All I Want For Christmas Is You - Penelope Ward Page 0,9

before Cole would arrive. After putting all of my groceries away, I was just about to start preparing dinner when the lights in my dining room suddenly turned on. Then I heard random beeping throughout the house—the sound of various electronics coming back to life.

Oh my God! The power is back!

As lucky as I was to have the generator, there was nothing like fully functioning power. Relief washed over me. I’d been truly worried they’d never get things fixed, and that Christmas—which was only a week away—was going to be ruined.

Within minutes, my phone rang. It was Cole.

I picked up. “Hey! Did you get your power back?”

“Yup. Wasn’t expecting that—way sooner than they estimated. Christmas came early, I guess.”

I exhaled. “What a relief. I was just about to start dinner when the lights came on.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “You haven’t started cooking yet?”

“No.”

“Good. Because I, uh, probably won’t be coming by. I appreciate the offer, but I should go to the store instead—reload my fridge, take care of some things around here now that the power is back.”

Disappointment filled me. “Oh…okay. Are you sure you don’t just want to eat and run? I’m cooking anyway.”

There was a moment of silence. Then he said, “I probably shouldn’t.”

I felt a little sad—and stupid. I thought Cole and I had hit it off pretty well. Maybe it was delusional to think there was something there. He apparently didn’t want to hang out with me. He’d just been using me for electricity.

“Okay, well, I hope you get a lot done,” I said in a short tone.

“Thank you. And thanks again for being so awesome through all this.”

Before I hung up, I felt compelled to ask him a question. “Cole?”

“Yeah?”

“I know Christmas isn’t your favorite holiday, so I was wondering… Which Christmas song is your least favorite?”

“Least favorite?”

“Yes. Least.”

“Hmm…” He laughed. “Probably ‘All I Want For Christmas is You.’ It’s overplayed.”

“Ah. I actually love that one. But okay. Fair answer based on the overplayed part.”

“Why did you want to know my least favorite and not my favorite?”

“I found that to be the more interesting question.”

“I do have a favorite,” he said. “Wanna know what it is?”

“What?”

“It’s ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Why does that not surprise me?”

Cole

I blinked my eyes open after waking from a nightmare. I hadn’t even remembered nodding off. Once again, writer’s block had bitten me in the ass, and I’d fallen asleep with my computer on my lap in the middle of the damn afternoon. That wasn’t a surprise, considering I’d been up almost the entire night before.

It had been a few days since power was restored, but my life felt no brighter. I’d chickened out about going over to Josie’s the other night because my feelings for her scare me. When the power came back, I suddenly had an out, so I took it.

And now, here I was with drool on my face after waking up from a dream where the words on my screen turned into snakes that crawled out of the computer to strangle me. All this while the Happy Days theme song played in the background. If that wasn’t fucked up, I didn’t know what was.

I looked at the clock. It was 7PM.

Outside, Josie’s spectacular lights display was in full swing. It was just a few days before Christmas now, and people were gathered across the street, taking it all in.

Josie held some kind of tray. It looked like she was passing out hot apple cider or eggnog. Maybe cocoa. My stomach felt tight. I longed to be over there. Not necessarily with all of those people—but with her. Only with her. I just hadn’t been willing to explore the possibility that she was different from my lying, cheating ex. And why? She’d given me no reason to believe she was anything like Jessica. But fear was a bitch. A bigger bitch than Jessica. And I’d let fear rule my decisions. That went against everything I’d ever preached about when it came to positive thinking. But in order to get past nagging fears, you have to accept uncertainty. That’s the basis for most tactics to reduce worry; yet I’d been unable to do it.

The crowd of people began to line up in front of Josie’s house. I soon realized they were singing. It was a choir of some kind. And it wasn’t just any song they were belting out. Cold air billowed into my house as I opened the