Three's a crowd

44

Christmas Eve.

The day that all the kids go to bed early, excited for their impeding visit from Santa Claus only to wake their parents too early and tear open presents the next morning.

For my family it hadn't been like that in some time. My brother and I were both older and this Christmas was the last we would probably all be spending in this house - the house we lived in our whole lives.

Mom and dad had decided that they didn't even want to celebrate here this year, afraid their move would leave a dampening mood on the festivities. Instead we were going to be celebrating at Averleigh and Spencer's house.

I should be thrilled, ecstatic. Instead I wanted to find any way out of it as I thumbed the small wrapped box I had bought Riley when he was released from the hospital.

I remember seeing the small silver photo frame engraved with footballs in the antique store window. How it reminded me of Riley and his passion for the game. I wanted to give it to him that day after I bought it, to help with the sadness he felt knowing he missed their last game while he was in the hospital.

Instead I took it to a small jewelers store and had them engrave our initials in the bottom on either side of a heart. When I finally got home that night mom had told me that he was resting and to save it for Christmas.

I didn't know that things would get awkward between us between then and now. I still called every night to check on him and visited his house when I could, but since he didn't have a car anymore the visits were limited.

It didn't help that when we did talk the conversations were stilted and filled with awkward periods of silence where neither of us knew what to say to the other.

We were skating around the issue of our problems, of our relationship, rather than facing them and it was clearly effecting our relationship.

I did feel slightly better to know that he was almost fully recovered now though. He wasn't on any medications and was walking around again.

Brett had been sticking with me at school, almost as if he was afraid Riley would kick his ass if he didn't. Of course he didn't know that we were in a stalemate where it wasn't clear if we were still even together or not.

That's the thing with stalemates, they are confusing and neither person knows what to do or say. In this case I didn't know if the gift containing our pictures, images of the good times between us, would be welcomed or not.

"Britt, we are leaving in five minutes!" Dad called up the stairs that Christmas morning.

I slipped on my dark green knee length sweater dress and a pair of black flats, quickly touching up my curled hair and makeup before meeting my family at the door.

As usual we were welcomed and sat in the living room. Everyone laughing and talking as I sat awkwardly beside my brother and grace on the end of the couch.

Riley was sat in the middle of another couch between his siblings, neither of us able to look at each other, instead glancing in the others direction when the other wasn't looking.

Dinner was the same way. Averleigh had made a typical ham with all the trimmings but I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a few bites.

I was trying to push my feelings away, to bury the pain of this stalemate to the back of my mind, but each moment sitting at the table with him threatened to bring them all to the surface.

"Time for presents!" Anna yelled as everyone finished eating.

I didn't argue, just took my food and wrapped it up to give the impression that I just wasn't hungry, not that I was suffering silently.