Merry Christmas, cousin!
Aleksandr
Have you found her?
Nikolai
No “Happy Holidays” back?
Aleksandr
Have. You. Found. Her.
Nikolai
No. She’s proving to be exceedingly difficult to find. Not spotted on any city cameras, and no digital footprint that we can find. It’s like she doesn’t exist. Did you make out with a ghost or something?
Aleksandr
No.
Find her, Nikolai.
Nikolai
*sighs*
I will.
…
Aleksandr
Merry Christmas, asshole.
A few weeks later,I was back in the car on the way to Mia’s apartment—the only place I went beyond the theater, the cafe, andoccasionallyJules’s house.
Lately, I’d been staying there more often than at my own apartment, mostly because with Mia, it was easier to fall asleep. Easier to pretend that my life wasn’t a cage, that I wasn’t the only bird in there, both lonely and alone.
Mia, the human equivalent of a hummingbird, might not have been in the cage with me, but she was hovering outside of it with all her might, trying to break me out with every glare aimed at the back of Jules’s head while he drove us carefully down the streets, which were alight with holiday glow.
It was a magical time of year, one of myfavoritetimes of year. And this year, it was even better because I got to perform in a show I’d always wanted to be a part of—even if I was just asnowflake and a flower. Perhaps next year, if our stern director’s looks were anything to go by, I would be more.
I hoped I would. But hope was a fickle thing in a mind like mine. A ticking clock that would eventually run out of time.
“Not perfect… Not perfect… Not perfect…”
I tried to tear my mind away from the voice, instead turning to Mia, who was miming strangling my brother. I elbowed her to knock it off, and she rolled her eyes like a sullen teenager.
Which made sense considering I felt alotlike a teenager right now, sitting in the back seat of my brother’s car on my way to a sleepover. But in my defense, I was only in the backseat because Elsie was in the front.
Elsie came over for dinner more often than she didn’t, especially when I wasn’t home. She’d cut off her family long ago, and my parents were off gallivanting around the world, uncaring of what Jules and I were up to. Jules’s dinners with Elsie were special to him, and he was always a little more lenient with me going to Mia’s when she was coming over.
Just friends, my butt,I thought. I watched through the rearview mirror as my brother’s eyes continued to go to her like a sunflower following the sun.
“All right,” he said, pulling up to Mia’s familiar building. “You’ll call me in the morning to take you back?”
“Yes, Jules,” I huffed. “See you later.”
