American Christmas (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  Maxine, the woman who ran the hockey camp, had been a big supporter of Yin and his family since they’d come to Ithaca. Yin and his sisters had arrived in upstate New York in the middle of winter when he was fifteen. And true to him and his fucking lion heart he’d thrown himself into every winter activity he could find. He joined an ice skating club and soon he was one of the best skaters at the high school. He wasn’t exactly into contact sports, but for years he’d been helping with some of the hockey camps teaching the kids to skate better. They were a fun way to make some extra cash, and Yin loved working with Maxine.

  Fuck. It was on the tip on my tongue to ask if he could just pull out of it and still go with me to New York City, but I knew what he’d say. He could not burn that bridge. That was one of the things I loved about Yin, he was not one to skirt his responsibilities. And neither was I. I would never blow off a commitment I’d made to go on a weekend trip with Yin—and he would never ask me to.

  “I really fucked this up for us, didn’t I?” I hated how sad Yin looked and there was no lying to myself about it not being my fault. The soccer clinic was not just something I’d offhandedly mentioned. We had talked about it for months. We’d discussed for hours the different things that we could do to make it affordable, and then I’d decided not to do it and never told him anything.

  Yin’s eyes were dull, and the hurt radiated from him. “This wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I knew what he meant. That our first Christmas morning together, in the apartment we shared, should not have ended up with both of us feeling like shit. “And I don’t know what we’re going to do. None of this is refundable.” I assumed he meant his gifts, but I guessed I’d have to think about what to do with my New York City weekend plans.

  Because even if we could still figure out how to go, it was all tainted now. I had ruined the one thing Yin had been wishing for since I’d known him. Had I even done any of this for him or was it just my own ego?

  I’d wanted to do something huge, and watch him walk into the Christmas brunch—which was just upstairs from us at Patrice and Easton’s penthouse—gushing about how I’d gotten him the perfect gift. I wanted to puff my chest and act like it had been no big deal, while Yin spent the next couple of months telling everyone we knew that I was his hero.

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe and the way that Yin was looking at me, like I’d broken his heart, was too much. I stood up, feeling like the walls in the apartment were closing in on me. Yin got up too. His usually smiling face was blotchy and streaked with dried tears. Tears that I’d put there. “I need to get some air,” I muttered, as I grabbed my hoodie from the hanger behind the wall.

  “But we haven’t finished opening—

  He got a good look at my face and didn’t even finish what he was saying. I knew that we could get past this, I knew that. But fuck I needed to think. “I just need a little bit of time to myself.” Yin liked to talk things through in the moment. If there was an issue, he wanted to sit down and deal with it right there and then.

  But I needed time.

  I had to figure out how I was feeling about the situation, how to express the things that bothered me or hurt me. I was a big guy, imposing, and I had always been careful of not going into situations without getting my feelings under control. The one thing I would never want to do, ever, was have Yin feel intimidated or scared because I let my feelings get the best of me. So I needed to get some space.

  “Okay.”

  Without a word I kissed the top of his head and left our little apartment.

  Chapter Eight

  Ari

  “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning. I thought Yin would have you watching Hamilton for the hundredth time.” I started at the sound of Patrice’s voice, but could barely muster up the energy for a hello.

  “Hey. Merry Christmas.” I sounded like shit and knew I didn’t look much better. I’d been sitting in the little gym in our building for the past half hour, and so far all I had accomplished was feeling worse. The only thing that could fix this mess was a time machine and so I was shit out of luck.

  Patrice came closer and once he’d gotten a full view of my demeanor, his brow furrowed in concern. “Did something happen?” he asked incredulously. I couldn’t blame him for looking confused. He knew what I was planning to gift Yin. This was not how I expected to be spending my morning either.

  “I fucked up.” Patrice raised an eyebrow, obviously needing more information and I almost laughed, because I didn’t have a clue where to even start. Patrice wasn’t exactly a talker, so I knew he wouldn’t push me until I was ready. He just came over to where I was and sank down to the floor in front of me, giving me time.

  Patrice knew me well, and more than that he cared for me, I knew that. I respected him and loved him like the older brother I always wished I had. I was grateful for him and knew he would never judge me, but for some reason I was embarrassed to tell him this.

  He’d known I was interested in going to the soccer clinic, and had encouraged me to go, but when I ended up cancelling my registration I never told him either. I hadn’t told anyone, because I knew what they’d say. And I also didn’t want to look too deeply into why I wanted to deprive myself of something I wanted so badly.

  Finally I looked at Patrice who was still waiting with his legs crossed, as if he had all the time in the world. “Shouldn’t you be helping Easton with setup?” Hey, I could deflect with the best of them.

  Patrice just shook his head at me, clearly aware of what I was up to. “It’s not even eight yet, and y’all aren’t coming over until lunchtime. We were up early and...uh, he’s napping.” If I didn’t feel so thoroughly fucked up, I would’ve laughed at the shy expression on Patrice’s face. He and Easton were one of my OTPs. And that was saying a lot. I was lucky to have more than a few gay couples in my life to look up to. Despite everything that had happened to me, the hard road that I’d had to travel, I’d gained so much from this family I’d made in Ithaca.

  “So?” Patrice’s encouraging voice pulled me out of my errant thoughts and when I turned to him all I saw was kindness. I was ready to talk too. I needed someone to work this all out with before I went back to Yin.

  “I think I ruined Christmas.”

  Patrice, in his patented unbothered manner, turned his head to the side. As if looking at me from another angle could give him a sense of what the hell I was talking about. “Tell me.”

  “I never told Yin I decided not to go to the soccer clinic,” I reluctantly answered.

  Patrice widened his eyes at that, and I almost flinched. Yin had talked about those videos we made for weeks, so of course Patrice would be surprised I’d backed out. And more surprised I’d never even told my boyfriend.

  I closed my eyes for the next part, feeling miserable again. “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t spend all that money on myself. I kept thinking we’d just seen the Hamilton movie, and how Yin said so many times how amazing it would be to get to see it live someday. I don’t know, I just thought that it would be a better use of the money.”

  Patrice looked at me for what felt like hours. I could tell he had a lot to say. But knowing him, he wouldn’t talk until I said what the real issue was.

  “I like to do things for him.” I shook my head and felt the heat on my face. The embarrassment at knowing the whole fucking thing had been about my ego. “He gets so happy when I do. And he tells everyone. Acts like I vanquished dragons for him. Even if I just get him a cute T-shirt at Target.” I thought of his face when he realized that the gifts he’d gotten me were pointless and I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. “He bought me all this gear for the clinic, including these super expensive cleats. And a plane ticket to Arizona.”

  “Shit.” Patrice breathed out. He hadn’t even put the rest of the fiasco together, so I filled him in.

  Once I’d regaled him with all the ways I’d fuc
ked up, he sat there in his usual calm way. I didn’t expect him to reprimand me, or tell me I messed up because that wasn’t his way. Still, I was nervous. It wasn’t like I thought this would ruin things for Yin and me. I knew we would figure it out and make up. But this felt like a crack in something that until now had been perfect, without a single blemish. We argued of course and we disagreed, but we’d never been here. We’d never gotten things so wrong.

  “Well you two knuckleheads at least have one thing going for you today.” My mentor’s half-humorous tone broke into my thoughts and I looked down to find him smiling at me.

  “What?” I asked, incredulous at his ability to find any silver lining in this shit show.

  “You’re both extremely selfless in your love for each other,” he said, as if stating the obvious. I opened my mouth to point out that there were still some major issues despite that, but he put up his hand. “Nope, not implying that’s gonna be enough to solve this, but it must be said that you have an extremely solid foundation.”

  I exhaled, trying not to sulk or take his words and spin them into something negative just because I was feeling hurt. “I know this won’t break us up, but it’s kind of scary to think we can mess up this much, you know? I...” I had it on the tip of my tongue to say that I was scared this would ruin us somehow, but when I looked at Patrice—really looked at him—I shut up. He seemed so at ease, like he could see that things would be fine. And god, I really wanted him to be right.

  Also he was grinning at me like he had the ultimate ace up his sleeve. “I’ve been waiting for over a year to finally get a chance to get you back for that life-changing talking-to you gave me when I had my head all the way up my ass about Easton.”

  Now I was grinning too. He was talking about an afternoon last year when he’d been agonizing about his feelings for Easton. It was clear to everyone around them they were on a collision course to each other, but he was convinced it could never work. I’d told him to let himself have the happiness that was just within reach. I’d told him what a difference Yin had made in my life once I’d let him in.

  I shook my head, kind of impressed at what he’d done without saying a word about me or Yin. I actually wagged a finger at him. “Damn you’re good. You managed to use my own words to school me.”

  He preened. “I’m pretty proud of my work just now.” It was still surprising to see Patrice be this lighthearted. It was one of the many things that love had done for him.

  It was the greatest thing love had done for me too, that Yin had done. His joy and the way he loved me so openly, so unafraid, had changed me. I could be myself with Yin like I could not be with anyone else. And I’d forgotten that in the past few months.

  “I don’t know why it’s so hard to put myself first. I’ve worked on this stuff with my therapist too.” I’d been working through the way I deal with things. My need to always prove that I was earning my right to be wherever I was. So much of my life since I’d arrived in the States felt like I had to show I was worthy of being here. It wasn’t easy day in and day out to hear that we weren’t wanted. Maybe some of that had snuck into my relationship with Yin too. Maybe I still didn’t quite believe I deserved everything I had.

  Patrice sighed and leaned closer, his eyes full of understanding. “These things sometimes sneak up on us. It’s some of that underlying racial trauma, of being men who live in the bodies that we do. It’s hard to see the news sometimes and not falter in believing we’re worth what we know we are. There is so much out there sending us a different message. But we can’t let them strip from us our joy and our dreams. Our right to have someone who looks at us like we are the most important thing in the world. To let ourselves believe that we can be that.”

  He smiled again and this one was his big brother smile. The one he would flash me when he was about to give me a pep talk. “I’ve learned so much from you, Ari.” I scoffed, but his scowl shut that down. “No, don’t do that. It’s true. You’re so determined, you’re doing big things all the time. But you don’t have to prove yourself to us. We love you. We’re proud of you.”

  My breath caught and I felt the tears trying to choke me. I knew that was true, but fuck, it was so hard sometimes to truly let it sink in. It would break me if turned out not to be true. “It’s so stupid. I know Yin loves me, but it’s like I have to keep showing him that I deserve it, you know? It’s like I’m always needing to remind him I’m the guy he wants.”

  Patrice got up then, and opened up his arms flexing them in a beckoning gesture. “Come on. Let’s hug it out.” He looked so aggrieved at hearing himself actually offer to engage in PDA, I laughed again, but I went to him, because I needed it.

  “I’m tired,” I said as he thumped my back with his massive hand.

  “Being a Black man in this world with the audacity to strive for happiness can be exhausting at times.” I pulled back then and was met by Patrice’s dark brown gaze. “But we deserve it and we’re lucky enough to have people in our lives who are willing to hit us upside the head on occasion to keep us on that path.” A watery laugh escaped me at that. “You’ve earned the right to be a little selfish and you have a man who not only knows that, but is willing to fight your stubborn ass about it when necessary. So now all you have to do is let him.”

  I smiled, feeling better, but there was still the issue about us completely fucking up the gift-giving portion of the holiday. “The presents are still ruined though. This is like ‘The Gift of the Magi,’ but with mad Black and brown people and a double dose of peen.”

  Patrice guffawed at that and then shook his head. “We need to stop getting you and Carmen together.” He tipped his head up to look at the ceiling and then back at his watch. “We’ll just have to count talking about feelings as our cardio today. Are you ready to go back up there and do your side of the grovel?”

  And to my surprise, I was.

  Yin

  “Did he love it?”

  I groaned at Maiah’s extremely excited question. I knew she’d probably been sitting by the phone for a good time to call me. My other sister, Nu, was in California visiting her boyfriend’s family or she would’ve been on the call too, trying to get all in my business. I didn’t even want to talk about it. Ari had been gone for almost an hour and I had no clue where he’d gone. I figured he was still in the building since he only had on his hoodie and he’d need snow boots instead of Nikes to deal with the weather outside, but it didn’t matter—he wasn’t here. “Yin?”

  “Um.” I almost made something up and said we still hadn’t exchanged gifts, but my sister knew me better than that. She would guess—accurately—that I’d been up at the crack of dawn insisting we get the presents open, so I confessed. “It went less well than I expected.”

  “He didn’t like the shoes? I can’t believe it! He has them on his phone!”

  My sister, who had helped in researching how to get Ari the damn shoes, was of course very disappointed to hear our joint endeavor had not resulted in the glitter and rainbow fest we’d both anticipated.

  I hated this.

  Hated that Ari and I had gotten each other our dream Christmas gifts and somehow had managed to ruin Christmas morning at the same time. But hated most of all that Ari was somewhere feeling like he’d let me down.

  “No, I think he loved the shoes.” She made a very unhappy sound at the “I think” as I knew she would. “It’s just that—”

  I almost couldn’t say it, but I managed to get it out. By the time I was done and Maiah had emitted a wide range of sympathetic noises I felt marginally better, but still not okay.

  “Oh, Yin. You’re both such dummies.” Her voice was too kind for it to really nettle, and I could feel the worry coming off of her in waves. This was one of the things that was still an issue with my sisters and with Ari.

  They treated me like I was incapable of dealing with adversity. As if I had been in a coma w
hen we left Myanmar and during the years in the refugee camp, and couldn’t remember all that. It was almost as if them convincing themselves I had no recollection of those times was easier for them. That if they could tell themselves none of that had touched me, then they would be okay. But I did remember, and I was still okay. I mean I’d had help, years of counselling. And sure, I could be persistent at an almost unhealthy level, and I was competitive to a fault. Which came from feeling like I had to make sure everyone knew I was not wasting this chance I’d been given. That I understood how lucky I’d been to make it this far, when so many never got to. But Ari got that about me. He was like that too. He was ambitious, and he strived. We both did, and that was part of why we were so good together.

  But I didn’t take no for an answer, not when it counted. And once I decided something needed to happen, I did not let up. I had not let up when Ari kept wavering about going to the clinic, and now I had to wonder if I’d pushed him. And if I had, I worried that was why he didn’t think he could tell me he’d decided not to go.

  “Maung, are you still there?” The term of endearment and my sister’s worried tone roused me from my thoughts as I tried to figure out how to say what was worrying me. “Come on, talk to me.”

  “Sometimes I just feel like I never do anything for him. That our whole relationship is Ari always giving and me taking and taking. I just wanted to be able to do this for him. To take care of him, for once.”

  “Yin.” I could tell she was about to go on a rant about Ari loving me.

  “Maiah,” I sighed, feeling very tired suddenly. “I know he loves me. I even know I’m being dramatic, but I just wanted to be the one to do something big for my boyfriend for a change.”