How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,29
say it, but that’s what I heard.
“Okay.”
And she was out that door so fast, and without the tension of her there I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands.
Sophie
I went to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen to make coffee, because that was what I did every morning. I did it to keep my hands busy and to stall. I was stalling.
Stalling to figure out what to say.
How to say it.
Your mom told me…
Are you okay?
Can I help?
I want to help.
I love you so much. So much.
Sam came out, wearing the T-shirt he’d never taken off. His boxers. He didn’t smile at me, just walked over to the beige heap of his coveralls and picked them up like he was going to pull them on.
“You’re leaving,” I said, sounding breathless and sad and I hated it.
“Yeah. Mom—”
“Right.”
“Are you okay?”
“You didn’t hit me.” My wrist stung where his wrist bashed into mine. But he hadn’t hit me. Not like he thought.
“It’s the nightmares,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re…”
I waited to see how he could finish that sentence, how much he would tell me. How far he would let me in. It was crazy to me how deep we’d gotten with each other in the dark of my bed and on the kitchen island. But here, now, talking about what was wrong with him, what had happened, he gave me nothing. We were strangers.
It was like I’d given up our friendship when we became…whatever we were right now. Like we could be friends or we could be pseudo lovers but there was nothing in between.
Unless I fought for it.
“New?” I supplied, and he nodded, looking down at his feet. “Insomnia, too.”
He looked up at me, his eyes sharp, and I nearly flinched. “Your mom…mentioned it. PTSD.”
He started pulling on the coveralls, yanking them up his legs like they’d done something to upset him when I knew it was me that had upset him.
“Don’t be mad at your mom.”
“I’m not.”
“Can you talk—”
He shook his head.
“Please don’t leave like this,” I whispered. “Even if we never…” I shook my head, swallowing the razor-sharp lump in my throat. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“We are, Sophie. We are friends.” His voice was saying goodbye, the way he looked at me—all of it was goodbye. He glanced down at the kitchen island, like the imprint of our bodies was etched there by fire. “And it was amazing, Sophie. It was.”
“I feel a but coming on.”
“But I can’t…give you that all the time. I can’t even promise I can give it to you again. Half the time when someone touches me it feels…all wrong in my body.”
“All wrong how?”
He opened his mouth, shut it. Shrugged, like he just didn’t know what to say. How to explain it.
“That’s what happened this morning?” I asked.
The morning light fell across his face, harsh and beautiful.
He was in so much pain. He was in pain from twenty different things, in twenty different directions, and I couldn’t stand, couldn’t bear, that any of it was coming from me.
“It’s okay,” I said, and I put away all my own desires and wants. All my own pain, I put it down. Kicked it behind me into the corner. “We’re friends. It was…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. Didn’t know how to.
“An amazing Christmas.” He smiled at me, a real smile, and I felt joy looking at that smile. Glad I could give it to him. Even though it cost me everything I wanted. Everything I really wanted. “Sophie. You were so good.”
“Well…” I winked at him. “You weren’t so bad.”
And it felt for a second like we were back to the place we’d started. Me wanting him so badly but locked in this friendship.
It had been enough for so long, I told myself, watching him zip up his coveralls. It will be enough again.
“I’ll see you at work,” he said.
“Yeah. Right.” Oh God. Oh my God. Every day with him. Every day with this sliced-open feeling. Every day remembering how he touched me and then walked out that door. How in the world was I going to survive that?
He walked past me to the door and I reached for him, stupidly. Like a flinch nearly, like I had to stop him from leaving. I had to touch him one more time. Once more before he was gone and this weekend was just a memory with which I tortured myself.
But then I realized, reaching for him, that