Chapter Thirty-Five

      “Happy Christmas, Liz!” Lauren cried, wrapping her arms tightly around me so any chance of breathing I had previously possessed evaporated within seconds.

      “Uh, happy Christmas,” I choked out.

      “This is for you!” she said vivaciously, handing me a small, red box with a white ribbon tied around it. Quizzically, I glanced down at the small present, wondering why she had given it to me. It was only Christmas, after all.

      “What is it and why are you giving to me?” my word choice didn’t come out as smooth as I had intended.

      “You have to open it, silly! It’s Christmas! How could I not? Besides, we’re friends!” a lively smile surfaced on her face.

      “Um, th—” I began, though stopped when I felt two arms wrap around my waist, pulling me in, until I was pressed up against the culprit’s firm chest.

      “Merry Christmas, Liz,” a voice whispered into my ear, sending my senses into hyper mode.

      “Eric,” I exhaled after quickly realizing who it was. “Merry Christmas, to you too.”

      “You two are so cute together!” Lauren squealed, staring dopily at the two of us.

      “Gee, uh, thanks,” I managed to get out, Eric’s arms still attached to my middle as Lauren’s gift remained in the palm of my hand.

      “Well, anyways, I’m going to go find the girls, but you two have fun!” she said merrily. “But not too much fun,” she quickly added with a suggestive tone.

      “Bye, Lauren,” Eric called after she had already departed. “So, uh, Liz, can I show you something?” His arms slacked from my torso, spinning me around so we were face to face. I set the item Lauren had given me on a side table, before replying.

      “Um, sure?” I said, hoping that it involved escaping the people-filled room in which we were currently residing. That was a big thing I hated about holidays: the people.

      For some, the festive times in which various things happen to be commemorated were spent with family members. Growing up with a single mother who grew up as an only child and whose parents lived all the way out in Vermont in the middle of nowhere, that wasn’t the case for me. Though we currently resided in New York, Vermont only a four or so hour drive, my mother had lost contact with her parents long ago.

      Long ago, Monica Turner was a young seventeen year old with a passion for, though it sounded as cheesy as can be, fashion, and wanted to live in a city. An expansive farm in the middle of Vermont was where she had spent her youth, and she was done. It was funny, now, thinking back to my mother growing up in the heart of nature. This was the same lady who hated walking on dirt because she thought that would “contaminate” her shoes.

      Basically, she worked hard and then met Kit. They hit it off from the start, and decided to launch a company. And thus, a shoe company and was born. The farmer’s daughter became the president of one of the most respected brand names in fashion, and that was where the tale concluded. It was your typical, American dream-like fairytale that had its happy ending like every story yearned for.

      Anyways, for holidays, we didn’t have family, so my mom invited just about every person with whom she had ever had a conversation. Currently, the house was packed with people— some I knew, others I had never seen. The majority of the people were her coworkers or people she had crossed paths with in the fashion industry. And then, there were the people I was associated with that she felt compelled to invite. To say that Monica Turner “liked” holidays would be the understatement of the millennium—she loved holidays.

      “So, Liz,” Eric said, clutching my hand securely as he led me threw the mass of people that had invaded my house, and were currently conversing and drinking wine. “I know that—”

      “Liz!” someone called, interrupting before Eric had a chance to get out whatever the hell he felt the need to.

      I slowly looked around my crowded surroundings, searching for the source of the voice that had uttered my name. My eyes landed on a boy with chestnut hair and an unforeseen sweater vest that aged him thirty years. A dark-haired girl I didn’t recall was draped around his arm, her own eyes of a familiar blue gazing inquisitively into mine.

      “Well, hello there, Mr. Rodgers! Didn’t recognize you for a second,” I said with a smug smile, as he and the girl advanced.

      “You look like you got gangbanged by a group of slutty Santas, so shut it!” he warned, noticing my mouth open to say something else in relation to his odd choice of attire.

      “I do not!” I instantly defended myself. Pausing, I quickly analyzed what my mom had given me to wear: a bright red, strapless dress that stopped a good six inches above my knee and a pair of white heels that would be the death of me if I ever survived the night. Fuck. He was right. “Monica picked it out!”

      “I ought to go find that woman and thank her,” he winked at me teasingly. “Oh, hey, Eric! Wonderful to see you again, too!” the boy finally decided to acknowledge Eric’s existence.

      “Trevor,” Eric returned, his tone suddenly hostile, as he stationed his arm tautly around my waist, bringing me into him.

      The girl beside Trevor roughly elbowed him in the side, causing him to wince. “Oh, and this is Mackenzie.”

      “Hi,” the girl said, taking initiative and grabbing my hand firmly to shake. She smiled at me, and then her scrutiny absorbed Eric. “Eric.”

      “Mackenzie,” was all Eric said unsociably, leading me to believe that there was a story behind his abnormal behavior.

      “Her younger brother is that dude who was here the morning after the party with you,” Trevor told me, as Mackenzie’s eyes slowly averted back to me at the mention of the word ‘brother.’

      “You slept with my brother?” she questioned at the same time that Eric asked, “You slept with Collins?”

      “Uh, no,” I said simply, hating the assumption had even surfaced. “Well, kinda,” I added after thinking about the wording of the inquiry and the time that seemed so long ago. Technically, I did sleep with Dylan, though nothing more. We closed our eyes and dreamt next to each other. That was it.

      “Kinda?” the two said in unison, as Eric’s hold on me stiffened even more, if possible.

      “We didn’t have sex,” I elaborated for clarification as Eric let out a deep breath.

      “You’re Lizzie, aren’t you?” Mackenzie assessed after staring at me for about five seconds, though it felt like an eternity.

      “Yup,” I nodded slowly.

      “I’ve heard about you,” her face lit up, though darkened quickly when she glanced back over to Eric.

      “I’m sorry I can’t say the same for you,” a finger of Eric’s began to noticeably trace patterns on my arm. “You’re his sister?”

      “It would seem that way,” her mouth cocked into a smirk.

      “W-we have to go,” Eric said abruptly, slightly stumbling on his words. He tugged at my side, indicating that he wanted to leave, but I didn’t budge.

      “It was nice meeting you,” I said genuinely to the girl who was related to Dylan.

      “Right back at’cha,” she smiled sincerely, the gesture quickly transforming into a bleaker, sly one when she addressed Eric. “So, did you finally find a new girlfriend?” Her voice came across as innocent, though the expression plastered to her face told otherwise. There was a missing piece of information, of which I wasn’t aware.

      “We’re going,” Eric proclaimed in finality, neither bothering to reply to Madison, nor to ask my opinion on my future whereabouts.

      He dragged me along with so much force—so much need. There was something about him that was, well, divergent than the normal, pleasant Eric with whom I was accustomed to dealing. His mien had altered substantially following the run-in, and I had a hunch it didn’t have anything to do with a silent, nonexistent testosterone-battle between him and Trevor. There was something about that girl—about Mackenzie—that had unhitched his typically passive, placid, and poised demeanor, and transformed it into something unknown to the likes of me. The Eric I was currently being hauled by wasn’t the boy I had gotten to slowly know over the past few months—he was someone different, and not in a good way.

      With an arm still keeping its firm clasp at my mid section, a new Eric brought me to the front door of my house, withdrawing from it, so we were outside.

      I would say that the night sky was a canvas of blackness, the only things illuminating it being the few stars and full moon, but that wasn’t the case. As per usual for the time of year, the outside of my home looked like a gingerbread house on crack. Monica had put up so many lights, that the structure could’ve doubled for the sun.

      She never squandered her time on the gimmicky ploys, like inflatable Santas or snow globes, but rather took the traditional approach by using the simple, yet elegant and classy, white lights that were toned down enough, so they appeared to be a warm cream color. Practically every inch of the dwelling itself, in addition to the yard, was swathed in a jumble of the glowing embellishments.

      “I got this for you,” Eric spoke, releasing me, so we stood less than a foot apart. He pulled a small box out of his back pocket, and handed it to me, the unfamiliar disposition he had taken on still looming about in the atmosphere. Unlike the box that Lauren had earlier given me, this one was of a soft material, and a dark blue.

      “Thanks,” I said, studying it carefully.

      “Open it,” he urged. I did as instructed and my eyes met a golden “E” fastened to a matching chain, the metal glimmering off of the light sources coming from every direction.

      “It’s pretty,” I commented, wondering why jewelry was always the clichéd gift to give. I wasn’t complaining, for I was completely appreciative that Eric had even thought of me, let alone got me something, but, of all the things, why a necklace? Why go the passé route? “Is the ‘E’ for Elizabeth, or is it supposed to stand for ‘Egotistical Eric’?”

      “Both,” he shrugged, offering up a smile that lacked all traces of legitimacy by the foreign gaze that his eyes withheld. “Can I put it on you?”

      “Um, yeah,” I gulped in response to his utterances of distance. He extracted the thin cord from the case, and then secured it around my neck, so it just dipped below my collarbone. “Thank you.”

      Instead of the normal response of something along the lines of, “You’re welcome,” or even a simple, “It was nothing,” Eric’s hands clamped down at my sides, and he pressed me into the side of the house. My exposed shoulders brushed the blue paneling of the exterior, as the chilled December air finally caught up to my body temperature. It was freaking cold out! I think there was a detour my nerves took before entering my brain, for I always had the problem of being misguided by my observation of the whether, until it was too late.

      “Eric, I’m cold,” I stated, a steady stream of winter hitting me like a continuous torrent of frozen tennis balls. “Can we go in?”

      “No,” the phrase that exited his lips was so alien to me—so severe.

      I had grown up my entire life being told that I could do anything that I wanted. Monica Turner was a strong feminist, and wanted to instill some of those strong values into her daughter, thus the simple expression rarely left her mouth. I grew up in a world where everything was attainable. Sure, some things took more work than others to achieve, but everything was reachable, nonetheless, creating a stranger out of the term, “No”.

      “Seriously, Eric, I’m fucking freezing, can we please go in?” I attempted to wiggle out of his hold, but he wasn’t having it.

      “No,” he reiterated again. “I can’t go back in there. I just can’t!” His face lunged forward, diminishing all of the previous space that had acted as a slight barrier. His lips roughly swept across my own, the pleasant feeling I was habituated with substituted for one of aggression and dominance. The kiss wasn’t easy and light like normal, but rather the opposite. I didn’t like it.

      “Stop it!” I screamed, managing to pull back from Eric’s determined mouth.

      “No,” he echoed for the third time. His lips latched right back onto mine with so much force and control, that I thought the only way to tear him away from me was by one of those claw machines, like in arcades. I quickly pulled back yet again, wondering how my perception of the sensation that kissing an individual held could change in a matter of seconds. The Eric I was currently with wasn’t the one I knew, or even remotely wanted to get to know.

      “Yes,” I countered as firmly as I could, placing a hand on his chest to distance our proximity. I decisively ripped myself from him, walking over to the door, questioning what had happened. The boy before me wasn’t Eric. He simply couldn’t be.

      My fingers clamped around the handle of the door, about to open it, when Eric’s voice, running dry with emotion, halted me. “So, you’re just going to leave? I guess it’s only fair, everyone leaves eventually, don’t they?”

      “Look, Eric,” I fiercely turned back to face him, my stomach deciding to practice a complex gymnastics routine that could easily make its way to the Olympics, “I don’t know your problem is, but seriously, you need to cut it out. I don’t like this, I don’t like how you’re acting, and I’m cold.” And with that, I returned to my original task of opening to the door, and storming into the heated house.

      When my heightening shoes hit the warm wood of the floor, discussion meeting my ears, I knew I needed to get away. There was something about the way Eric had acted that I couldn’t comprehend. Ordinarily, he was such a sweet guy. Why was it all of the sudden that he did a one-eighty, turning into a complete stranger?

      After clomping up the steps from the landing, I made my way down the hall of tedium, until finally reaching my citadel. As I pushed open the door, I immediately noticed that the lights were on, which was odd, considering I was almost positive I had turned them off before the evening had commenced. My eyes traveled around the room, searching for something out of pla—

      “Who’s this?” a husky voice I knew well inquired casually, as if it were normal to lurk about in peoples’ bedrooms without an ounce of consent.

      My eyes snapped over to my dresser, where I saw yet another boy. It was like that gender consumed half of the population or something! This boy, however, looked to be saner than the last, and possibly from the same planet from I.

      He wore a pair of brownish-beige pants that were of a different material than the normal denim he usually went with— khakis, I presumed. A blue collared shirt fit his upper half, though was partially unbuttoned, exposing a white under shirt. Okay, so may he wasn’t as sane as I had thought.

      My eyes then wandered over to what his query had been referring. In his hand he held a rectangular object that I recognized well. A smile forced its way onto my face as I realized what he gripped.

      It was a picture of Justin and me from when we were about seven or eight that my mom had taken. Our arms were over each other’s shoulders, and I possessed a grin lacking my two front teeth, as was appropriate for my age. We were sitting on a bench, both in oversized T-shirts, waiting to get called up to bat during a T-ball (a disgrace to the sport of baseball of which it was heavily influenced) game we were somehow apart of. It was a cute scene that was always able to make me happy.

      “An old friend,” I finally answered with a nostalgic sigh. “Why are you here?”

      “I don’t like holidays or large amounts of people,” he answered honestly. “Why are you here?”

      “It’s my room,” I stated, rolling my eyes.

      “Where’s Wilson?”

      “I met your sister,” I quickly switched topics, not wanting to even think about Eric right now.

      “Was Wilson with you?” he injected the one matter I specifically didn’t want to discuss. I nodded slowly, as he continued to speak. “Well, I’m sorry I missed that little confrontation! Who cried first? Was there blood? How bad was it?”

      “What are you talking about?” I demanded in regards to his sudden string of odd questions.

      “Doesn’t matter,” he let out a clipped laugh. “So, you met Mac. I’m sorry. And, I’m assuming, considering that you’re not currently with Wilson, that he overreacted to the encounter. Do I know people, or do I know people?”

      “Firstly, she seemed nice,” I said, yanking one of my shoes off by the heel, causing it to fly across the room, almost grazing Dylan’s shin. “Sorry,” I mumbled with a smirk, doing the same to the other form of torture as I kept talking. “And, secondly, how the hell did you know that Eric overreacted?”

      “She always does at first,” he nodded, his eyes still fixated on the aged photo, “and I guessed about the Wilson thing.”

      “But how’d you know?” I pressed, wiggling my toes after hours of them being crammed.

      “Not my story to tell, Lizzie,” he shook his head, setting the picture back down on my dresser where it had originally been deployed. I merely nodded, not caring if he saw me or not.

      Lazily, I ambled over to my bed, and dropped down, completely drained. The worst part about this entire ordeal that was the holiday party was that I had to face it sober. Sure, there was a ton of booze in the house, but, thanks to Monica Turner’s brilliant idea of hiring a bar tender, I wasn’t allowed to get anything without an ID— not even a freaking shot of Eggnog. It sucked.

      “You don’t happen to have a bottle of beer on you, do ya?” I asked earnestly, shutting my eyelids as I allowed my body to take in the comfort of the mattress.

      “Nope,” Dylan said, as I felt my fictional bubble of personal space being popped by a rather large individual who had decided to lie down next to me.

      “Can you get off, please?” I requested.

      “What happened with Wilson? Did he push you away? Did he push you too far? Did he physically push you? If he did, I swear to god I’ll go kill the guy,” Dylan jabbered away. I pressed a hand on his solid chest in an attempt to drive him out of my perimeter, which he had so boldly burst without a care in the world.

      “I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled, turning my body so my mouth was against a pillow.

      “Lizzie, I care about you, I don’t want anyone to hurt you,” he used his newfound powers of persuasion as he spoke, “what happened?”

      I let out a swayed sigh, knowing that he would keep pressing until I eventually gave in and told him. “You know that feeling you get when you find out someone’s not the way you thought they were? Like when you found out that Santa wasn’t real or—”

      “Wait, Santa’s not real? Lizzie! Don’t say things like that!” he feigned shock, as he brought my back against his chest, his arms guiding themselves around my torso in a soothing manner.

      “Anyways, I had one of those insights tonight,” I overlooked his less than mature remark.

      “Did you now?” he positioned his chin on my shoulder, too close, my personal bubble completely demolished.

      “Eric’s not perfect,” I breathed out, verbally admitting it to myself. “Sure, he looks like a Ken Barbie doll and can be really sweet, but he has his faults— we all do.”

      “Got that right, Lizzie,” Dylan yawned, his voice millimeters away from my ear.

      “Merry Christmas, Dylan,” I murmured, Dylan’s presence vanishing the unwanted emotions that had come with Eric’s erratic conduct. There was something about Dylan that gave him the capability to rid me of all anxiety. He was one those people that I felt like I could tell practically anything to without being judged because, well, I trusted him. I trusted Dylan Collins.

      “Merry Christmas, Lizzie.”