Learning to Cope

Chapter 2

August:

"What!?" Andrew yells. "You've never celebrated any of the holidays?!" It's been a month since I was released from the hospital. Andrew comes over almost every day and he spends the night often. I even ended up giving him a key to my apartment. "No, My parents were always gone. I didn't even know that December was special in any way until a babysitter showed me a Christmas movie"

He's staring daggers into my back. "I can feel you staring at me, want me to poison your food?" he laughs. He brings ingredients over so I can cook for him, he really likes pasta. "you would never! You know you adore me." He's not wrong, I really enjoy his company. "Why don't you come to celebrate Christmas with my family?" I stop "It's okay, I'm usually by myself anyway."

I finish serving our plates and bring them into the living room "You can't be by yourself this year!" he pouts.

"I can, and will be."

"But... I bought a gift for you." He looks down at his hands in his lap.

"You can give it to me when you get back, I don't want to get in the way of your time with your parents."

"It wouldn't be the same! You've gone 24 years without celebrating anything! Please?" Why does he sound so desperate...

"Fine. when is Christmas anyway?" He just stares with his mouth open "chew" I laugh.

"Tomorrow is Christmas eve, we will be spending the night at my parent's house to wake up on Christmas morning with them." I nearly choke on my food. Tomorrow? We're leaving tomorrow?! I don't have a gift for him. Am I supposed to get a gift for his parents? Do I have any clothes to wear? I don't own any Christmas sweaters or really anything other than a bomber jacket I bought when I was trying to look cool. Shit. has he been talking?

"August?" He puts his hand on my arm and is looking at me with those gorgeous green eyes. "Are you okay?" I clear my throat "Yeah, sorry, I wasn't listening. What did you say?"

He removes his hand from my arm but he still looks worried. "Well, I was saying, I'll pick you up around 5:30 tomorrow, okay?" "...yeah, sounds good."

We spend the rest of the night watching Christmas movies because I need to catch up. They are all horribly annoying but I can suffer through it for him.