by M. Hollis
Everyone went suddenly quiet as we came in. They all looked similar to one another. White people with light brown and blonde hair, wearing simple winter clothes. I counted five adults and two kids, excluding us and Ashley.
“Hi, Abby. Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” the woman sitting close to us said. She looked only a few years older than Ashley.
Abby seemed to wake up to reality, jumping closer to me. Her hands fidgeted with her sweater, and I had a feeling she didn’t know how to approach the situation. The only sound in the room was from the logs crackling in the fireplace as everyone waited for her answer.
She looked so lost and nervous I had to help her out. I could only hope she didn’t hate me afterward. “Hi, everyone. I’m Isadora, Abby’s girlfriend.”
There was a collective hum of recognition. A gray-haired man stood up and walked over to us, fixing his glasses in place. He had Abby’s eyes and judging by the way she gripped my hand, I guessed this was her father.
“It’s great to meet you, Isadora. Welcome to our house. I’m Abby’s dad, Matthew.” Then he turned to Abby with a gentle smile. “How are you, angel?”
Abby let go of my hand, hugging her father quickly. “I’m fine now. Missed you.”
“We missed you too. Why don’t you two go up to your bedroom to put your stuff away and freshen up a bit? I’ll walk you there.”
“I know the way, Dad,” Abby said.
He waved her off.
I smiled genuinely then, relieved he was so welcoming, yet giving us time to settle in before meeting the rest of the family properly. Matthew got our bags from the car and led us to the stairs.
As we walked up the steps, I noticed family photos on the wall. I saw Abby growing up, always smiling to the camera in a cheeky way that was rare for me to see now in the Abby I knew. A childish naivety she’d lost along the way. There was a picture of her with her parents and a man I didn’t recognize. He wasn’t in the living room either, and I wondered if that was her uncle.
“Here we are,” Matthew said.
I turned back to them, realizing I was still staring at the portraits on the stairway. I rushed to the door where they were waiting for me, entering Abby’s bedroom. The first thing I noticed was the queen-sized bed. It was roomy enough for both of us, which made me realize we’d be sharing it.
Why couldn’t they be like those families that made partners sleep in separate rooms?
“Take your time,” Matthew said as he left our bags on the floor. “It must have been an exhausting trip.” And then he left us alone.
Abby started organizing her things quickly. She had a light blush on her cheeks, and I tried not to look like I was spying on every little detail of her life, but it was hard not to. Her room was a pastel shade of pink, not a bad one. Closer to salmon than pink, actually. On her bed, a flowery blanket matched the decoration of the whole house.
I walked over to a dresser in the corner, where a few pictures of Abby as a young girl stood. She was adorable, teeth missing in her smile and pigtails in her hair.
The bed creaked and I turned around, finding a tense Abby watching me.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I thought I should be the one to ask,” she said in a teasing voice, her shoulders slowly unclenching.
I sighed with a smile, sitting close to her. “I can sleep on the couch. We’ll tell them my family is super conservative or something.”
Abby laughed. “No, it’s fine. We can share the bed.”
We fell into a comfortable silence for a few seconds.
“Do you think we can stay hidden here forever or will they notice the lack of our presence?” I asked, hoping we never had to go down again.
“We’ll have to go back eventually.”
“Eventually can mean in a few days, right?”
Abby rolled her eyes. She got up from the bed and offered me her hand. “Come on, girlfriend.”
Chapter Ten
WE SURVIVED THE first day in Abby’s family household the best we could. Abby and I sat in the living room in silence most of the time, holding hands and listening to the conversation around us. No one tried to make us participate, but every few minutes, I caught Ashley looking at Abby and me. I wondered if she asked everyone to leave us alone.
I heard Abby’s aunt talking about her new pool for an excruciating half hour. After that, Abby’s older cousin was questioned about the new baby coming. I was dreading the moment they would turn on us, but that didn’t happen.
“Food is ready!” Matthew called from the kitchen.
I looked up surprised. I had barely noticed he wasn’t there with us.
“Your father can cook?” I asked Abby, a little bit louder than I should have.
“Abby, you didn’t tell your girl about your father’s cooking?” said Abby’s aunt, looking displeased. “In this family, the men cook, and the women watch.”
She fell into laughter with Ashley and I smiled, a little embarrassed. Abby didn’t look at me, probably feeling just as awkward.
We moved to the dining area where a huge wooden table waited for us. The women helped Matthew lay all the food, but he and Abby’s cousin’s husband did most of the work.
“Should I help them?” I asked in a whisper.
“No, let’s sit. You’re a guest,” Abby said.
Right then, the front doorbell rang.
“Oh, he made it just in time!” Ashley said, running back to the living room.
Abby immediately perked up, leaving my side as soon as the new man came through the door. He was tall and lanky, wearing a cute Christmas sweater with a reindeer on it. When he saw Abby, he opened his arms to receive her hug.
“How are you doing, my girl?”
“Let’s sit to eat, everyone! We’re all starving,” Matthew said.
As Abby and I took the two chairs in the middle, she led the man over to me.
“This is my godfather, Rick,” she said with a grin on her face. Then she turned to him, shyly. “This is my girlfriend, Dora.”
“Oh, it’s such a pleasure to meet you,” he said in a tone that told me he wasn’t expecting me.
I was mostly confused but smiled back anyway. “Thank you. It’s good to meet you too.”
Abby’s little cousin sat on my right. She was adorable and quiet, always looking at me from the corner of her eye like she wanted to say something but didn’t know if she should. She didn’t seem older than five.
“Here it comes!” Matthew came back, positioning a huge turkey on the middle of the table.
Everyone cheered him on. The atmosphere was of love and happiness. We slowly started to fill our plates, and Abby’s aunt helped me with the salad. I felt accepted there, and for a moment, I forgot this was all pretend.
I wanted to be a part of this family, and that was a strange feeling. Maybe I was simply missing my own family and having all these people together tonight made me think of them. My sweet brother and his two small daughters who were growing up barely knowing their Aunt Dora. My smiling mother who always made my favorite lasagna for Christmas dinner. And how my dad would play songs on his guitar for everyone to sing along.
“We’re going to say grace now. Is that okay for you, Isadora? Or do you have a different religion?” Ashley asked me.
“Oh, that’s fine. Go on.”
I grew up in a Catholic family but didn’t practice anymore for personal reasons. The church as an institution wasn’t my thing, but I could appreciate the beliefs of people and respect their prayer time.
Abby grabbed my left hand, and I turned to the other way, finding her cousin’s hand waiting for mine. I smiled at her and she gave me a small forced smile in return, the way little kids always do.
“Thank you, Lord, for this moment,” Matthew said as he closed his eyes. “Another year has passed in the glory of your love. We’re so grateful to have our family together, to have this food at our table. Please, send happiness to the people who can’t have what we h
ave, and may we find peace in these difficult times. Amen.”
After our prayers, the conversation flowed easily as we ate. Everything was delicious, but Matthew’s turkey was honestly divine.
“How’s your work at the library, Abby?” Ashley asked from across the table.
“Doing okay. We now have an area set aside for the kids to sit and read there. It’s cute.”
“You could take Emma there when we go visit you next month,” Abby’s cousin said.
“That would be nice.”
So Emma was the name of the cute little girl on my right. She was still suspicious of me, watching as she ate her food with a big spoon.
“So, Isadora, tell us, how did you two meet?” Rick asked.
Abby tensed on my left. I smiled, suddenly feeling myself calmer than ever. I gave her a little nudge with my leg, assuring her I could take care of the question.
“I was looking for a book, and she helped me. We chatted for a while, and then we realized we had a mutual friend, Paige,” I said.
Everyone smiled, probably thinking it was the most romantic thing ever. It made me feel energized to keep giving the lie more depth.
“I got lost in the shelves, and Abby was very sweet about it. I thought about her all the time I was reading the book. When I came back to the library, I decided to be brave and leave her my number.”
“I admire your moxie, young lady,” Matthew said, and the others laughed.
Abby blushed strongly and kept her eyes focused on her food. I tried to nudge her leg again, but she didn’t nudge me back. Odd. Had I said something wrong?
We finished our food and went back to the living room. Emma decided to sit on Abby’s lap once we settled on the couch.
“Hi!” I tried to call the little girl’s attention. She curled against Abby, hiding her face on her cousin’s shoulder.
“You okay, Emma bear?” Abby asked gently.
Still looking at me, Emma whispered loudly in her cousin’s ear, “Are you going to get married to the pretty lady?”
Abby and I laughed, and a second later, Emma joined in.
“I…” Abby stopped answering abruptly. She looked at me, eyes turning wide. Right, we were supposed to be getting married pretty soon by now. But we had decided not to say anything to our families for now. “We don’t know yet. Would you like me to marry her?”
“Yes!” Emma said, and then she got tired of us. She leaped out of Abby’s lap and ran to her mom.
Abby and I smiled at each other, quite amused by the little one who seemed to like the two of us together. If we managed to trick Emma, maybe everyone else had believed on us too.
Around eleven, Abby and I excused ourselves to her room.
We took turns using the bathroom and got ready to sleep. Abby sat on the left side of the bed, a book in her hands. She saw me still standing in the corner and narrowed her eyes.
“Are you okay? With the sleeping situation, I mean?” she asked.
I bit my lip, unsure. The right side of the bed waited for me. I could do this. It was only two nights, after all. “Yeah, it’s fine.” I walked closer to the bed, careful not to turn to Abby’s side as I settled under the blankets.
Minutes passed, mostly in silence, disturbed only by the noise of Abby flipping the pages of her book every few minutes. The chatting in the room below us had stopped for a while now, and people were probably going to sleep. I stared at the pink walls of Abby’s room, trying to imagine all the years she spent here, looking at the same things.
The blanket smelled like it had just been laundered. I was almost falling asleep when I heard a deep sigh beside me. I opened my eyes, alarmed. Turning around, I found Abby staring at the pages of her book with a deep frown.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in a whisper.
Abby simply shook her head.
“You can tell me, Abby.”
She let go of the book and stared at the ceiling. “My mom said something earlier when I went to the bathroom.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.
“She said you seemed like a nice girl, and that she was happy about us.”
“Okay…is that a bad thing?”
“No. That’s the problem. She’s gonna get all happy about a lie.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I am sorry! I mean, I was the one insisting we should do this.” Abby sounded exasperated now, and I hoped no one outside could overhear us.
“We can call it off anytime.”
“Do you want to? Call it off?”
“I want to do whatever you want to do.”
Abby groaned. “Have you ever noticed that we’re always doing this? Pushing the responsibility to the other person and never answering for ourselves.”
She had a point. We had to stop running around in circles and start making more concrete decisions. I was running out of time, and it’d only get harder from here on.
“How about this,” I started. “When we get home, we sit down to decide what we’re going to do. And each one of us has to speak for ourselves, not for the other.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“Good.”
I turned to my side once more. Abby turned off the light and shifted behind me to get comfortable, careful not to touch me.
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Merry Christmas,” I replied.
We didn’t say anything else, and I fell asleep shortly afterward.
Chapter Eleven
WHEN ABBY AND I came down the next morning, “Jingle Bells” was playing on the old radio in her family’s living room, and most of the presents were open already in a mess of gift wrap. In the middle of it all were Abby’s little cousins, with Emma leading the dancing.
As soon as she saw us walking down the stairs, Emma ran to hug Abby.
“Merry Christmas, Emma bear,” Abby said.
“Merry Christmas! Come…come see what Santa brought me.”
Emma pulled Abby by her hand. I stayed behind near the stairs, awkward about being left alone. Ashley saw me across the room and came to me.
“Are you hungry, sweetheart? We saved some breakfast for the two of you.” She pointed me to the table, where two places had been set with plates, breads, and cheese.
I accepted her offer and sat by myself, listening to seasonal music from the other room. Ashley kept me company.
“I don’t think Abby told me what you do for a living? Are you still in college?” she asked innocently.
“No. I have a degree in photography, but I’m currently working in a coffee shop.”
I stayed focused on my food, feeling embarrassed by admitting this.
“Work is work, and we all have to live. No shame in that,” Ashley said.
I looked up and smiled, grateful. The more time I spent here, the more I loved this family.
Abby entered the kitchen, looking radiant, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks delightfully flushed from playing with her young cousins.
“What are you two talking about behind my back?”
“Just getting to know Isadora,” Ashley said. “I’ll leave you two.”
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Once we were done, Abby brought me to the living room.
“I have a gift for you,” she said.
Abby rummaged through the discarded wrapping paper under the tree, looking for something. I stopped behind her, curious to see what she’d bought me. Her family was watching us, and I had to do my best to act like a proper girlfriend on Christmas morning.
Abby turned around, offering me a small wrapped gift. She had a big smile on her face and a glint in her eyes. I accepted it, sitting on the floor to tear off the wrapping paper. Emma came over to us, excited to see what the gift was.
Inside, I found a small photography book. It was full of black-and-white photos, mostly artistic studies of the human figure. I gasped when I saw that it was by Mia Torres, my favorite photographer. Abby must ha
ve remembered from when we had our game night with the cue cards weeks ago.
“It’s about the beauty of the human body,” Abby explained. Her voice held a hint of anxiety. “See, every page has a little poem too.”
I turned the pages, finding faces, close-ups of eyes and legs and hips in so many different shades and sizes. It was breathtaking. Then, I finally remembered what I’d brought as her gift. I’d found a collection of glitter pens on eBay and bought it as an inside joke between us, with Julie’s help, thinking it was going to make Abby laugh. But now that she had given me something this amazing, I felt kind of silly.
So instead of going upstairs and getting her gift, I stayed on the floor staring at the book.
“Did you like it?” asked Abby tentatively.
Right. Her family was watching us.
In an awkward attempt to save the situation, I moved close to Abby. I stared at her intently, trying to send her a message using only my eyes. But she frowned, confused.
“I love it, babe. Thank you,” I said in my best loving girlfriend voice.
Something must have clicked for Abby. She gave me a small nod, and we both leaned together until our lips met. At the last second, I closed my eyes. I aimed for a little peck, but Abby’s lips were a little stronger on mine than what I was expecting. I felt a tug in my stomach and a warmth in my chest. Distracted, I opened my mouth to give her greater access, but a squeal from behind us suddenly distracted me.
“Ew, kissing!” Emma said in a disgusted voice.
Abby and I broke the kiss. She was wide-eyed and blushing hard. I tried to contain my emotions so people around us wouldn’t know this was our first kiss.
Before I could say anything to Abby, her parents came over to give her their presents. Everyone traded gifts for the next few minutes, happily talking about them and discussing boring life subjects. Emma was excited, running from one side of the room to the other, trying to see what everyone had received.
