Announcement Hello, lovelies! Don’t forget you can read 3 chapters ahead on this story and on Beginner's Guide to Catfishing by becoming a paid subscriber to my Patreon!

  Helena Heissner's Patreon

  And you can buy my books in paperback here:

  https:///dp/B0D8HCFFYH

  https:///dp/B0DK5C1T3F

  And you can follow all my socials here:

  https://linktr.ee/helenastacy

  Samantha

  The pre-Christmas rush had been kind to us, though not quite as kind as I’d hoped. Eli and I crunched the numbers together every night, but while we were still going to be in business come the new year, Uncle Paul’s medical expenses weren’t leaving us a whole lot of wiggle room. We either needed to start turning a serious profit in the next six months, or…

  I didn’t want to think about it. I couldn’t imagine selling the shop. But if Uncle Paul’s health taking any further tumbles was the alternative, then there wasn’t really a choice.

  I shook my head as I locked up the pce. Multicolored lights and festive ornaments hung from every storefront on the street, while more than one restaurant had Christmas music humming out from interior speakers. It was Christmas Eve, and I was off to Eli’s family’s party at Miguel and Bianca’s house. My relief when I found out it would be there instead of Eli’s parents’ pce was borderline immeasurable: the odds of Eli’s folks listening to Miguel felt a lot higher if it was in his house.

  I wanted to trust Eli’s parents. But everything I’d been told about Pedro and Tabitha didn’t paint a pretty picture. My parents may not have wanted me, but at least they were simple. Pedro and Tabitha… They were complicated. Everything about Eli’s retionship with them was complicated.

  My boyfriend had this habit of telling me stories that were clearly meant to be heartwarming anecdotes about his childhood but mostly came off as… Not that. I didn’t even know how to broach the conversation with him of ‘babe I think your parents are kind of terrible and I love how you see the good in people but I don’t know how much good there is to see with them.’ What the hell were the rules for something like that?

  I sighed as I finished locking up, a midnight blue scarf wrapped around my neck and a bck jean-jacket over my frame. I’d retouched my makeup before closing up, a full but simple face, not too much bck. Somehow, I figured presenting a less emo front than usual would help. Maybe not much, but… Yeah, somehow they didn’t seem like the type who’d be any happier if their son was dating a cis emo girl instead of a trans one.

  I turned around and yelped so loud a cat nearby hissed and scampered off. A man stood in front of me. He looked familiar, his face and his eyes and posture dragging long-repressed memories kicking and screaming from the pitch-bck stern of my mind to the harsh light of the bow. No, it couldn’t be, there was no way he’d be here. But it did look like him: his hair had gone completely white, and he’d traded his baggy fnnel and workman’s boots for a three-piece suit and loafers that probably cost more than Uncle Paul’s house. Still, it couldn’t be, just couldn’t possibly fucking be: he’d washed his hands of Paul and I years ago, there was no way-

  “Hey,” he said, and just like that, I knew it was him standing in front of me, tall and proud in the flickering mplight as a thin echo of ‘Carol of the Bells’ stumbled across the street.

  “Dad?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, Sam, it’s me,” my father, my deadbeat father, my piece of shit worthless deadbeat monster of a father, said as he slowly approached me.

  My eyes went wide and I held up my hand, putting as much venom into my voice as I could muster as I said, “Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t come an inch closer.”

  He stopped, holding up both his hands, palms ft. “Okay. That’s completely reasonable. I’m sorry-”

  “You’re sorry? For which part?!” I snapped.

  “I just wanted to get a better look at you,” Dad said, fshing a smile I’d never seen on him before. Then again, I don’t know how many times I’d ever seen him smile in the first pce. Maybe he’d looked like that at some point and I’d just forgotten; I’d spent a decade trying to scrub as much of him from my brain as I possibly could. “I saw some social media posts about the shop. Saw… You. It’s how I found out you were…”

  “That I’m what?”

  “Like this,” he said, gesturing at me.

  My eyes narrowed, and I put my hands on my hips. “If you’ve got some sort of problem with my transition, you’re gonna have to get in line behind my ex and most of the rest of the country. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m supposed to meet my boyfriend’s parents tonight-”

  “Boyfriend? Huh.”

  “What does that mean?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Just not what I expected.”

  “And what did you expect? That I’d still be some sobbing, obese little boy who didn’t know what was going on?”

  “Okay, fair enough. I didn’t know what I expected. I didn’t even know what I was gonna say when I decided to do this.”

  “Then why did you decide to do it?” I asked, clutching the strap of my shoulder-bag, forcing myself to look my father… To look Callum Kendrick dead in the eyes.

  “Because I heard about Paul,” Callum said, dropping the smile, furrowing his brow, lowering his hands. “I know he’s in the hospital. He’s always… He’s always been so fucking stubborn about everything. Used to drive me crazy when we were growing up-”

  I conjured my best death gre, and to my morbid delight, Callum actually winced a little bit at it.

  “But that’s not important right now,” he continued. “What’s important is the fact he’s a small business owner with state-funded insurance and a serious heart problem. I want to help. I’m not exactly rich, but I’ve some money. I can help with medical bills, maybe even pull some strings and get him on the list for an operation.”

  “Bullshit,” I said instantly.

  “What-”

  “I don’t buy it,” Samantha said. “The only thing you ever taught me is to not trust anyone who comes out of the blue and offers to fix all your problems.”

  “And under normal circumstances I’d be proud of you for that, but I’m your father-”

  “No you’re not.”

  “I know I haven’t been the best-”

  “You’re barely a father at all!” I screamed. ‘Carol of the Bells’ faded away into nothingness, and we were left with only silence between us.

  He winced again, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his expensive-looking suit jacket and looked at the ground. “Yeah. I deserve that.”

  “You deserve significantly worse.”

  “Heh. Gd you finally learned to stand up for yourself.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Probably not Paul, either. Guy’s a big softie. Is it that boyfriend of yours?”

  I gulped. “Leave him out of this. He’s helped me with a lot of things, yes, but leave him out of this.”

  Callum looked up at me and gave a stunned smile. “Huh. Well that’s certainly a pleasant surprise.”

  I squinted at him while the blurry notes of ‘Silent Night’ began to reach us. “What is?”

  “My daughter is in love,” he said simply. “I can see it in your face and hear it in your voice. My daughter is in love.”

  It was like the air itself got warmer when he said that. My trembling hands steadied, and I felt tears welling up behind my eyes. He’d said… He’d called me his… And he’d known, he’d cut through the… “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said, gulping.

  “Look, I’m not expecting you to forgive me. But I’m hoping you’ll let me help you, at least a little,” he said, fishing something out of his pocket: a business card. He threw it at me, chucking it like a damn pying card, and I caught it as it careened towards me. “Callum Rochester,” I read off. “You changed your name.”

  “I did. Give me a call some time, I can tell you why. And maybe we can talk more about me helping out with Paul,” he said, turning around and waving good-bye. “Have a nice night with this young man of yours. He must be really special.”

  For the second time in my life, I watched him walk away. I stood there until he was gone, frozen and stunned and utterly fucking speechless until my phone dinged. Eli had texted, asking me if everything was okay.

  ‘Not really,’ I responded, my head a mass of swirling gears threatening to all break off and roll away.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it ter. I’m heading to my car right now- see you soon.’

  I made it all the way to my parking spot before my phone erupted with its harsh ringing. It was the hospital. My heart nearly seized up right there and then. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Kendrick? There’s been a complication.”

  Eli

  I drummed my fingers on the table, trying to ignore the awkward atmosphere I was currently at the center of. I sat at a long table in Tio Miguel’s dining room, squeezed between my parents as they both shot me disapproving looks. All of my dad’s brothers and their families were there, some of my cousins having even brought their partners over for appraisal by the rest of the family. Mine, however, was nowhere in sight. I’d texted her a half-dozen times, and even managed to sneak away for a call between courses at dinner, all to no avail.

  I was more concerned than annoyed, but the opposite was true for my parents. Mom clucked her tongue in disapproval every time I checked my phone for an update, and Dad straight-up gred at me.

  I stuck my fork in my enchida, my appetite nonexistent. I’d been dreading tonight for the past week. I really didn’t want to believe my parents were transphobic. I was hoping beyond hope they would see her for the amazing, sweet, kind, beautiful girl she was. But Mom and Dad… They weren’t exactly the most open-minded people in the world. And I still hadn’t told them I was switching to a business management program at school. I wasn’t sure which I was looking forward to them learning less.

  “You okay, kiddo?” Tio Miguel asked.

  “Uh… Just a little anxious, I guess,” I said.

  “You want a gss of wine to take the edge off?” Tio Miguel asked.

  “I-”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t offer my son alcohol while he’s still underage,” Dad said harshly.

  “Hermanito, it’s a holiday. Ease up.” “You didn’t even ask my permission-”

  “I didn’t think I needed to. He’s an adult.”

  “Only legally,” Mom added.

  I side-eyed her, completely failing not to take that in the worst way possible. I was working a damn-near full-time job and keeping the house clean and I had a girlfriend and a career pn and I still wasn’t an adult, apparently.

  “Don’t give me that look, young man,” Mom bit.

  Tia Bianca said, “Let’s all just take a deep breath and remember that it’s a holiday and we all love each other-”

  “And apparently that means not respecting boundaries,” Dad said.

  “Do I have to remind you that I’m the eldest and that this is my house,” Tio Miguel said.

  “Oh Dios, here we go,” Tio Ricardo said while his wife, Tia Flora crossed herself and their twelve year old daughter Nina just rolled her eyes and sighed.

  “What does that mean?” Dad snapped at his youngest brother.

  “It means we’d all really like it if you would stop taking everything so damn personally,” Tio Jorge said while his wife, Tia Isabel, gred at my dad and their three kids, Michael, Aaron, and Ben just tried distracting their respective girlfriends with idle chatter and free-flowing wine.

  I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t need this. I didn’t wanna be here. I wanted to be wherever Samantha was. I wanted to rest my head on her p and feel her running her fingers through my hair. I wanted to get lost in her and forget the rest of the world existed. I just wanted this to stop. I didn’t care how or why, I just-

  As the screaming erupted, I heard a lifeline sing out from my pocket: Samantha was calling me. I got up and started to leave the room.

  “Where do you think you’re going, young man?” Mom said.

  “I have to take this. It’s Samantha.”

  “Well isn’t that convenient,” Dad rolled his eyes.

  “Don’t go there, Pedro,” Tio Miguel said. “Samantha is a lovely young dy.”

  “It’s true,” said my cousin Edson, while his brother, Andre, nodded in agreement.

  “And we still haven’t talked about the fact that you met her before my wife and I did,” Dad said.

  “Because you didn’t seem terribly interested in-”

  “You still don’t have the right to-”

  I made my way out of the dining room and answered the phone. “Hey, babe. What’s going on?”

  “Eli… I’m… I’m at the hospital.”

  My knee buckled, and I forced myself to sit down on a chair in the kitchen. “What? What’s happening? Are you okay? Is Paul?”

  “He’s not- he had another heart attack. I’m with him now, but he’s asleep, and I… I’m so damn scared, Eli!”

  “I’m on my way,” I said instantly.

  “But your parents-”

  I held the phone out in the general direction of the test screaming match. This was normally the part in all this where I’d deflect all the screaming with a joke, something silly, something self-deprecating, something that popped the tension like a balloon. Not this time, though. I had something more important to do. “I think they’re occupied.”

  “Okay,” she sniffled. “I’ll… I’ll be here.”

  I hung up, and half-considered just sneaking out. But I needed to do one thing first.

  I marched back into the dining room, to my father, and said, “I need the car keys.”

  “Excuse you?!” Dad snapped at me. Suddenly, all the eyes in the room were aimed at me.

  Whatever. “I need to get to the hospital. Samanatha’s uncle had another heart attack. He’s not responding well to treatment. She’s in a state and she needs me.”

  “And you think that gives you the right to just march up to me and demand-”

  “Dad!” I shouted over him. “Please. The woman I love is in pain; I need to go to her.”

  The room fell silent. For about ten seconds before Mom opened her mouth: “You think you’re in love with her?”

  I blinked, the ramifications of having finally said it out loud dawning on me. The woman I… Loved. Yeah. Yeah, it felt right. Felt like the truth, pin and simple and God-given. I loved her, and I would do anything for her. Including walk away from this mess. “I know I am.”

  “Eli, you’re being ridiculous. You’ve only been with this girl a few months-”

  “Sobrino,” Tia Bianca said, “Catch.”

  I held my hands out as a pair of car keys soared through the air, nding in my palms. “Tia-”

  “Bianca!” Mom said.

  “Keep your wife under control, Miguel,” Dad hissed.

  “Could say the same thing to you,” Tio Miguel rolled his eyes while the rest of the family just drank and drank and drank-

  “Go to her,” Bianca said. “She’s lucky to have you.”

  I nodded, then dashed out the door and towards Tia Bianca’s blue minivan in the driveway. I made it there by the time I noticed Mom was chasing after me.

  “Eli, I really think you need to take a beat-”

  “Did you not hear me? Her uncle is probably in a coma right now and she’s probably half-catatonic,” I said, unlocking the door.

  “And you don’t think that’s just a little convenient?” Mom said.

  I gred at her for a moment before I opened the car door. I grimaced when she got in on the passenger side. “The hell does that mean?” “First of all, nguage-”

  “For God’s sake, Mom!”

  “And the tone-”

  “How is this what you’re focusing on?!”

  “How are you not more skeptical of this girl?!” Mom shouted right back.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know-”

  “I don’t know,” I said, twisting the key in the ignition and shifting into drive. “I really don’t. So you better be completely straight with me right now about what you’re getting at.” Mom sighed. “I just think… This is the second time she’s bailed on meeting us because of her uncle having a heart attack. The second time in a row. And I’d like you to at least consider the possibility that she might not be telling the truth-”

  “I know her uncle. I visited him in the hospital on the night that YOUR NIECE went into bor. He really does have these problems,” I said, backing out of the driveway, speeding down the suburban Inglewood street. “I work for him. I trust him-”

  “Those two statements are contradictory.”

  “Oh for- seriously? Is it because he’s my boss? Because she’s technically my boss?” I said as I turned left and made a bee-line for the highway.

  “I’m just saying that maybe, MAYBE, this could be some sort of attempt to keep you working there long past the point where you should have outgrown it-”

  “And there it is,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m too old for this. Too old for that shop and what they sell and the people there. Including my girlfriend, who’s probably the only consistently good thing in my life anymore-”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say to your mother.”

  “Including the one source of income I have while I barely scrape by in a community college program I’m no good at-”

  “You are good at it-”

  “I’m shit at it,” I said. “But you and Dad never gave me any other options. Just like you’re not giving me any right now.”

  “Your father and I give you plenty of options-”

  “Ones that you pre-approved of.”

  “We’re just trying to help you!” Mom shouted.

  “Are you? Or are you just trying to control me?”

  “Where the hell are you getting all these ideas from? Is it from her? Is she putting all these nasty thoughts in your head?”

  “No, Mom, I’ve been having these thoughts for years!” I said. “Believe it or not, I have opinions I don’t always express to you. The only reason this is coming out now is because you think I’m going off the script you wrote for me before I was even born!”

  “I’m just trying to help you. I’m just trying to make sure you don’t get caught up with the wrong sort of people-”

  “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HER!” I screamed as we pulled into a red light and came to a stop. My fingers were locked into a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, my heart beating at a million miles per hour.

  “Well then how about we fix that tonight?” Mom said. “I’m already coming with you-”

  “No!” I said. “That’s too much. She’s in a bad pce right now, and she’s not gonna be in any state to deal with you.”

  “What does that-”

  “You know exactly what it fucking means.”

  Mom opened her mouth.

  “We don’t have to talk about this any more,” I said.

  The rest of the drive passed in silence. I got to the hospital, then told Mom to take Bianca’s car back and that I’d see her at home. She shot me a withering look as she got into the driver’s seat, then rolled down the window and said, “This conversation isn’t over, young man.”

  “I know it’s not,” I growled.

  That was when I walked away.

  I’d been in this hospital too many times tely. Between Sarah and Paul and everything else… God, I was really growing to resent this pce. My hands were trembling inside my pockets, and I breathed heavily through my mouth and smmed my sneakered feet against the gray linoleum floor. The hallways started to spin around me as the full scope of what I’d just done, of who I’d just old off, of who I’d just pissed off, began to register for me. A cold, cwing sensation dug through my chest as the righteous anger crumbled and horrible reality sank. Oh God, I was in for it. The st time I’d talked to my parents like that had been back in middle school when I’d stayed out ten whole minutes past curfew and tried to argue to them it wasn’t a big deal, to which they’d responded by screaming at me for a full hour and only letting me leave my room for meals and bathroom breaks all weekend.

  I clutched my chest as I dragged myself forward, every inch a struggle against the tide of fear and dread of what my parents were going to say when I inevitably went back home.

  But then I came upon Samantha, sitting in Paul’s room, clutching his hand while he slept, and there was nothing else. There was nobody else. The dread and the shame and the anger, none of it mattered when I was looking at her. None of it could hurt when I was in the presence of the woman I loved. Even circumstances such as these.

  “Hey,” I said, stepping inside, pulling a metal chair in the corner over beside her.

  She clung to me, wrapping her arms around my chest and crying into my shoulder. Paul’s heartbeat pinged slowly but surely while Samantha couldn’t get a word out between sobs.

  There was nothing else. She was the only thing that mattered to me.

  Samantha

  “I saw my dad tonight,” I said as we sat on the hood of my car. We’d driven down to the beach after visiting hours had ended; I hadn’t wanted to go home yet, and neither had Eli. So we drove and drove until we’d found one of the only sections of public beach still open after 11 PM in this city, and we rolled onto sand and parked and climbed onto the hood of the hatchback and just… Watched the tide crash into the shore.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Eli said, slowly drawing his gaze away from the bck water. Bck like the sky, bck like my hair, bck like Uncle Paul’s lungs. The doctors said it wasn’t just his red meat diet and total ck of exercise, it was also the smoking habit he’d sustained for a decent chunk of his adult life. He’d only quit when I’d gone to live with him, but before that it was a solid thirty-five years of two unfiltered packs every day. It was causing… Complications, and even with his improved diet, even with the five pounds he’d lost… It might not be enough. It might be enough, it wasn’t like he had cancer or anything, but still… It wasn’t good. I’d practically had a heart attack myself when they said we might need to consider surgery, and that our insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of the specialist.

  “My birth father,” I crified. “Paul’s younger brother. I’ve never actually told you about him, have I?”

  I was pressed against Eli, his body heat pooling together with mine as the cool ocean air washed over us. “No, you haven’t really talked about either of your parents. I figured… I dunno, I guess I just figured you’d always been with Paul.”

  “When I was nine, my mom left us,” I said. It felt like I’d just burst a blister, and all the blood and pus was rushing out in a disgusting deluge of stinging pain and cathartic dopamine. “And that same day, my dad dropped me off at Uncle Paul’s and never looked back.”

  “Oh my God,” Eli balked.

  “But then earlier tonight, I was closing up the shop, and… There he fucking was,” I said. The whole conversation repyed in my mind as I reyed it to Eli in real time. I was grateful the beach was empty, just cold sand sprawling out in both directions ad infinitum. Anyone besides the two of us would have made me custrophobic.

  “How do you feel?” Eli asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. The blood and pus had stopped flowing, and at the bottom of that well was… Nothing. No answers. No solutions. Just the simple raw, painful reality of the situation. My uncle was almost certainly dying. We had little to no money, and insurance that might not pay for an operation he needed in order to live or even to buy himself a few more years. And the only solution we were currently aware of… “I don’t want anything from him. I know that much.”

  “That’s reasonable,” Eli said as a wave exploded against the shore.

  “But I don’t know if it’s practical.”

  “I… I wish I knew what to say,” Eli replied.

  “You don’t have to have an answer for this one, babe,” I said, crooking a sad smile at him. “There isn’t one. At least not an easy one. Ultimately… This is a conversation we’re gonna have to have with Paul when he wakes up. If he wakes up-”

  “When,” Eli said, gently but firmly. “When he wakes up.”

  My smile got a little less sad. I gave my boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. “When.”

  He squeezed my hand with his left and ran his right through my hair. It was getting longer and longer, blowing about in the winds as he held me. Everything about him was warm and kind and reassuring and strong, even when he was clearly in a lot of pain himself. He cared about Paul almost as much as I did. And that was without getting into… “Were your parents mad?”

  “I…”

  “Eli. Please. I don’t wanna make this all about me. This was the second time, and if I’ve gotten an accurate impression of your parents, I’m gonna assume they were livid.”

  “You… Yeah, you’ve gotten an accurate impression,” he sighed. “But I didn’t exactly handle it well.”

  “Oh, come on-”

  “I really didn’t.”

  I sighed as well. “What happened?”

  He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  “Eli? Please don’t shut me out. Not right now. Not tonight-”

  “Okay,” he said. And he told me, every detail, every painstaking one. His parents screams’, the argument his extended family had gotten into with them, his own fury when Pedro tried to stop him from leaving, his handling of his mother and her desire to come to the hospital to determine if I was ‘the right sort of person’ for her son, for her family. The withering look in his mom’s eyes when he’d walked away from her to come to me.

  My eyes were wide with fear and shame, my hands shaking even as Eli tried to hold them steady. “Thank you for not letting her come up,” I said. “I don’t think I would have handled it very well if she had.”

  He nodded silently.

  “But… Does she seriously think I’m… That I’m doing all this to control you? That what, Paul is having heart attacks so you’ll keep working at the shop? That’s psychotic.”

  “Thank you!” Eli said. “Sorry, I just-”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “Feel like I’m taking crazy pills,” Eli said. “They look confused when I tell them how messed up that is. Like my mom genuinely has no idea how insulting or absurd what she’s saying is. Like she thinks I’m incapable of making my own decisions and that everything is me being maniputed by someone else.”

  “She’s probably projecting,” I monotoned, anger resonating inside my soul.

  “H… How do you mean?”

  Oh shit, I’d said that out loud. Dammit, no, this was not the night for this conversation…

  Or maybe it was. Eli had to go home eventually. He’d have to confront his parents eventually. And they weren’t going to be happy with him when he did. By the sound of it, they wouldn’t stop screaming until they’d goaded him into apologizing when they were the ones who should be begging their absolute saint of a son for grace.

  “Samantha,” Eli said. “What are you getting at?”

  I took a deep breath. “Eli, I think your parents are abusive.”

  “What? No, that’s absurd- they would never hit me.”

  “Abuse doesn’t have to be physical, Eli,” I said. “Wes never id a hand on me either, but a lot of the stuff he did, the negging, the gaslighting, the screaming, he did all that to keep his hooks in me. To control me. He hurt me so that I wouldn’t have the courage to fight back. And my mom… She was the same way. She told me I was stupid so often that I believed it, that I didn’t trust my own judgment.”

  “I… I don’t know,” he said, pulling away from me, cracking his knuckles. “They don’t really want to control me, they barely want anything to do with me-”

  “Because you don’t do exactly what they say all the time,” I said, leaning forward, knitting my eyebrows together. “Eli, you’re always telling me how they only care about you when you’re accomplishing something that they want you to do. They don’t let you make your own choices. You didn’t even get to choose what you study in school! They made you go into a program you’re bad at because your dad’s disproportionately huge ego can’t accept the idea of his son being anything other than a carbon copy of him.”

  “It’s a… A good field. A good profession,” Eli said, his knees bunching together against his chest. “I’d make good money, and in a city like this-”

  “You wouldn’t, you’d be living at your parents house for the rest of your life because you’re stuck doing something you can’t do. Eli, please, take it from me: you can’t force yourself to be something you’re not.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “God, they… I’m so scared of them, Samantha. What the hell is that? Why am I so scared of my own mom and dad? Aren’t they supposed to love me no matter what?”

  Callum’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. “There’s a lotta things parents are supposed to do that they don’t always bother with. Just lemme ask you something: when was the st time your mom or your dad gave you a break? Cut you any sck at all, said anything to the effect of ‘you’re doing a good job. For today, this is enough?’ When was the st time they said ‘I love you?’”

  “My high school graduation,” he answered immediately.

  “Okay, but that was also a night where you came to the shop to escape an argument.”

  “An argument my retives started.”

  “And how did they start it?”

  “By pointing out I wasn’t going to be a good electrician and my dad got really offended by that and…. Oh. Oh God. Oh, fuck.”

  Aaaaaannnnndddd there it is, I thought.

  He buried his face in his hands, and for the very first time, I saw my boyfriend, the strongest, most resilient, most optimistic, most idealistic person I’d ever met just… Break down sobbing. I didn’t know what to say, so for once, I trusted my instincts: it was my turn to hold him in my arms. To comfort him, keep him warm and safe, to let him know he wasn’t alone in this. He cried and cried and cried like I had over Paul, and I held him the way he held me.

  I knew, then. There was no doubt, no confusion: I would do anything for this man. For this man that I loved. The same way the man I loved would do anything for me. He was my strength, and with God as my witness, I would be his strength as well.

  “Let it out, darling,” I said. “Let it all out.”

  I don’t know how long we sat there. I don’t know how long he wept. At first I measured the time by counting the waves that crashed into the shore, but eventually I stopped bothering and simply lost myself in the moment.

  Eventually, he ran out of tears, and he rested his head in my p and looked up at the darkened sky.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Exhausted,” he said, voice ft and eyes red. “What are we gonna do, babe?”

  “For tonight? Sleep at my pce. We can figure the rest out in the morning.”

  “The morning? Oh God, tomorrow is… Actually, what time is it?”

  I pulled out my phone. “It is… Huh. Just after midnight, actually.”

  In spite of it all, that adorable, perfect smile of his fshed for a brief moment. “Merry Christmas, Samantha Kendrick.”

  “Merry Christmas to you too, Elijah Luna.”

  I bent down and I kissed his lips, and he kissed me back, and for a moment, we were one, and the world was at peace on this holy day. For a moment, we had each other, and that was all we needed. We were in love. Even through all the pain, we had our love.