How to Fall Apart

Chapter Fifteen

Weeks before, Alissa and I had planned to do our Christmas shopping together on Black Friday. I wasn't feeling good enough to go but that didn't matter anyway because I still hadn't heard from her. Mom knew I was worried and suggested that her family might have gone on vacation for Thanksgiving or something and she just forgot to tell me, or she was taken down by the same stomach bug I had. I doubted either of those theories were the case.

When I went to work Friday afternoon I was still not feeling one hundred percent. I'd finally taken a much needed shower that morning and was at least feeling human again. I went straight home from work and slept for twelve hours. Mom was covering a shift for someone at the nursing home that morning but when she got home I was going over to Nate's so we could work on our English assignment.

It had been snowing off and on since the night of Thanksgiving, big fluffy flakes. There wasn't much accumulation but mid morning it started picking up, along with the wind. By the time Mom got home it was borderline blizzard weather.

"Do you want me to drive you?" Mom asked. She knew I hated driving in the snow. I chewed on my lip, not wanting to feel like a child being dropped off for a play date but mostly not wanting to drive Mom's car into a ditch. Finally I nodded and she handed me the keys to go and warm up the car.

When we arrived at the Preston's' Mom waited as I knocked on the door, only pulling away when I disappeared inside. Mr. Preston answered the door in a hideous yellow and green sweater. It was like a Packers shirt mated with an ugly Christmas sweater.

"Uh, hi Mr. Preston." I smiled, trying not to stare at his shirt. "I'm-"

"Veda! Hi, come in, come in! It's freezing out there." He ushered me into the house. I stamped the snow off of my feet and stepped into the warmth. Somewhere else in the house Christmas music played loudly and something smelled amazing. I took off my coat and Mr. Preston hung it up for me.

"Thank you." I smiled.

"Carly!" He called up the stairs.

"Oh, um, actually I'm here to see Nate. We have an English assignment to work on." I held up my backpack as evidence.

Just then, Nate sauntered into the entryway with a sweater equally as horrifying as his father's. It was striped red, green, white, and tan with teddy bears and snowflakes on it. It almost hurt my eyes to look at. His lips were pressed tightly together suppressing a smile. Carly came down the stairs off of the entryway. She, too, was wearing an ugly sweater. Her's was green with red sleeves and gold garland wrapped around her body with real ornaments hanging from the garland.

"Made it myself!" She posed proudly at the top of the stairs. "It's Ugly Sweater Saturday in the Preston house," she grinned, skipped down and tossed something at me. Of course I didn't catch it, not even just because I had bad hand eye coordination, but also because I was blinded by their awful sweaters. I bent down to pick up the item that Carly had hurled at me. It was a dark green sweater with candy canes printed across the chest. I looked up at Nate and he was doing his best not to laugh. That's when I realized that they actually expected me to put it on. Mr. Preston headed down the hall where I could hear other voices and Carly urged me to just put it on.

"I warned you," Nate finally said, choking back laughter.

"No, you didn't really. You said you were warning me but didn't say what you were warning me for. That doesn't really count," I pouted but pulled off my not so ugly black sweater. I had a tank top underneath but even so, Nate looked away politely as I changed into the ugly sweater.

"You look fabulous!" Carly swooped in with her phone, taking a selfie of us.

"It's itchy!" I whined and then they whisked me down the hall toward the voices. Their living room looked like something from a Christmas movie. A large tree stood in front of a big bay window decorated in red bulbs of various sizes and silver tinsel. The tree twinkled with with white lights and was topped with a beautiful silver star. They had a gas fireplace and the mantel was covered in evergreen garland and was hung with seven stockings. A huge wreath hung above the fireplace and Christmas themed throw pillows decorated the couches and a big cozy looking chair. A painted wooden snowman stood on one side of the fireplace and Mr. and Mrs. Claus stood on the other. It was beautiful. It even smelled like Christmas, cinnamon and pine trees.