Twenty-two

“We can still turn around.”

I looked at Erik and shook my head. He sighed, made a right and turned into the driveway of the third house. It was small and painted a pale yellow. There was a felt snowman on the door and a big wreath. Erik got out of the car, but I remained. He walked around and opened my door. “Why are you just sitting here?”

“I came to keep you company in the car. But I’m not going in.”

“Oh yes you are!” he said with authority. I do believe he just used his future daddy voice on me. Despite my amusement at his tone, I shook my head no.

“It’s not appropriate.”

“Brit, none of this is appropriate,” he growled. He really looked uncomfortable, and I wondered if I had been wrong with my attempt to heal old wounds. Figures. No good deed goes unpunished. But, before I could answer with a smart remark, the front door opened.

“Hi, Erik.” It was Alice’s dad. He was wearing a thick turtleneck, but he still looked cold. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi, Mr. Groves. I was hoping to see Alice. Is she up for a visitor?”

Mr. Groves took a deep breath and pondered Erik’s question. Then nodded. “Yeah, come on inside.”

Since I had been spotted, I followed Erik in the house. It had a lot of floral decor inside.

Mr. Groves took our coats and hung them on a hook in the mudroom. Erik stepped inside, looking around for Alice. There was a piano in the living room with a picture of a young man in a graduation cap. My heart sank when I realized that was probably Aidan.

“How is she?” Erik asked, a hint of a quiver in his voice.

“Not bad, considering. She does have a hairline fracture in her skull, right above her right eye, so don’t be surprised when you see how bruised she is. But aside from migraines and sleeping a lot, she’s been good. How are you, son?”

“Uh, I’m fine,” he lied. I knew his wrist was hurting him, and he had headaches, too. He just didn’t want to complain considering that Alice was worse. Mr. Groves nodded.

“She’s up in her room watching TV. You can go up.”

“I’ll stay down here.” I turned to Mr. Groves. “If that’s okay.”

“Sure, I was about to make hot chocolate. Would you like some?” he asked. I really didn’t want any, but I didn’t know what else to do with myself so I thanked him and followed him into the kitchen while Erik went upstairs to finally listen to what she had to say.

Mr. Groves poured the steaming water from the kettle into my mug. “Marshmallows?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” He handed me the bag, and I took two and flopped them into the warm brown liquid, watching as they bobbed up and down.

“I don’t think we properly met. I’m afraid I don’t even know your name.”

“Sorry. I’m Brit.”

“Brit,” he repeated. “Short for Brittany?”

“Yes.”

His gaze floated around my head, the same way Alice’s had when she first met me, and I knew he was taking in my hair color. “I’m going to bet you’re an artist like Erik.”

“Yes. We actually met in drawing class.”

“And how long have you two known each other?” He didn’t smile or frown. His face was unreadable. He just looked tired.

“Four months, almost five,” I said trying to make it seem like we had more of a history than we actually did. Alice had known him since high school. That was years. Years of Erik. Shit, I hoped I’d get years.

“And how is he really doing?”

I blew on my hot chocolate, watching it ripple before I took a sip. “What do you mean?”

“Is he hurt from the accident?”

“Well, his wrist is sprained, I know it hurts him even though he doesn’t complain. He does take the ibuprofen the hospital gave him regularly, so I know he is still getting headaches.” I took another sip; it was pretty good. “But considering what the scene looked like…” My voice trailed off.

“I know. Alice looks worse than she is. I can’t tell you how happy we are that it was only a hairline fracture.”

“Erik feels guilty. I don’t think that will ever go away.”

“Well, he shouldn’t. Deer and ice are not the safest road conditions. This was not intentional. I hope he realizes that.”

Mr. Groves asked me the normal questions. Where I was from, what I thought about college. We were starting to run out of conversation topics, and I almost brought up the weather out of sheer desperation when Erik walked in.

“Brit, she asked to see you.”

“Me?” I sounded horrified. “Why?”

Erik shook his head slow. “Dunno, but she said it’s important.”

“It’s the second door on the right,” Mr. Groves said.

I placed my mug in the sink and went upstairs, walking just a tad slower than was necessary. I knocked on the door that was part way open and peeked inside. The walls were painted in a light green with white trim. The furniture was white, too. There were posters of cats and a shelf filled with books. It looked like a doll’s room. Everything was somewhat frozen in time, as though her life had stopped at fifteen.

Alice was sitting on her bed, and even though I had been warned, I was not prepared for the sight of her bruised face. The skin around her right eye was so purple it was almost black, and her eye was red and irritated.

“Hey, Brit, thanks for coming.” Alice offered me a small smile, and I wondered if the gesture hurt.

“How do you feel?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Better than I look. Please.” She gestured to the chair by her vanity. “Sit down.”

I pulled out the chair, turned it to face her then sat down, folding my hands together. My bracelet fell forward, the soft jingle the only sound in her room.

“Is that the bracelet?” she asked, pointing to my wrist. I was taken aback. I guess they had spoken about it when Erik was in here visiting her.

“Uh, yeah.” I held it up and showed it to her.

“That is the most thoughtful gift. He’s different with you.”

Hello awkward! I was wondering when you would arrive!

Not knowing how to respond, I just nodded and looked around her room. She had a porcelain doll in the corner that looked like her. It was freaking me out.

“It must have really thrown you for a loop when I arrived on Christmas Eve. I had no idea you were going to be there.”

“Sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“No need to be sorry. I mean, I knew Erik would eventually find someone. He’s Erik.” She smiled again, and I forced myself to smile back.

“The Draxtons have always been so good to me. Even when I didn’t deserve for them to be.”

Well hell, now I was interested. “What do you mean?”

“I lost my brother Aidan five years ago in a car accident. I was the driver, I didn’t even have my license. So I have a lot of guilt and pain over that. I don’t think it will ever go away.”

“Lani told me,” I confessed. “I’m so sorry.”

“Then I guess she also told you about this.” Alice pulled up her sleeves and held out her wrists to me. I could see the white scars, thin, but clean, that ran about two inches across each wrist. “I didn’t do it the right way.” She laughed… but it was a sad laugh, almost a cry. There was real pain and regret in that laugh. “The thing is… I didn’t want to die, I wanted Erik back. Pretty sick, huh?”

I took a moment before I responded. Clearly she had opened up to me, and I shouldn’t just cast her feelings aside. So, for a moment, I pretended she wasn’t Erik’s ex-girlfriend. I just looked at her as a girl who had a painful experience and needed someone to talk to about it.

“I won’t pretend that I understand the pain of losing your brother. I’m an only child, I can’t even imagine a bond like that.” I noticed her eyes got teary, so I looked away for a moment. “But, I do know what it’s like to love someone fiercely and lose them. To go out of your mind over the pain of not having them around.” I returned my gaze to meet hers. “You lost two people within a few years. So, I totally understand why you would feel like you had to do something drastic. I’m sure Erik understands that, too. He may not have understood then, but I’m sure he gets it now.”

Alice’s tears slid down her swollen cheek, and she pulled her sleeve down over her hand to wipe her face. “Needless to say, I needed a lot of therapy after I did this.” She gestured to her wrists again. “I had to feel the pain and revisit the past before I could heal. And part of that journey was realizing that when I did this, I not only hurt myself, I hurt others. One of the biggest people I hurt was Erik. I tried to force him into loving me. To not leaving me. I probably only ended up pushing him farther away.”

She took a shaky breath. “The reason I showed up on Christmas Eve was I wanted to apologize to him. That’s all. It started out as part of my rehab, like an assignment in order to get through the program, but I realized it wasn’t something I had to do, it was something I wanted to do.”

And all this time I was seething in my little pool of hate. Ugh. I suck. I swallowed and thought about how to react to what she had said. She was so painfully honest, and now I had to be as well.

“And I interrupted your moment like a psycho girlfriend.” I felt so stupid. “Can I ask you something? Did Mrs. Draxton know that was why you were there?”

“Yes, my mom called her and asked if it was okay before I just showed up. I knew Erik had a job and so the only days I could guarantee he was home was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

“When you showed up that morning to drop off muffins, and his mom asked Erik to drive you home…” Crap. It all made sense now. Mrs. Draxton thought that by giving them alone time together, Alice would get her healing, and Erik would get rid of her for good. She really didn’t want them back together like I had thought. Lani was right, she was on my side.

“Erik is not like other guys. He actually does listen. He was only avoiding you because I was jealous. All I knew was you were his high school sweetheart, and that his parents loved you. It made me very uncomfortable, and I overreacted. I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet the best version of me.”

“I think I see her now. She seems pretty nice, not to mention she has crazy cool hair.”

I shrugged. “I can’t take a shower without turning everything pink.”

“I’d say it’s worth it.”

I looked over at her vanity, and my gaze fell on a framed picture of her. She was standing in front of a muscular guy with dark ebony skin. He had his arms locked around her with his chin resting on her shoulder. He was wearing a tee shirt, and you could see the way his biceps bulged, it was pretty damn intimidating. I mean, Erik had a beautiful body, exactly my speed, but this guy definitely hit the gym—about eighteen hours a day. Alice’s head was tilted back against him; she was laughing, and it looked like he was tickling her.

I held up the picture, and she smiled. “That’s Evan, my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” I repeated, feeling like a royal asshole. For three days I’ve been thinking this girl was trying to get Erik back when she had clearly moved on and found her own happiness. “Wow. He’s really cute,” I said, and I meant it. He had deep dimples and rich dark eyes.

“Thanks. He’s in med school, so I don’t see him as much as I’d like. If he’s not studying, he’s interning at the hospital.”

“Yeah, I understand. Erik works constantly. This week has been like a vacation for us.”

“Funny, right? How when you’re in love it’s just never enough time?”

I nodded. “He must have freaked out when he saw you. He’s not going to come after Erik, is he?” I laughed, but I was sort of serious. This dude could pummel Erik into the ground with his pinky.

“No, Erik is safe. I think he was more concerned about the trauma of the accident, how it could bring back all my memories of losing Aidan.”

“It’s great that you found someone who understands. That’s rare.”

“Yeah, I wish I could have known this back then, before… well… you know. It would have saved a lot of heartache.”

I nodded, recalling what my mom had said about needing things to happen in order to give us perspective. She was right three times. What the fuck was going on? There was an awkward silence, and I wondered what Erik was doing downstairs. Probably having hot chocolate. Alice raised a hand to her forehead and winced, her migraine must have been acting up.

“Well, I better let you get some rest, I know you still have head pain. It was nice talking with you, Alice, I really mean that.”

“It was nice of you to listen.”

“And I’m really sorry if I was shooting death rays at you out of my eyes on Christmas Eve.”

“It’s all good.” She laughed, and I turned to leave, but when I grabbed the doorknob, she called me back.

“Brit?”

“Yeah?”

“There was a time when the thought of Erik with anyone else would have killed me. But I mean it when I say, I’m really glad he found you. When I saw you guys together for the first time… you just looked like you fit.”

I looked at her and smiled, there was nothing else to say.

We didn’t talk much during the drive home. Erik didn’t ask me what I spoke about with Alice, and I didn’t ask him. We didn’t need to know, and there was something nice about the not knowing. When we pulled into the driveway, Erik noted the black sedan that was occupying the spot where his blue Taurus had been resting before it was totaled. “Looks like Lani is back.”

“But that’s not her car.”

“No, it’s Dan’s.”

“Oh, neat.”

“Neat?”

“Yeah, finally someone under this roof without the last name Draxton.”

Erik walked over to my side of the car and gave me his best sad puppy dog face. “You don’t like us?”

“I like you, I just hate being the only one that’s not related.”

He stepped closer and placed his forehead against mine. “If we were related, all those things we did to each other yesterday would have been really weird.” I giggled, and he kissed my nose.

When we went inside, everyone was in the living room by the tree. They were laughing, and Erik’s mom kept squealing. They were huddled together, and I saw Lani holding hands with a man I assumed was Dan. He was about five foot ten with short, curly, sandy brown hair and light hazel eyes. He was wearing a button-down shirt and a pair of dark dress pants. He had to be at least thirty. I sometimes forgot Erik’s sisters were ten years older than me. I could see how different our lives were right now.

“What’s going on?” Erik asked. We had clearly interrupted something.

Everyone looked at us in silence. Then Laura shook Lani. “Tell him!”

She didn’t have to say a word, just held up her left hand to show off the princess cut diamond that now adorned her ring finger.

“No way!” Erik was beaming. He ran over and gave Lani a big hug. She started crying. Now that I got a closer look at her, it appeared as though she had been crying before. But they were definitely happy tears.

When Erik let go of her, she stomped her feet and did this cute little dance. “I’m getting married!” Then she lunged at me and gave me a big hug.

“She’s been dancing a lot since I asked her,” Dan said to Erik. They patted each other on the back and did that manly sort of hug, and Erik had the biggest grin on his face. “Finally, I have a brother. I’ve waited a long time.”

Don’t mind the puddle, my heart just melted. Watch your step.

“And you must be Brit!”

“I must be,” I said, tucking a purple lock of hair behind my ear.

“Lani has been talking about you nonstop. You made quite the impression—don’t worry, it was all good.”

Erik crossed his arms and nodded, clearly thrilled that his sisters had welcomed me into their tribe.

“Okay, time for a toast!” Mr. Draxton walked in with a tray of glass flutes and a bottle of champagne. “I was saving this bottle for New Year’s Eve, but I think we need to open it now.”

He popped open the bottle and poured the champagne into each glass while Mrs. Draxton passed them out. I didn’t expect her to give me one. I was the only person there who was underage, but she did and winked as she handed me a glass.

We stood in a circle, our arms extended as Mr. Draxton said a few words. “To Lani and Dan, may this be the beginning of your happily ever after.”

We clinked glasses and took a sip, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched Lani looking up at her fiancé. “So, how long are you gonna wait?” Erik asked.

“Uh… geez. Weddings are so expensive. At least a couple of years. Maybe two or three,” Lani said, and Dan nodded.

“That long?” Mrs. Draxton looked disappointed.

“Maybe sooner. We haven’t really worked out the details yet. I’m just still spinning that she said yes.”

“Like she’d say no.” Laura laughed. “I remember when she came home after your first date. I thought I’d have to peel her off of the ceiling.”

Lani shrugged. “Hey, when you know, you know.”

I could feel the weight of Erik’s stare, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, I looked around the room at everyone else. They were all so happy. Amazing how you never know what each day will bring. From missing Paris, to the hospital waiting room, to standing in Erik’s house sharing in a rather intimate family celebration. It had been one hell of a week. I walked away from the group and over to the stockings, touching the one that said my name. This was my first Christmas with Erik, and I hoped against hope, it wouldn’t be the last.

A hand stretched out and placed a flute on the fireplace. Erik kissed my cheek and rested his head on my shoulder. Normally, I would have freaked out over the amount of affection he was showing me in front of his family, but everyone was pretty much high on love endorphins at this point, so it didn’t seem to matter. “Looks like we’re going to a wedding,” he said, his voice velvety and warm.

The thought of Erik in a tux was incredibly hot.

I turned around to face him. “They said not for a few more years.”

“Yes, I heard.” He dipped his head against mine, and my knees felt weak. “But we’ll still be together, because when you know, you know.”

I looked up into his ocean eyes, and took a deep breath. “And you know?”

“I do.”