Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Break My Stride"

Christmas morning came, and I was feeling worse than I ever had before. My thoughts were dwelling on Valerie, my mother, and everything else that was going wrong. I knew I shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't focus on all the bad things. Good things had happened, but for some reason, I just couldn't get myself to be happy. I couldn't sleep at night, but yet, I didn't want to get out of bed. I couldn't get myself to even eat anything anymore. Ms. Harlow had commented a few days before that I was wasting away, but maybe that would have been best. I wouldn't have been such a burden to everyone else.

Arjun came into my room early in the morning, and despite everything, I laughed. He was wearing his pajamas and a Santa hat, which was totally not like him.

"Hey, don't make fun," he said when he saw my smirk. He revealed another Santa hat from behind his back and forced it onto my head before I could even react. "Mom got them for us, apparently."

"Well, I like it," I said. I fixed the hat so it would be straight as Arjun brought my wheelchair over. It was getting easier to get in and out of it, so a couple minutes later, we were heading out into the living room. Christmas music was being projected throughout the house. The sun was just barely rising, so it was still dark outside. Here we were, a bunch of adults, and we were still waking up disgustingly early for Christmas morning. Well, I guess that will never get old!

Ms. Harlow was waiting in the living room. It was like she had morphed into a child again. She was wearing a Christmas sweater with lights that actually lit up (it was similar to the one her father was wearing at the Christmas party a week before), and she had on a Santa hat, too. Behind her was a small mountain of presents that was under the tree. There had been presents there before, but definitely not that many. Ms. Harlow must have stayed up late to put them out once we got home from the ballet.

"There you are!" Ms. Harlow said, grinning from ear to ear. "My parents should be here soon, and Claris' family will be here a bit later! So we have time to take pictures!"

"Mom..." Arjun grumbled as Ms. Harlow pulled him to stand in front of the tree.

I laughed and wheeled over to join him. "Aw, come on Arjun," I said. "It's Christmas!" I felt like I should take my own advice and cheer up, but that was easier said than done. My body was tired, but so was my mind. If I could just stop thinking entirely, it would have been nice. As Ms. Harlow took our pictures, I put on a smile. That was easy enough with the amount of practice I had put into it over the last few weeks.

Arjun's grandparents arrived a few minutes later (with more presents in tow), and we were soon seated around the living room opening presents. It was times like these, when I was surrounded by people like Arjun's family, that I felt like I could be happy again. I knew that maybe a lot of my unhappiness was my own fault. Maybe I was just being ungrateful... I couldn't be sure.

Like Ms. Harlow had mentioned, her sister arrived with her family not long after we had finished opening all the presents. Everyone was hanging around talking and laughing, but I got a little too overwhelmed to stick around. I went back to my bedroom and called Keto and Veronica over Skype.

As I waited for them to answer, I thought about adding Valerie to the call, too, but I stopped myself. She was probably with Stephen, and I didn't want to make things too awkward.

"Hi," Keto said when they picked up. I immediately wondered why he looked and sounded bummed out, but Veronica rolled her eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Randall! Just ignore Mr. Scrooge over here!" she said in her high pitched voice. She must be really excited. "He's just upset since we have to get on a plane to go to...wait for it...Disneyland!"

I smiled. "That was your Christmas present?"

"Mhm!" Veronica beamed. "He's excited about Disneyland, he just doesn't like plane rides. Anyway, what's up?"

We talked for nearly an hour about this and that. I told them about random things, like what I got for Christmas, and what everyone was doing. We talked about Valerie and Stephen. I learned they didn't like the guy, though they didn't say why exactly. Whatever it was, it had something to do with why none of them wanted to sit around him at the ballet. When I tried to get it out of them, they refused to say what it was. So I changed the subject to school.

"Are you going back in the spring?" Veronica asked.

I nodded. "I'm going to try, at least. I'll have to find a job first, and maybe get scholarships."

"It'll work out," Keto said.

I could hear what they weren't saying, though. Both of their expressions were easy to read. They were guilty for feeling excited for the spring semester. They, along with Arjun, would be graduating, and I would have been too if it wasn't for the accident. Now I would have to wait until the next spring to finally get out of college.

It'll work out. I started to wonder what Keto was talking about when he said that. Me getting back into college, or me graduating a year after they did? And what about our dreams of making our own games? Well...I guessed I already had enough skills for coding games, so maybe we could just start before I left school. Still, it wouldn't be the same.

After I hung up with the twins, I went back out to the living room. Arjun was the only one left there now with his two-year-old cousin, and he was getting one of her new toys out of the box. It appeared to be a toy tea set.

"You seem down," Arjun said. He didn't even have to look away from the box. "What did the twins have to say?"

"Not much,'' I replied, even though that was a lie and he probably knew it. Whenever the twins talked, they always had a lot to say. But he let it go.

"I thought we should do something for Valerie before she leaves." Arjun got the rest of the tea set out, then stood back to let his cousin play.

I had been thinking the same thing, but I just didn't know what we could do. What if it turned out bad? But I couldn't just let a girl like Valerie get away without a fitting goodbye. I raised my eyebrows.

"How about a party?"

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Listen to "Break My Stride" by Matthew Wilder!

Peace✌️~ A.J.