Charlie pushed for details, charming and sympathetic, and when I got teary, he moved in close to comfort me. I protested, but he pressed his mouth to mine, and eventually I submitted. A guy was paying me all sorts of attention—a really cute and charismatic guy—and who cared that he didn’t mean it?
I did. Even during the moment of betraying Jeb, I cared. I’ve replayed that moment again and again, and that was the part that killed me. Because what was I thinking? Jeb and I were having problems, but I still loved him. I loved him then and I loved him now. I would always love him.
Only yesterday, when he never showed up at Starbucks, he sent the message loud and clear that he no longer loved me back.
Chapter Two
A ping on my windowpane intruded into my pity party. It took me a minute to pull myself back to reality. There was another ping, and I craned up from my bed to see a heavily bundled Tegan and an even more heavily bundled Dorrie standing atop a drift of snow. They beckoned with mittened hands, and Dorrie called in a glass-muted voice for me to come out.
I clambered to my feet, and the strange lightness of my head reminded me of my hair disaster. Crud. I looked around, grabbed my throw blanket off my bed, and put it over me like a hood. Holding the fabric beneath my chin, I walked to the window and jerked it up.
“Get your booty on the dance floor!” Dorrie hollered, the sound of her suddenly much louder.
“That’s not a dance floor,” I said. “That’s snow. Cold, frozen snow.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Tegan said. “Come see.” She paused, regarding me quizzically from beneath her striped wool hat. “Addie? Why do you have a blanket on your head?”
“Ehhh,” I said, waving them off. “Go home. I’m a bummer. I’ll bum you out.”
“Oh, don’t even,” Dorrie said. “Exhibit A: You called and said you were having a crisis. Exhibit B: Here we are. Now get down here and experience this glory of nature.”
“I’ll pass.”
“It’ll cheer you up, I swear.”
“Impossible. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes. “Such a baby. C’mon, Tegan.”
They high-stepped out of my sight, and a couple of seconds later, the doorbell rang. In my bedroom, I adjusted my blanket to make it more of an official turban-y thing. I sat on the edge of my bed and pretended to be a nomadic desert wanderer with startling green eyes and a desolate expression. After all, I knew all about desolation.
Parental chatter floated up from the hall—“Merry Christmas! You girls walked all that way in the snow?”—and Dorrie and Tegan annoyingly chose to reply. Their happy voices made happy Christmas chitchat, making me grouchier and grouchier until I wanted to yell down, “Hey! Girlies! The wretched soul you’re here to comfort? She’s up here!”
Finally, two sets of stockinged feet jogged up the stairs. Dorrie burst in first.
“Whew,” she said, lifting her hair off her neck and airing herself out. “If I don’t sit down, I’m going to plotz.”
Dorrie loved saying “I’m going to plotz.” It was her catchphrase; it meant she was going to explode. She also loved Cheerwine, bagels, and pretending she was from the Old Country, which was where Jewish people lived before they came to America, I guess. Dorrie was big into her Jewishness, going so far as to call her awesome curly hair a “Jew fro.” Which shocked me the first time she said it, and then made me laugh. Which was pretty much Dorrie in a nutshell.
Tegan came in behind Dorrie with flushed cheeks. “Omigosh, I’m totally sweating,” she said, peeling off the flannel button-down she wore over her T-shirt. “Getting here about killed me.”
“You’re telling me,” Dorrie said. “Five thousand miles I trudged to get from my house to yours!”
“And by that you mean . . . twenty feet?” Tegan said. She turned to me. “Think that’s about right, twenty feet from Dorrie’s house to mine?”
I gave her a steely-eyed look. We were not here to discuss the foot-by-foot boringness of how far apart their houses were.
“So what’s with the headdress?” Dorrie asked, dropping down beside me.
“Nothing,” I said, because it turned out I didn’t want to discuss that, either. “I’m cold.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” She yanked the blanket from my head, then made a sound of strangled horror. “Oy. What have you done?”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sourly. “You’re as bad as my mom.”
“Whoa,” Tegan said. “I mean . . . whoa.”
“I’m assuming this is your crisis?” Dorrie said.
“Actually, no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dorrie.” Tegan swatted her. “It’s . . . cute, Addie. It’s very brave.”
Dorrie snorted. “Okay, if someone says your hairstyle is brave? You pretty much want to go back and demand a refund.”
“Go away,” I said. I pushed at her with my feet.
“Hey!”
“You are being mean to me in my time of need, so you’re no longer allowed on the bed.” I put some muscle into it, and off she thunked.
“I think you broke my tailbone,” she complained.
“If your tailbone’s broken, you’ll have to sit on an inflatable doughnut.”
“I’m not sitting on an inflatable doughnut.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I’m not being mean to you in your time of need,” Tegan interrupted. She nodded at the bed. “May I?”
“I suppose.”
Tegan took Dorrie’s original spot, and I stretched out and put my head in her lap. She stroked my hair, gingerly at first, and then with more assurance.
“So . . . what’s going on?” she said.
I didn’t speak. I wanted to tell them, but at the same time I didn’t. Forget my hair—the true crisis was so much worse that I didn’t know how to get the words out without bursting into tears.
“Oh, no,” Dorrie said. Her face mirrored what she must have seen on mine. “Oh, bubbellah.”
Tegan’s hand stilled. “Did something happen with Jeb?”
I nodded.
“Did you see him?” Dorrie asked.
I shook my head.
“Did you talk to him?”
I shook my head again.
Dorrie’s gaze shifted upward, and I felt something pass between her and Tegan. Tegan nudged my shoulder to make me sit up.
“Addie, just tell us,” she said.
“I’m so stupid,” I whispered.
Tegan put her hand on my thigh to say, We’re here. It’s okay. Dorrie leaned over, resting her chin on my knee.
“Once upon a time . . . ” she prodded.
“Once upon a time Jeb and I were still together,” I said miserably. “And I loved him, and he loved me. And then I screwed up big-time.”
“The Charlie Thing,” Dorrie said.
“We know,” Tegan said, giving me several comforting pats. “But that happened a week ago. What’s the new crisis?”
“Other than your hair,” Dorrie said.
They waited for me to reply.
They waited some more.
“I wrote Jeb an e-mail,” I confessed.
“No,” Dorrie said. She bashed her forehead against my knee, bam-bam-bam.
“I thought you were giving him space to heal,” Tegan said. “You said the kindest thing you could do was stay away, even if it was super-hard. Remember?”
I shrugged helplessly.
“And not to be a downer, but I thought Jeb was hanging out with Brenna now,” Dorrie said.
I glared at her.
“I mean, no, of course he isn’t,” she amended. “After all, it’s only been a week. But she’s going after him, right? And as far as we know, he’s not exactly pushing her away.”
“Bad Brenna,” I said. “Hate Brenna.”
“I thought Brenna got back together with Charlie,” Tegan said.
“Of course we hate Brenna,” Dorrie said to me. “That’s not the issue.” She turned to Tegan. “We wanted her to
get back with Charlie, but it didn’t take.”
“Oh,” Tegan said. She still looked confused.
I sighed. “Remember how braggy Brenna was the day before winter break? How she was going on and on about how she was going to see Jeb during vacation?”
“I thought we thought she was just trying to make Charlie jealous,” Tegan said.
“We did,” Dorrie said, “but still. If there were actual plans involved . . . ”
“Ahh,” Tegan said. “Got it. Jeb’s not a ‘plan’ kind of guy, not unless he means it.”
“I don’t want Jeb having plans with anyone—especially Brenna.” I scowled. “Fake white-girl dreadlocks.”
Dorrie exhaled through her nose. “Addie, can I tell you something you’re not going to want to hear?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“She’s going to anyway,” Tegan said.
“I realize that,” I replied. “I’m just saying I’d rather she didn’t.”
“It’s the holidays,” Dorrie said. “Holidays make people lonely.”
“I’m not lonely because of that!” I protested.
“Yes, you are. Holidays bring out neediness like nothing else—and for you it’s a double whammy, because this would have been your and Jeb’s one-year anniversary. Am I right?”
“Yesterday,” I admitted. “On Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, Addie,” Tegan said.
“Do you think couples all over the world get together on Christmas Eve?” I said, wondering this for the first time. “Because it’s all . . . Christmasy and magical, only then it’s not, and everything sucks?”
“So the e-mail you sent him,” Dorrie said in a let’s-not-get-distracted tone. “Was it a ‘Merry Christmas’ kind of thing?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what did it say?”
I shook my head. “Too painful.”
“Just tell us,” Addie urged.
I got off the bed. “Nope, nuh-uh. But I’ll pull it up. You can read it yourselves.”
Chapter Three
They followed me to my desk, where my white MacBook waited cheerfully, pretending it wasn’t a participant in my disgrace. Puffy Chococat stickers decorated its surface, which I should have scraped off after Jeb and I broke up, since Jeb was the one who gave them to me. But I couldn’t bear to.
I flipped the computer open and clicked on Firefox. I went to Hotmail, pulled up my “Saved” folder, and dragged the cursor to the e-mail of shame. My stomach knotted. Mocha lattes? read the subject line.
Dorrie slid into the computer chair and squished over to make room for Tegan. She pressed the mouse-bar thingie, and the e-mail I wrote two days ago popped onto the screen, dated December 23:
Hey Jeb. I’m sitting here scared, typing these words. Which is crazy. How can I be scared talking to YOU? I’ve written so many versions of this, and deleted them all, and I’m just sick of myself in my own brain. No more deleting.
Although there is something I wish I *could* delete—and you know what it is. Kissing Charlie was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I know I’ve told you that again and again, but I could keep telling you forever and it wouldn’t be enough.
You know how in movies, when someone does something really stupid like fooling around behind his girlfriend’s back? And then he says, “It was nothing! She was nothing!” Well, what I did to you wasn’t nothing. I hurt you, and there’s no excuse for what I did.
But Charlie *is* nothing. I don’t even want to talk about him. He came on to me, and it was like . . . this rush, that’s all. And you and I, we’d had that stupid fight, and I was feeling needy or whatever, or maybe just pissed, and it felt good, all that attention. And I didn’t think about you. I just thought about me.
It’s really not fun saying all of this.
It makes me feel like crap.
But what I want to tell you is this: I screwed up big-time, but I learned my lesson.
I’ve changed, Jeb.
I miss you. I love you. If you give me another chance, I’ll give you my whole heart. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true.
Do you remember last Christmas Eve? Never mind. I know you do. Well, I can’t stop thinking about it. About you. About us.
Come have a Christmas Eve mocha with me, Jeb. Three o’clock at Starbucks, just like last year. Tomorrow’s my day off, but I’ll be there, waiting in one of the big purple chairs. We can talk . . . and hopefully more.
I know I deserve nothing, but if you want me, I’m yours.
xoxo,
me
I could tell when Dorrie finished reading, because she turned and looked at me, biting her lip. As for Tegan, she made a sad ohhhh sound, got up out of the chair, and hugged me tight. Which made me cry, only it wasn’t crying so much as a spasm of weeping that took me totally by surprise.
“Honey!” Tegan cried.
I wiped my nose on my sleeve. I took a heaving breath.
“Okay,” I said, giving them a watery smile. “I’m better.”
“No, you’re not,” Tegan said.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed, and lost it all over again. My tears were hot and salty, and I imagined them melting my heart. They didn’t. They just made it mushy around the edges.
Big breath.
Big breath.
Big, trembly breath.
“Did he write back?” Tegan asked.
“At midnight,” I said. “Not last night’s midnight, but the midnight before Christmas Eve.” I swallowed and blinked and swiped again at my nose. “I checked my e-mail, like, every hour after I sent him the message—and nothing. So I was like, Give it up. You suck, and of course he didn’t write back. But then I decided to check one last time, you know?”
They nodded. Every girl on the planet was familiar with one-last-time e-mail checks.
“And?” Dorrie said.
I leaned over them and tapped on the keyboard. Jeb’s reply came up.
Addie . . . he’d written, and I could feel the complicated Jeb-silence inside that dot-dot-dot. I could imagine him thinking and breathing, his hands hovering over the keyboard. Finally—or at least, that was how I pictured it—he’d typed in, We’ll see.
“‘We’ll see’?” Dorrie read aloud. “That’s all he said, ‘We’ll see’?”
“I know. Classic Jeb.”
“Hmm,” Dorrie said.
“I don’t think ‘we’ll see’ is bad,” Tegan said. “He probably didn’t know what to say. He loved you so much, Addie. I bet he got your e-mail, and at first his heart lifted up, and then, because he’s Jeb—”
“Because he’s a guy,” Dorrie interjected.
“He said to himself, Hold on. Be careful.”
“Stop,” I said. It was too painful.
“And maybe that’s what his ‘we’ll see’ meant,” Tegan said anyway. “That he was thinking about it. I think that’s good, Addie!”
“Tegan . . . ” I said.
Her expression faltered. She went from hopeful to uncertain to worried. Her eyes flew to my pink hair.
Dorrie, who was quicker on the uptake with these things, said, “How long did you wait at Starbucks?”
“Two hours.”
She gestured at my hair. “And after that, that’s when you . . . ?”
“Uh-huh. At the Fantastic Sam’s across the street.”
“Fantastic Sam’s?” Dorrie said. “You got your breakup haircut at a place that gives out Dum-Dums and balloons?”
“They didn’t give me a Dum-Dum or a balloon,” I said glumly. “They were about to close. They didn’t even want to give me an appointment.”
“I don’t get it,” Dorrie said. “Do you know how many girls would have died for your hair?”
“Well, if they’re willing to dig through a trash can for it, they can have it.”
“Honestly, the pink is growing on me,” Tegan said. “And I’m not just saying that.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “But w
ho cares? It’s Christmas, and I’m all alone—”
“You’re not alone,” Tegan argued.
“And I’ll always be alone—”
“How can you be alone when we’re right here next to you?”
“And Jeb . . . ” My voice hitched. “Jeb doesn’t love me anymore.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t come!” Tegan said. “That just doesn’t sound like Jeb. Even if he didn’t want to get back together, don’t you think he’d at least show up?”
“But why doesn’t he want to get back together?” I said. “Why?”
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of mistake?” she pressed.
“Don’t,” Dorrie warned her.
“Don’t what?” Tegan said. She turned to me. “Are you absolutely positive he didn’t try to call you or anything?”
I grabbed my phone off my bedside table. I tossed it to her. “Look for yourself.”
She went to my call history and read the names out loud. “Me, Dorrie, home, home, home again—”
“That was my mom, trying to figure out where I was, since I was gone for so long.”
Tegan frowned. “Eight-oh-four, five-five-five, three-six-three-one? Who’s that?”
“Wrong number,” I said. “I answered, but no one was there.”
She pressed a button and lifted the phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Whoever it was, I’m calling them. What if it was Jeb calling from someone else’s phone?”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“Eight-oh-four is Virginia’s area code,” Dorrie said. “Did Jeb take some mystery trip to Virginia?”
“No,” I said. Tegan was the one grasping at straws, not me. Still, when she held up her finger, my pulse quickened.
“Um, hi,” Tegan said. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“You’re the one who’s calling, you doof,” Dorrie said.
Tegan blushed. “Sorry,” she said into the phone. “I mean, um, may I ask who’s speaking?”
Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances Page 16
