods as I share my idea, then she points me to the back corner of the room. As we start digging through racks of clothes and plastic tubs of accessories, I push her harder.

“So, why do they die?” I ask. “Romeo and Juliet? Antony and Cleopatra? Heathcliff and Catherine?”

She tosses me a pair of faux-leather breeches, and I catch them, holding them up to my hips.

“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” she says. “On stage, or on the page, it’sliteraldeath. Star-crossed lovers and gory sacrifices. But figuratively, the best lovesdotransform us, don’t they? They push us. Stretch us. Encourage us to dig for the truest, most selfless versions of ourselves.”

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