Almost a little like me.
“You call this decorated?” I looked at it, the randomly placed baubles, the tinsel sprawled almost diagonally. “It’s terrible. Barely any decorations on the old thing. Maybe we could fix it up.”
Stretching out, I grabbed a bauble, using some care to remove it from the branch.
Kit’s hand met mine. “No, stop,” she said, her grip tightening. “That’s stupid. Honestly, you’ve done enough.”
“I want to do this,” I said, my next words tumbling out before I could stop them. “If I’m being honest, you’ve saved me from a very lonely Christmas.”
Her grip softened slightly, her gaze warming. “And you’ve saved me from freezing. Twice.”
“I thought we agreed you aren’t normally the saving type.” I held her gaze, that determination I’d met at every turn shining brightly…
I broke. Immediately.
“Fine,” I agreed. “We’ll find something else.”
A smile slowly curled onto her lips, an excitement showing through.
“But…” I said, watching that pink curve falter. I held the glittery bauble out towards her, specks of gold sparkle pressed into my fingertip. “You’ve got to hang this one.”
She looked between the bauble and the tree, suddenly unsure. Tentatively, she took it, rolling it in her hand, leaving a faint trail of glitter against her skin.
I couldn’t look away as she thought over the tree, her eyes going over every branch, every space available. Kit stretched forward, decoration in one hand, the other pulling her long blonde hair over her shoulder, revealing her long neck.
Carefully, she hung the bauble, leaning back to evaluate her work, her pink lips separated.
The rest of the tree might have looked chaotic, but this one bauble, the sole focus of her attention, was the eye of the storm.
“Happy now?” Her voice rang right through me, not only the challenge of it but the warmth too. That smile on her lips felt so special to me, as if it had been a while since anyone had won a genuine look of joy from her.
More than you know,I thought to myself.
nine
KIT
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
“You must be joking.” I came to a full stop while Jonah toddled on ahead, the snow nearly up to the top of his wellies.
He looked cute – a knitted hat on his head, that signature goofy smile on his lips – but the sharp incline of a hill before us was more distracting. “Of course not.”
I took a pleading look at the sky. The storm hadn’t started again, and some stars had even managed to peek out from under the clouds. It should have been a blessing. “I’ll watch from down here,” I said, analysing the structural integrity of the blue sled tucked under his arm. There were two hills: a small baby hill that looked safe enough, and, behind it, a monster hill with a degree of slope too insane to trust something as flimsy as plastic.
With skiing, I had years of practice and knew how to stop. I’d tackled black runs in the Alps. At least then I had a helmet, not to mention the trained first-aiders on site. This was sliding down on a kid’s toy, no brakes, no dignity. If I broke a limb, it was on Jonah to drag me to safety.
“Come on,” he insisted, dropping it to the ground. “It will be fun.”
“Fun is not flinging myself down a mountain on a piece of plastic you stole from a child.” I hadn’t even changed into proper snow clothes. I only planned to poke my head out.
“Just the small one,” Jonah countered.
Without much more argument, I followed him up. If there was anything I’d learned in my short time knowing Jonah, it was that he usually got his way.
We reached the top, and Jonah triumphantly placed our ride on top of the snow. “Are you ready?”
“To break my leg? Not really,” I said, reluctantly plopping myself down on the sled, trying to ready myself for the descent.
