Chapter 32 - A Million Rainbows

I kept up the whole Santa charade for Charlie.

Charlie was determined to believe in Santa. She and her little psychic mind must have known the truth, but that didn’t matter. Charlie didn’t want to believe in the truth on Christmas, and I didn’t blame her.

Charlie still believed in Santa even when half the lights on the tree were out. Charlie still believed in Santa when the items in her stocking barely reached past the toe. And she still believed in Santa when her mother left her all morning because she was too wasted to get out of bed.

“Here you go,” I said, handing her a present.

We weren’t waiting for Mom today. It was early, and it would be hours before Mom got up. Christmas was supposed to be on Christmas mornings. Charlie knew that because of the movies. With or without Mom, we were doing it in the morning.

Most of Charlie’s gifts were from me, anyway. I had managed to buy her some presents using money I got from babysitting. It wasn’t much, but she had a few things to open. And all her gifts were marked from Santa because it was important Charlie kept believing in magic.

She opened the gift I handed her, a small plastic doll with pink hair. She smiled like it was something special; I had gotten it at the dollar store. The dollar store was great for Christmas.

That had been the last gift from me, but there were two more nicely wrapped boxes under the tree. One was for Charlie, and the other one was for me. They were from Kyle.

I found them on the porch the morning of Christmas Eve. He had come over during the night at some point to drop them off. Had I known he was going to do that, I would have put my gift to him out there.

On the tag to Charlie, he wrote: From Santa.

I wanted to kiss him for doing that. Because I knew his gift, unlike any of the other ones she’d received today, would be Santa-worthy.

She opened his gift and it immediately put all my dollar store gifts to shame. But that was okay with me.

It was an Elsa Barbie doll. All glittery and new. Charlie squealed. She jumped up. She crushed the box in a hug. I spent the next ten minutes prying the doll from the packaging. She was over the moon when I finally handed it to her.

My box from Kyle was fairly lightweight, considering the large size, and I wasn’t surprised by the puffy coat inside it. I was, however, surprised that there were two coats.

There was a royal blue one and a light pink one. Both the same style—long and quilted. They were cute but still practical and warm. I loved them.

I had expected, hoped for, a note from Kyle. But the only other thing in the box was a gift receipt. I supposed he wanted me to choose the color I wanted to keep.

I pulled out the pink coat and put it on over my pj’s. I kept it on because the house was cold, and the cozy coat felt like a hug from Kyle.

We hadn’t talked or texted since saying goodbye the other day. But I needed to thank him.

I got my phone from my room and sent him a message: Charlie is in heaven over the Elsa doll. And I love love love the coat.

He responded a second later: Which color are you picking?

The pink one. What do you think?

I think you would look amazing in pink. I’m glad you like it.

I was smiling and crying at his text. I wanted to keep talking to him, but I still didn’t know what to say. I wanted to see him, but my face was still bruised.

Instead of getting better, it kept looking worse. It was currently an ugly bluish/black color, and the cut on my cheek was big and scabby. I googled how long it would take to heal the whole mess. I figured I would have another week before I could cover it with makeup and avoid any probing questions.

That would be the whole Christmas break without seeing Kyle. We hadn’t talked about it, but I was pretty sure we had planned on seeing each other every day over break. I had been looking forward to it.

I took too long to text him back, and he didn’t text again either. He was giving me time like I asked him to. I knew that, but it still hurt for some reason. I put my phone on the coffee table and sat back on the sofa with my new coat and watched Charlie play while I cried.

“Mom, can I come in?”

Mom groaned a “Yes.” I had coffee for her and placed it on her nightstand.

“Hey, we’re going to be watching some Christmas movies in a little while if you want to join us.”

She didn’t answer.

Something about Christmas always made Mom worse. I think it was the reminder that life was still going on around her. That there were people out there in the world, living their lives, succeeding at being happy. Or at least they were happy enough to put on their smiles and pretend for a day.

That’s what I imagined it was, anyway. It was the same reason Christmas was hard for me sometimes.

Mom groaned something inaudible, not bothering to open her eyes. I had a gift in my hand for her. But since she wasn’t getting up, I placed the small box on her nightstand and left the room.