Unwrap these Presents

by Astrid Ohletz

  Before I had the opportunity to ask if they wanted us to help, my mum cut me off. “You spend time with Mary, love. We’ve got this.”

  I opened my mouth to question why, but she waved me off. They had barely disappeared before Pete got up from the sofa, stretching and grimacing.

  “I’m stuffed. I think I’ll take the lads out for a walk. Get rid of some of that energy.”

  The kids looked up at him in surprise, the game console controllers gripped firmly in their hands. Pete was not known for pursuing any health or fitness regime. He broke a sweat changing channels.

  “Coming, Jim?”

  My dad’s head whipped up, and he looked at Pete as if he had lost his marbles. My mother’s voice answered for him from the kitchen.

  “Yes. He is.”

  There is something unnerving about mothers and the acuity of their hearing, and not only for eavesdropping on the kids. Quite a lot of the time, the dads copped it too.

  Within minutes, the men had bundled up and were on their way out of the door, leaving me alone with Mary Carpenter. I was beginning to wonder if my choice of Christmas gift for her was so bad that no one wanted to be around to witness my best friend’s attempt at being gracious in her acceptance. Two tickets to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a weekend stay in London didn’t seem too shabby a present, although I had to swallow my gall at the knowledge that Mary would be sitting with Patrick watching the play. I didn’t want to even consider what they would be doing in the hotel room after the show. That performance would forever be omitted from any thought I would ever have. There was no way I could cope with thinking of him touching her. No way could I bear ever thinking of anyone touching her but me. God only knew how I would cope when they got married.

  “Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

  Mary’s voice was soft, her dark eyes sparkling, and I had to purposefully tear my eyes away.

  “Here you go.” My voice was a little squeaky, so I cleared my throat before continuing. “It’s not much, but the thought was there.”

  I held out the envelope with the tickets and hotel booking confirmation and waited for her to take it. Her attention wavered from the gift to my face, my face to the gift. I waved it in front of her. “Are you going to take it or not?”

  I released a small laugh to follow my question and ease my…erm…unease.

  Mary tipped her head in affirmation, the grin spreading beautifully across her soft, exquisitely crafted red lips.

  Just seeing her smile made my heart contract, and a sigh released itself into the air with no help from me. I was so in love with this woman, so in love. Everything about her just made me feel so much, made me feel so alive, as if I could understand the universe and my reason for being in it with just one glance from her in my direction.

  A soft tug brought me back to the reality of the moment, and my eyes dropped to see Mary’s fingers holding the tip of the envelope.

  “Are you going to let go, or do I have to wrestle you for it?”

  I think it was because I had been caught daydreaming that I laughed wildly, slapped her arm, and nearly knocked her off the sofa. Either that, or I was a complete twat. Maybe both.

  I watched as Mary pulled the A4 sized packet towards her, her brows furrowing in contemplation as she examined it.

  “What is it?”

  “A bike. You may want to pump the tyres a little once you get it out.”

  Her girlish chuckle swam around in my smugness that was gloriously wafting in the air with the knowledge I had made that noise, that emotion, happen.

  “Git.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, “your git,” but caught myself just in time.

  Mary pulled out the sheets of paper and scanned the details, her eyes widening as she did so. She pulled the tickets for the play to the front and read them carefully before looking at the hotel information again. I was beginning to squirm. What if she didn’t like it?

  “I…thought…erm…well, I thought you and…and Patrick might like a weekend away.” Every single word stuck in my throat, but I felt, in some fucked up way, as if I had to justify my gift.

  “Patrick?” Mary’s eyes met mine, and I could see confusion dancing there. “Why Patrick?”

  I couldn’t argue with that. It was exactly what I’d thought as I had sealed the envelope. However, I did argue it. I had to defend my previous words, even though I didn’t believe a single one of them.

  “Well, who else would you take apart from the man in your life?” The same man who hadn’t even shown his face yet. What was he doing? “Where is he today? Isn’t he coming?”

  My tone sounded a little bit curt, but I believed it was justified. If I was with Mary, if she was my woman, there would be no way I would leave her on her own on Christmas Day. All I would want to do would be to bask in the warmth of her smile. Everything else would take a back seat.

  Fuck. What was the matter with me? Why was I so bloody romantic all of a sudden, so bloody mushy? Worse still, why was I challenging him being a part of Mary’s life? Was it because I still hadn’t met the man who occupied the place I wanted to be? Or was it because Mary still hadn’t told me much about him, still hadn’t told me her news?

  Mary just stared at me, the tickets and booking details held out sideways, almost as if they had been forgotten. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth, and I thought it was because she was thinking of him.

  “He had to pull a shift.” Her voice sounded dreamy, as if she was summoning up a memory of a better time. “Now and again, he works at a seafood restaurant.”

  Who on earth had seafood for Christmas dinner in Manchester? Flipper?

  Mary leaned forward and wrapped her arms about my neck. Initially I felt myself stiffen, but when I caught her scent, felt the warmness of her body against mine, I melted into her. Her breath tickled my ear and, embarrassingly, I felt my nipples harden against her chest and prayed the thickness of her jumper disguised it.

  “Thank you, Lou.” Each syllable landed on my ear like a kiss, and a shiver rippled down my spine. “I…love…love…love…” I held my breath expecting a miracle “…them.”

  Clamping my eyes closed, I swallowed the disappointment of the reality of the situation that made my heart ache so badly. I squeezed her tightly before allowing her to pull away. Instead of leaving the embrace, her lips gently brushed my cheek. Then again, this time just shy of my mouth. The temptation to turn my head and capture her lips with mine was battling with my sense of reason; my teeth gritted together in a painful clenching. They were within my reach. Those lips, I mean. So close, so damned close. But they could have been hundreds of miles away for all the good it did me. Our lips, however much I wanted them to, would not press together in a kiss.

  “Open your eyes, Lou.” Her voice was tender, gentle, almost caressing. “I have something for you.”

  Slowly, my eyelids parted and I sucked in a breath. Mary’s face was right in front of my own, her dark eyes glistening. All I had to do was lean forward less than six inches, and my longing for her would be exposed, my love for her would be exposed as I claimed her lips as mine. I didn’t even consider that my eyes were actually exposing me already.

  “Yes?”

  My question, although only one word, stumbled from my mouth as if it was unsure of its direction. All I wanted for Christmas was Mary Carpenter. All I’d ever wanted was her. She was a lifetime of gifts, a lifetime of wanting, a lifetime that I wanted to be a lifetime of us.

  “About Patrick…” It was as if a bucket of water had been dumped over my head. I tried to move away from her, but she gripped me tighter. “Listen, Lou. I have something to tell you.”

  Here it came. The news. The announcement. The happily fucking ever after.

  “I have some news for you.”

  I wanted to die right there and then. Was this the reason everyone had scarpered? Did they all know for sure what Mary was going to tell us? My parents and sister had known about my feeling
s for Mary for years, but after they had guessed, I had sworn them to secrecy. I didn’t want Mary to ever feel uncomfortable around me. I especially didn’t want her to know how much I ached for her, longed for her, yearned for her touch, her kiss, her smile.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you wait for your boyfriend to arrive?” My voice was cold, unaccepting.

  She chuckled, and I felt my lips twitch into a thin, straight line.

  “He won’t be coming, Lou.”

  I would have expected there to be a hint of sadness at this revelation, but she seemed happy about it.

  “Why not? Doesn’t he want to spend Christmas with his future wife?”

  Mary’s eyes widened in surprise, and so did her mouth. “Future wife? Me? Patrick’s future wife!”

  I pursed my lips, my teeth softly gnashing together, then bit my lip in order to engage my brain. I was totally fucking confused now. It didn’t take much for that to happen; even showing me a row of shovels and telling me to take my pick would do it.

  “Your news. Your and Patrick’s news.”

  Releasing her hold on me, Mary stood up. “Wait. Don’t move.”

  The words barely left her mouth before she was gone, and I was left half perched on the sofa, wondering what had just happened.

  I heard the front door open, felt the chill of the air whip around my legs. Where the hell was she going? But like a good girl, I continued to sit, continued to wait. I’d been waiting for her for years, a few minutes longer wouldn’t hurt.

  I heard the door slam shut and tried to act casual, tried to act like I wasn’t on pins. I didn’t even have time to cross one leg over the other before she was standing in front of me. With one fluid movement, Mary knelt down, wrapped gifts in her hands.

  I stared at the packages before lifting my eyes to meet hers. She was flushed, her cheeks glowing from the fresh air and the mad dash she’d made. Her hair was windblown, strands dancing around the contours of her face. She was beautiful, and I felt my breath catch before it stuttered back into the air.

  “Patrick is here.”

  Her voice was low, so low I had to keen my ears to hear her words. And then I wished I hadn’t. If someone had thrust a hand down my throat, grabbed my heart, then squeezed it with superhuman strength before ripping it out through my throat and tossing it aside, I couldn’t have felt the agony of the situation any worse. Patrick had turned up. Fucking Patrick. RatPrick Patrick.

  My jaw clenched painfully as I turned to look over my shoulder at the doorway, fully expecting to see a devilishly handsome man standing there, a lopsided, shit-eating grin on his chiselled features. But there was no one there. The doorway was empty.

  I stared, blinked, and then stared a while longer at nothing, fully believing I was not staring hard enough.

  Something touched my knee, something that felt like a hand. The heat of it shot up through my thigh and blossomed throughout my lower body.

  “No, Lou. Not there. Here.”

  Her voice was so close to me that it felt as if her mouth was right next to my ear. But it wasn’t. She was still kneeling in the same position she’d been in before I’d looked towards the door, the presents still resting in her hands like an offering.

  “What do you mean?”

  Patrick wasn’t next to her. There were only the two of us in the room. I think I would’ve noticed otherwise. I might be stupid at times, but my eyesight was pretty good, although I was beginning to doubt my sanity.

  “Here.”

  She lifted the presents towards me, and I became more confused. Why was she trying to get me to open gifts when she had told me Patrick had arrived?

  “But where’s Patrick?”

  Mary placed the presents on the floor and picked up the top one. Her hand absently stroked across the ribbon and straightened the tag, long fingers toying with the string that attached it to the brightly festive paper. She sighed, and her shoulders rose and fell dramatically. Mary tilted her head and stared at the gift, then lifted her chin and allowed those dark brown eyes to land on me and begin, or so it seemed, to read me like a book.

  I opened my mouth to ask her again where her boyfriend was, but she leaned forward and placed two fingers on my lips, shaking her head as if to silence me.

  “I feel a little bit stupid now.” I was too focussed on stopping myself from kissing her fingers to do anything but let her continue. ‘I…I have something to tell you, Lou. Something I’ve wanted to tell you for a very long time.”

  My bottom lip dropped as I attempted to respond, but I couldn’t speak. Having her skin touching my lips, my parted lips, was nearly my undoing. It would have been so easy to kiss those perfect digits, to swipe my tongue over them and savour their texture, taste, the everything that was Mary Carpenter. But I didn’t. Whatever happened between us, whatever it was she wanted to say, I would never do anything to jeopardise our friendship. I loved her. She was my all, my absolute. And if that meant forever living on the sidelines as others romanced her, then so be it.

  “Just hear me out, okay?”

  She leaned closer, her eyes darting to each of mine in quick succession, as if exacting my promise. I nodded, luxuriating in the sensation of my lips moving over her fingers.

  “Promise?”

  I nodded again.

  Mary tentatively removed her fingers from my lips, and their absence left a chill behind. But not for long. Her thumb came back and brushed slowly along my bottom lip, her eyes watching the movement as if mesmerised by her caress.

  “Do you know how special you are to me, Lou?” Her thumb slid down towards my chin, the skin coming alive at her touch. “How very special…” Her tone was wistful.

  I felt as if I was being hypnotised. Her delectable thumb was stroking the base of my jaw, backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, her eyes watching the journey in rapt fascination.

  “For years I have known how I felt about you. Years.” The thumb stopped, dropped, and she leaned back onto her haunches. Dark eyes penetrated mine. “You are my best friend. My very best friend.”

  My head was shaking from side to side. Why was she reiterating our friendship? Was she trying to let me know she knew how I felt, but that she didn’t feel the same way? And what about Patrick? I still had no idea what was going on.

  With one fluid movement, she was on her feet, her back turned towards me. “Do you remember when we kids and we used to rush home from school to watch cartoons?”

  Her voice sounded distant, even though she was only a matter of feet away. What the fuck?

  Mary turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder. “Do you, Lou? Remember it?”

  “Of course I do.” My voice was hoarse, either from lack of use or something else that was building inside me.

  Mary smiled at me before turning away. Her head dipped, and I wondered what was going through her mind.

  “Do you remember when we were about eleven, and a new cartoon series started on Nickelodeon?”

  I shook my head, and then remembered she couldn’t see me. “No. And I don’t understand what—”

  “SpongeBob Squarepants.”

  Why on earth was she talking about fucking SpongeBob Squarepants at that precise moment? Or about cartoons in general? Couldn’t she just tell me that she didn’t think of me the way I felt about her? It would save a lot of time and keep me from feeling like a prize one dick head in the process.

  “Look, Mary, I don’t know why you’re talking about.”

  “Can you remember where he lived? SpongeBob, I mean?”

  I shook my head, as I had no idea where she was going with her references to a program I hadn’t watched for years. Then it struck me, like a lightning bolt. Sharp and exact, and I gasped in understanding.

  Mary turned to face me, her expression so open, so honest, so full of expectation. “Do you remember, Lou?”

  “A pineapple. He lived in a pineapple…under the sea.” I could barely get the words out, and I didn’t understand why.
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  Mary turned back to me and dropped to her knees in front of me. She reached out and took my hand, then ran her thumb along the back of it. I stared at the movement, not truly believing I was seeing what I was seeing. Each stroke of her thumb assured me that I wasn’t losing my mind. How could I be going mad when I felt every stroke, every movement as if it was the most intense thing I had ever felt? I couldn’t dream up the delightful ripples that shot up my arm before exploding throughout the whole of my body, could I?

  “You used to call me SpongeBob, remember? Because I love pineapple.”

  My heart was beating so fast, so hard, that I felt lightheaded. Mary brought my hand to her mouth and landed a soft kiss on my knuckles. I blinked, then blinked again. I hadn’t dreamt it. I couldn’t have. I felt her lips touch my skin, the thrill of it, the softness of her mouth as it made contact, even heard a small noise as she delivered the kiss.

  “Can you remember what I used to call you?”

  Her voice was soft, tender, so unbelievably, agonisingly Mary. My tears began to well. I could feel them choking me as they escaped from wherever they had been stored for so many years. It was as if I was ballooning, expanding, whilst shrinking at the same time. As I nodded, a tear tipped over my eyelid and began to track down my cheek. Mary gently wiped it away.

  “Say it, Lou. Tell me the name.”

  A sob broke from my lips, and I shook my head to jolt myself from my inability to speak. Without thought, I cupped her face, my hands shaking as if they were holding something fragile. I wanted to look into her eyes as I said it, wanted to see that what I was hoping for wasn’t just in my head.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and opened my mouth, but the word stuck. I shook my head and gulped back the emotion before stuttering out the name.

  “Pa…Patrick.”

  The smile she gave me was blindingly brilliant, her head tilting sideways to press her cheek against my palm.