A Christmas Secret

Chapter Three

        I barely talked to anyone all weekend. What had I signed myself up for? I was about to ruin this little girl’s Christmas dreams. I barely remembered getting to physics and I definitely had no idea what Mr. Parker was demonstrating on the frictionless air track ramp. How could I pay attention when the image of teary blue eyes filled my mind? I barely even noticed when people started shuffling around the class.

“Crystal?” A voice said. I searched the room for Nate but one of his guy friends had already snatched him. “Crystal?” I turned and saw that the voice belonged to none other than Jack. His large blue eyes looked even bluer than usual as they stared at me in confusion. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Umm…yeah…What’s…what’s up?” He chuckled as I struggled to speak.

“I was just wondering if you had a partner.”

“Oh…No, I don’t.” Was he asking me to be my partner? I really didn’t know what was even going on and I didn’t want him to think I was stupid.

“You don’t have to say yes to working with me. Mr. Parker doesn’t seem like a bad partner.” It was then that I realized most of the class had already paired up. “But between us, I heard that he’s kind a slacker.” I laughed and accepted his offer.

Once we got the air track, I realized that we were doing a variation on the same easy lab that we’ve been doing since November. We had to measure how long it took for the cart to travel down the cart at different angles. Not exactly brain surgery.

“Wait, how did you do that?”  We had gotten through the lab portion of the class without any questions or confusion. However, once we started the calculations, he seemed like he was lost at sea. I wasn’t really sure what to do for some of it but I usually got the labs right. I showed him the math in a step by step process. “Thanks. I don’t really get why we’re doing it this way.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty weird.” I smiled. “It could be worse. At least you didn’t break anything.”

“Hopefully you didn’t jinx us.” He joked. Once we were done, he left and I drifted back into the recesses of my mind.

I walked into theater without a word and sat done at a table in the corner. I sat silently, staring at everyone else have fun.

“I take it you’re not having a good day.” Nate sat beside me. He offered me a cup of eggnog which I gladly accepted.

“I’m fine.”

“That was an awfully long fine.” He commented. “I remember when Christmas was your favorite time of year. Now it’s starting to feel like I’ve spent the last month with the Scrooge.”

“I’m not a Scrooge.” I mumbled. “It’s not my fault you’re so noisy and annoying.”

“Could we not fight today? We’re breaking the family apart.” He said dramatically. I couldn’t help but laugh. There wasn’t a day where he failed to make me laugh. “I know you’re under a lot of stress right now. If you ever want to run away for a bit, my family would be more than happy to you see again during the holidays.” When my mom was alive, we always went to visit Nate’s family. At least for half an hour. We dropped of some kind of cake, tell stories, and play games. Sometimes I forgot that one of the biggest parts of Christmas was spending some of it with Nate. He was so constant that I didn’t think about what would happen when he left, when I didn’t have him anymore.

        The theater room was bursting with music and the smell of sugar cookies filled the air as usual. The room smelled almost too sweet. It had been Christmas in here so much longer than it had been Christmas out there.