Me & Mine

56. Ghost of Christmas Present

"In the moment it mattered the most," I sigh, "I was weak and he was strong. That's why I don't want anyone fighting my battles for me. I owe it to him to never be weak again, to never ask someone else to be strong for me."

I let out a final breath and feel a heaviness fall of me. A burden I never realized the weight off, because it had crept up on me quietly and slowly, and now it was evaporating into thin air. I can almost see it rise and rise, up until the stars, and moments later, thick snowflakes came dwindling down in its place. I smile. And then I smile some more because I realize that through the worst of it, I'm still able to smile.

I turn my head to Max and he smiles too. "You're smiling," he says, his voice hoarse and uncertain. I shrug and rest my head on his shoulder.

"You," he cups my cheek and kisses my nose, "are incredible. Do you know that? To have lived through that and still be smiling just because it started to snow? Incredible! You are not half as messed up as you have the right to be after going through all that."

I smile again and let him wipe the tears from my face.

"Oh, that was just the first act," I chuckle, "next we went through a legal nightmare. Amory and I needed to testify. That's when we found out that what happened, happened to the both of us. It was heartbreaking and difficult, and we never spoke of it again. We just knew, and knowing alone broke our souls, so how could we ever put it into words again?"

I sigh and nestle my head in the crook of his neck, where it fit perfectly as if we were two puzzle pieces made to complete only each other.

"Things started to get better after Amory was found not guilty. Our mother took us to a lawyer for the reading of our father's will and we found out that he left everything he owned to Amory and me. All his money, his real estate, even the majority share of his company. Of course our mother, now destitute and socially disgraced by the actions of her husband, went completely crazy. She took up right where our father left off, threatening us, beating us, cutting us, but by that time we were so cynical we were weirdly immune to her many attempts at breaking us into giving her the money.

"Amory convinced me to report her, and this time together we found the strength to stop the abuse before it went out of our control again. Our mother was imprisoned on accounts of child abuse and Amory and I went into the system. We were both broken beyond repair, our close relatives couldn't be bothered to take in two depressed teenagers. I was just an empty shell of myself.

"But bit by bit Amory and I raised each other up. He took me out to party. He took me to Europe for the summer, where I learned to fall in love. We got our tattoos together to cover up the scars. I learned him to love literature, learned him the importance of planning a future for yourself. To have something to hold onto. Together we learned that our father's money wasn't toxic, that we could spend it, that we'd earned it, damn it. For a while we were inseparable, but only because we were running away together. We were afraid to settle down, because when something comes close to being a home, it becomes scary. Because what we knew about homes and families, was fucked up and terrifying.

"Until we came here, and everything started to make sense somehow. It felt like coming home, at least to me. But a few weeks ago we found out that our mother's getting out of prison, and I freaked. That's why I acted the way I acted."

I take a deep breath and look over at Max. He's still smiling, softly and silently.

"That's it," I say, and my body feels warmer than it has ever felt, even in this freezing cold of the north American mountains, it boils.

"Thank you for telling me, love," Max says, raking a hand through my hair. He sighs and studies my face. "God, look at you," he whispers, "you went through all that and you are so beautiful! So brave, so perfect. The universe screwed you over and you can still find the beauty in the stars and the snow and in me... And I can't even find the right words to say to you right now... I love you. I just love you so much."