by Edie Bryant
“I have something to look forward to now,” she smiled. “Something more than just making money. God, I’m going to keep sounding so creepy to you, but I’ve really been fantasizing about you lately. Like, fantasizing about what it might be like to have a future with you. What it’s going to be like to seriously date and spend a lot of my time with you. What it’ll be like to fall madly in love with you and then ask you to marry me. Hell, what it’ll be like to be married! To start a family, to have kids of our own…” she paused. “Wait, you want kids, right?”
I laughed. “Absolutely, lots of kids. I’m a big kid person.”
“Good. Me, too. See, this is the kind of stuff I have to ask you when we’re in a relationship, or else I’d just jump to the marriage part. See, I can justify skipping the dating part, but I can't exactly justify skipping the relationship part.”
I giggled again. “Yeah, you know, I’m in the same boat.”
“So, now that we’ve established we are going to move straight into a very serious relationship, does that mean I can just go ahead and be my full self around you?”
“Don't tell me you’ve been holding back!” I teased. “You’re already so much to handle as is!”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, I wasn't holding back by much. But the true me wants to tell you to get your damn clothes off and jump into that hot bath with me right now.”
I laughed. “In a minute. First, I’ve got a question for you.”
The one thing that had ached in me after my break up with Sarah was the fact that I’d be alone for the holidays again. Ever since I’d been 18 and my family had decided they wanted nothing to do with me, I’d done my best to make sure I had something to do for the holidays. Because there is seriously nothing more fucking depressing than being alone on Christmas.
And now that Emily wanted to officially be in a relationship, I might be able to avoid that entirely! If we're dating, it’d be totally acceptable to spend Christmas together.
“Shoot,” Emily encouraged.
“What are your Christmas plans?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going down to visit my parents.”
I tried to hide the immediate disappointment on my face. But, I knew I was probably doing a shitty job, because I wore my heart right on my sleeve.
“Well, that should be fun,” I forced a smile.
“Yeah, I love going there for Christmas. My mom does a feast that’s just about as big as Thanksgiving’s, so, for our family, Christmas is like two holidays rolled into one.”
God, I wished so badly I had that. I thought back to Christmases at my house prior to my parents deciding I wasn't part of the family anymore. We’d all wake up early, and my parents would sort presents into piles so we could all dig in and open them. My mom would bake Christmas ham…
“So, what are you doing?” Emily asked me.
“Oh, not really anything,” I tried to smile through it.
She could obviously see this bothered me, though she didn’t seem to want to point it out bluntly.
“Would you maybe want to come?”
“Come where?” I asked.
“Come with me, to my family’s Christmas.”
My eyes bulged with worry. “Seriously?”
“Well, you are my girlfriend now.”
I laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, but, even so… it’s a little early for that. I mean, I’m bad at meeting parents even when I’ve been with someone for years. I’m going to a complete mess if I meet your parents after one weekend.”
“Yeah, you’re totally right. That’d be a little much. I just feel terrible thinking about you spending Christmas all by yourself…”
“Oh, don’t feel that way at all. Really, it’s no big deal. I mean, really, it’s one day. I’ll get over it.”
She nodded. “Well, I’ll be back before you know it, and we’ll have our own Christmas.” She put her hand on my thigh.
It was so crazy how natural this all felt. When she said, ‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ it felt like we’d been together for years. Like we normally did holidays together, but this time we couldn’t, so she was consoling me. It just didn’t feel like someone I had only barely met.
“So, how about that bath?” she asked with a cheeky smile.
I grinned. “I’m right behind you.”
10
Emily
I SNUCK out of bed before Liz even had a chance to wake up.
I knew it was our last day together. The snow was melted more than enough for us to get home safely. Though, Jean, Liz’s friend who owned the cabin, had made it very clearly that we could stay as long as we wanted for the trouble.
But we had to get back to the real world. I had a job, and so did Liz. Unfortunately, we couldn't hide out in our winter wonderland cabin forever.
I knew Liz was sadder about this than I was. For one, she was clearly worried that all this was going to be over as soon as we stepped back into our regular lives. And I knew that she was really dreading going back to her regularly scheduled life and having to deal with the holidays all by herself.
At first, when we had talked about holiday plans, I had felt bad that Liz was going to be on her own, but I couldn’t really fathom cancelling my plans with my family in order to stay with her. I mean, I'd known the girl for a few days. We’d entered into an official relationship less than twenty-four hours ago. And my family would miss me.
I’d gladly bring her along, but obviously she’d made it very clear that it would be awkward for her. And I could understand that. What were we going to tell people? ‘This is my new serious girlfriend who I met last week?’ Yeah, that was awkward.
But, after spending another day and night with her, I really couldn’t imagine doing anything but canceling my plans with my family.
I knew it was early in our relationship. I knew my family will be disappointed, but I also knew they’d get over it. They'd cope, and they’d spend the holidays with my siblings. And we’d have plenty of holidays to come. I was actually planning to see them sometime in January, anyway.
I wasn’t sure how Liz would cope, though. I couldn’t get her expression when we had been talking about the holidays and her family out of my mind. She was obviously still so heartbroken by her family’s rejection, and the thought of her being alone in dealing with that over Christmas was absolutely breaking me.
So, I snuck off to call my family. I didn’t want to tell her that I was going to stay home and spend the holidays with her until after I talked to my family first. I knew that if it wasn't already a done-deal, Liz would do everything she could to convince me to still go with my family. But, I didn’t want that. I wanted to be there for her.
I dialed my mom, and she answered quickly. I got surprisingly good reception for being out in the middle of the mountains.
“Hello?” my mom answered.
“Hey, Mom, it’s me.”
“Oh, hi sweetie!” she said kindly. “How’s the vacation?”
“It’s good,” I told her. “Actually, it’s been amazing. I’ve never had an experience like it.”
“Oh, good! That makes me so happy. I was really worried you were going to hate it by yourself.”
“Actually, I’m not by myself. But, uh, that’s kind of a long story, and I’ll tell you about it later. Look, I actually called because I have some bad news.”
“Bad news? What is it?” she asked, immediately sounding anxious.
“Don’t worry, nothing serious. I just am not going to be able to come down for Christmas.”
“Aw, Emily! Why?”
“Again, it’s a long story, but there’s just somebody who needs my help here. And I don’t feel right leaving right now. I’m still going to come up in January, but, yeah, for now, I need to stay here.”
“My sweet, altruistic girl,” she responded, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wanted to convince me out of it or ask more questions.
She wouldn’t, though. She just wasn’t that kind of mothe
r. She always has been the kind of parent to let me make my own decisions with minimal interference.
“We’re really going to miss you, though,” she said. This was as much as she would guilt me.
“I know, I’m going to miss you, too, a lot.”
Before I finished the phone call, I heard a voice come up from behind me.
“Who are you talking to?” Liz asked, as she walked down the hall.
Oh, shit.
“I gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you when I get back home, though, okay?”
“Okay, babe, make sure you do! I want to know you got back safe. Love you.”
“Love you too, bye.”
I hung up and turned to Liz.
“Good morning, sleepy head!” I said.
She walked up to me and put her arms around my neck, giving me a tight hug and kissing my cheek.
“I woke up, and you weren’t there. I was scared for a second that this had all been some crazy dream, and you weren’t ever really here.”
“Oh, god,” I laughed, “why are you always expecting the worst, huh?”
“‘Cause I’ve always gotten the worst,” she smiled.
It broke my heart that this was true. And, unfortunately, the fact that she had been burned so much before just radiated off of her. I could see it in the way that she always seemed to worry about every little thing.
“Why were you on the phone with your mom?” she asked.
“Oh, I was just, uh, talking to her about Christmas plans,” I said, telling a slight lie of omission. But I hadn’t thought about how I was going to tell her I was staying for Christmas without coming on too strong.
“Oh,” she nodded, obviously trying to hide her sadness at hearing this, “well, that’s really nice.”
To cover up, she went to the pantry to grab some cereal for us both for breakfast. Which gave me some time to get the words together in my head.
“I actually… cancelled my plans for Christmas,” I told her, as she came back into the room.
“You did what?” she asked, shocked. “Why? Did something come up with work or something?”
“Well, I guess you could say something came up, but not with work. Just… with you.”
“With me?!” she asked, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said. I cancelled because of you. I want to stay here with you for the holidays.”
“You're kidding! But, Emily, I’d never ask you to do that! You need to go be with your family.”
“No, I don’t,” I took her hand. “Liz, I meant what I said yesterday. I don’t want to waste time just ‘dating' you. I don’t want to waste time following some made-up rules about how I’m supposed to behave with a woman I barely know. I want to be with you for real. I want to be serious. And in my serious relationships, I do everything I can to make my partner happy. I do everything I can to be there for them. That’s what I’m going to do for you, whether you like it or not. I am here to stay. And that starts with being there for you during the hardest time of the year.”
Tears were welling up in her eyes. She wiped them away quickly.
“I, um, I’ve never had anyone… I’ve never had anyone do something like this for me,” she said softly.
“Well, get used to it, because this is the kind of girlfriend I am.”
She gave a slight smile. “This is really real, isn’t it? This is really happening. We’re going to leave here, and… you’re going to still want to be my girlfriend. We’re still going to go for a relationship.”
“Fuck yeah, we are. You didn’t believe me?!”
“I did. I mean, I believed that you meant the words when you said them, but… but it’s hard for me to not see where things can go wrong. I guess I just saw things still going wrong, that’s all.”
“Well, you’re going to have to stop that all with me. Because I don’t want to lead you to any wrong. I want to be the one who’s different for you. This is real.”
She wrapped her arms as tightly around me as she possibly could, and I could feel the love emanating from her.
“I’m still nervous it could all go wrong,” she told me, “but this really does feel real. This really does feel like the start of something, doesn’t it? It sounds so ridiculous, but I feel like I’ve found my happy ending, finally.”
“It’s not ridiculous, Liz. I feel the same way. This is different than anything I’ve ever experienced, and… yeah, I think this is the start of something good, too. I really do. I really think I’m going to end up with you one day, Liz.”
She stared at me, smiled, and then gave me a quick kiss.
“I really hope you’re right. Because you’re everything I never knew I wanted.”
I felt the exact same way.
EPILOGUE
Liz
I WAS SITTING on a bench in the bathroom, fiddling nervously with my dress as I looked around the bathroom.
As bathrooms go, this was really a very nice one. I mean, obviously it had a bench, so that would be the first clue. Though, I suppose there could be some rickety metal bench in some creepy, run-down gas station bathroom…
But that wasn’t the case here. It was a beautiful, pleated red fabric bench. The entire bathroom still smelled of cleaning supplies. It was spotless. And it was filled with beautiful granite tile and fake-stone columns sat in every archway. It was perfect, as far as bathrooms went, and seemed like just as good a place as any to have a nervous breakdown.
I heard the bathroom door open and looked up to see Jean waking in through the door.
“Hey, hun, there you are. Got worried when you were still in here. Is everything okay?”
I shook my head. “No, not particularly,” I told her. No point in lying, she was my best friend, and she’d figure it out eventually.
“Well, what’s wrong?” she asked, as she sat down on the bench next to me.
I sighed. “I don’t know if I can go through with this.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong? Do you think you’re making the wrong decision here? Because, sweetie, I can assure you that you’re not. I’ve known you our whole lives. I’ve seen you date a lot of fucking girls, and nobody even comes close to that woman in there! She’s a shining star. She’s perfect for you; this is just cold feet. I even got it when I married Garrett.”
I looked at her in total shock. “You think I don’t know that?”
She looked confused. “I mean, well, you’re in here, so I thought maybe there was some level of doubt…”
“Of course, there is no level of doubt! She’s perfect, she’s been an angel to me for years. That woman is my everything.”
And I meant every word of it.
It’d been three years to the day since the day I had met Emily in Jean’s cabin. And it had been three years of absolute, complete bliss. I couldn’t imagine a better life with a better woman.
After I’d met Emily, it felt like my life had instantly gone from tragic to magic. I’d still never forget the week I got back from the cabin to tons of text messages from my ex. She’d been begging me to come back, that we could have another shot, that she’d change for me.
And, normally, if I’d been single, I might have considered it. Back then, I might not have been able to convince myself I was worth anything more than that.
But, after I’d met Emily, after I’d known we were leading into a real relationship, it had taken nothing to say goodbye to my useless, piece of shit ex. I had never even texted her back. In fact, I’d looked at those texts and then opened my phone to text Emily.
And, just as I had expected, our relationship had blossomed from there.
It had started exactly as Emily had wanted. We’d been very serious, very fast. She had come over nearly every day after work, and we’d basically lived our lives like we had when we’d been in the cabin. We’d drowned ourselves in one another at every spare moment, until we’d literally had no extra time to give.
It was so funny that I had o
nce thought going from the cabin to our regular lives was going to change things. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. We may have lived in our own magical world in the cabin, but, frankly, we’d lived in our own magical world in real life, too.
And that was kind of the problem.
“The thing is, things have been an absolute dream with Emily. She’s everything I want, everything I have ever fucking wanted, and, so I’m sitting here wondering… what did I do?”
Jean raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
“You know, to deserve this? To get to be with a woman of this caliber? I don’t know. All of a sudden, I’m filled with panic, because… my life is too good.”
Jean immediately started laughing. “You’re panicked because your life is too good?!”
I looked at her seriously, and she stopped laughing.
“Jean, really, it may sound stupid, but this fear is very real for me. I’ve never had this in my life. When it comes to dating, things have always gone horribly wrong for me. I mean, it’s not even just dating. Whenever anything in my life feels like it’s starting to go in the right direction, something happens to set me totally off course. And I can’t help but be worried that it’s going to happen again. That all this happiness is temporary, and, soon after, something catastrophic is going to happen. And I don’t mean that Emily is going to turn into a bitch or anything, of course I don’t. I love and trust her implicitly… I just feel afraid that I’m going to lose her somehow.”
“Aw, Liz,” Jean said sympathetically, as she patted my shoulder, “you’ve dealt with a lot of shit, I know that, which is why I know better than anybody that you deserve this. You finally deserve to be happy. And maybe all the bullshit that got you to this place in your life is all the bullshit you’re ever going to deal with. Maybe this truly is your happily ever after.”
“And if it isn’t?” I asked. “If things do all go to shit somehow?”
“I’m not going to tell you nothing is going to go wrong in your life. I don’t know that, nobody does. Life is all about the ups and downs. But no matter what happens next, don’t you want to go through it with that woman by your side? Come on, Liz! This is the happiest day of your life. This is one of the ups, don’t make it a down.”
