Page 10 of War on Christmas

“Thanks, Auntie Freya,” he whispers back. “They’re my favorite.”

Across the living room, standing in front of the Christmas tree decorated with four decades of school craft projects, Bethany makes aggressive hugging gestures at me. I ignore her.

“How about this?” I ask. “Why don’t you sit on the couch for a minute and tell me somethingnewabout you. Something I don’t know.”

He peeks up through long, dark lashes. “Really?”

When I nod, he climbs next to me and sits with his legs crisscrossed, bouncing on the cushion. Bethany is still swinging her arms—“Hug,hug,” she mouths—when Drew makes his way to her side and drapes his arm over her shoulders. Drew, Bethany’s husband, is the opposite to her in every way. Dark to her fair. Easygoing and relaxed to her uptight. I’ve always liked him. I just wish he would rub off on Bethany a little more.

“I,” Andy whispers, his eyes darting to Bethany like he’s assuring himself she can’t hear him, “have amonsterunder my bed.”

“Really?” I ask. Leave it to the almost-six-year-old to initiate the most interesting conversation of the evening. “What does it look like?”

On the other end of the couch, Aiden, eleven years old and wearing a preteen perma-scowl, looks up from his Nintendo Switch to scoff at Andy. “Dummy. Monsters aren’t real.”

“Are too!” Andy says.

“Are not.”

This goes back and forth a few times, volume escalating with every round. I take a fortifying gulp of my Tom & Jerry before jumping into the fray.

“Ok, if you’re going to fight about it, let’s make it a real debate. Are monsters real?” I grab my phone and open the Notes app so I can record their points. When I look down at Andy, he’s biting his lip. “What’s up?”

“What’s be-bate?” he whispers, and I almost smile. Almost.

“Ade-bate is where we look at both sides of a question,” I explain. “What evidence is there that monsters are real? What evidence is there that they aren’t?” I pause, letting him absorb this information. “Do youwantto have a debate with Aiden?” Aiden watches us curiously, his game player forgotten in his lap. Andy appears to think it over for a second, then nods.

“Let’s be-bate.”

“Yes!” Abi says from the chair next to me, then leans forward to smirk at Aiden. “I’m on Andy’s team.”

Eight

FREYA

Hecatepurrsnexttome as I curl up in my papasan chair and contemplate how pissed my mom will be if I count my days at home by scratching tally marks into the plaster walls.

Like a prisoner.

Half a day. Half a day is over, which leaves fifteen more. I take a long drink directly from the brandy bottle. The hot burn of alcohol stopped a while ago. Now it’s just warm, comforting numbness.

But honestly? Today could have gone worse.

Seeing Abi and her brothers was…kind of fun. (Not that I would admit it out loud.) They really got into the monster debate—much to Bethany’s horror, which made it even better. They spent the entire meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes dinner getting into gritty, existential questions: Whatisa monster? Does it have to be evil? Whatisevil? Can one person’s monster be another person’s hero? Ultimately, they’d concluded that, yes, there are monsters, but, no, probably not like in the movies (or the Roblox game that apparently inspired Andy’s monster under the bed). However, just to be sure, Andy’s older siblings recommended leaving a pillow and blanket under his bed because, they reasoned, if his monster is comfy enough, he’ll sleep through the night and leave Andy alone. By the time they left, Andy seemed ready to tackle bedtime fear-free.Suck it, Bethany.

He'd also given me a very sweet, veryvoluntaryhug on his way out the door. His older brothers, on the other hand, had opted for fist bumps. “Night, bruh,” they’d drawled in unison.

Seeing Jeremy, on the other hand, was annoying. He’d been too handsome. Too chatty. Too charming. Not that I expected anything less.

However, I did dodge a bullet with the whole burlesque thing.

I signed up for my first burlesque class after a string of bad breakups in my mid-twenties. By that point, I was figuring out that I amnotwhat guys are looking for in a relationship. Do I have admirers? Sure. Guys who want a down and dirty fuck or a booty call on speed dial? Yeah.

I’m just not the girl they want to take home to their mothers…or their fathers.

“You’re kind of…intense,” my first college boyfriend told me, his eyes flitting nervously around his dorm room. Ok, when fourteen-year-old me read about Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton wearing vials of each other’s blood, did it stir my romantic heart in a way cartoon princes and princesses never have? Yes. Can I objectively understand that’s a little too much for most men? Also yes. That’s me—a little too much. A little too intense. A little too honest. A little too opinionated. A little too moody.

Then, when I was twenty-five, Ryan Taylor happened. Ryan was a straight-laced investment banker who treated me like I was his salvation. It was classic opposites attract, but somehow, I started to hope. To dream. For a few months, I thought I was on my way to marriage, babies—the whole shebang. Because there had been a part of me that wanted those things. I mean, I’m a Scorpio; I crave intensity. And what’s more intense than swearing yourself to another person for life and spawning miniature versions of yourselves? But the Ryan situation taught me pretty damn undeniably that I amnotthe marrying type.

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