When we get home, I disappear upstairs to call Kayla. I'll use this good mood to propel our conversation. I'll use it as a guard from her bad attitude. Maybe it'll protect me. Maybe.

"Merry Christmas," Kayla sighs when she answers to phone.

I need more than this one good day to survive her melancholy.

"Merry Christmas!" I answer as joyfully as I can in response. I'm not going to let her bad mood bring me down.

"You sound happy," she sounds shocked.

"Surprisingly, I am," I say. We're on this rocky ground, again. We've been on this rocky ground so often this year, but it somehow still surprises me. I'm still unable to navigate it.

"Tell me what's so good," she sighs. "I need to hear something happy."

I consider how to even begin to tell her about the bizarre evening. It's like I'm in the Twilight Zone and nothing I say is going to make sense.

"Wait," she interrupts me before I even begin. "It's not about Isaiah, is it?"

"No, it isn't about Isaiah," I roll my eyes. I almost point out the double standard in her statement; she always got angry when I didn't want to hear about her boyfriends. But I don't.

"Okay," she says like she's getting comfortable to hear a bedtime story. "Tell me."

"It might be the strangest story I've ever told you," I start. "So, hang on."

I tell her about everything. I tell her about Dad coming over every day since the show. I tell her about me avoiding him. I tell her about tonight and the lights and 100% blue.

"You're forgiving your dad over blue Christmas lights?" She asks. I can hear the incredulity in her voice.

"I haven't forgiven him," I shake my head like she can see it.

"You called him 'Dad,'" she points out.

I want to argue, but I don't. I didn't even realize that I had made the shift. I didn't do it consciously. It just kind of happened.

"I'm just saying," I pull my knees up to my chest and press myself against the headboard of my bed. "Maybe he's different. Maybe he really does want to be part of our lives, again."

And for some crazy reason, I actually mean it.

"But he doesn't," Kayla argues quietly. "I mean. Somebody who actually loves his kids doesn't disappear for four years, Cade."

I shrug. She's got a point. This is the Kayla that I miss. This is the Kayla who lets my bounce ideas off her. This is the Kayla who tells me exactly what I need to hear, even when I don't want to hear it. This Kayla is the one who has always been there for me.

"You're right," I finally sigh. "I don't want to hate him, Kayla."

I'm out of things to say. Because I don't want to hate him. I've never wanted to hate my father. But he disappeared. He left me. He destroyed us. He made me hate him.

"Then don't hate him" I hear a tired, lazy smile in her voice. "But that doesn't mean you have to accept him with open arms."

I wish Kayla were here. I miss her. And we work better in person than on the phone.

"Do you wanna come over?" I ask her. I know that it's 7:00 on Christmas Eve, but I want to see her.

"No," she sighs. I deflate.

"But you can come over here, if you want," I hear relief in her voice. She was hoping I'd call. She was expecting I'd make the first move. And it only took me a month and a half. I'm the absolute worst.

"I'll be there after we eat."

"Good," she giggles. "I haven't showered in two days. That'll give me time to clean up."

When I get to Kayla's house, I feel like an outsider. I haven't been to her house in more than six months. I haven't been here since we started our school-year-long fight. I don't even know what we're fighting about, anymore. I don't want to be fighting anymore.

Kayla opens the door, hair still wet from her shower. Her sisters start giggling the minute they see me. This has been their default setting for the past two years. Both of them developed these odd crushes on me at some point and giggle uncontrollably whenever I'm around.

"Cade, come in!" Kayla's mom yells from the kitchen where she's standing over a vegetable tray. Of course, she's at a vegetable tray. I don't think I've seen any of Kayla's family ever eat a real meal. "Can I get you anything from the kitchen?"

Kayla subtly shakes her head no.

"I'm okay, thanks!" I yell back.

Kayla leads me to her bedroom.

"You dodged a bullet. Mom made ravioli with textured vegetable protein instead of meat."

I make a gagging noise as I fall into the bright pink bean bag on Kayla's floor.

"It's been forever since I've been in here," I say, not thinking. I look around her room. In the past four years it has gradually become less pink and more grown up. Today, the only remnant of hot pink is the bean bag I'm in and the fuzzy rug on which it sits. Kayla curls up in her papasan chair and I feel like we're complete again. We're back where we're supposed to be.

"How's your break been?" I ask her, lamely.

"I've had better," she shrugs. She looks sad, even through her smile. "I've been lonely."

Kayla's never this candid with me and I don't know if she's trying to make me feel guilty or just confiding in me as her best friend. I know that her loneliness is, in part, my fault.

"You could have come over," I say, but it sounds pointed. It always sounds pointed.

"You're busy hating me all the time," she says. It's not accusatory, it's said as a statement of fact.

"I don't hate you," I hope mine also sounds like a statement of fact.

She shrugs. It's like she's too tired to argue with me.

"I don't," I reemphasize. "I'm angry and I'm hurt. But I don't hate you."

"Can we just not do this today?" Kayla begs. "I've been fighting all Christmas break."

I nod.

"I brought your Christmas present," I reach into my pocket and pull out a flipbook.

"You haven't made a flipbook in a long time," she smiles, her eyes sparkling.

She takes it from me and starts flipping through the book, my animations popping to life.

Before our eyes, Kayla and I appear. We're sitting in my car and as she flips, it's apparent that we're speeding down the highway. Our smiles are broad, and our eyes are bright. The wind is whipping through Kayla's hair, tangling it around itself.

The scene zooms out and the car speeds down the highway. The view continues to zoom out until we're microscopic, until the moon can be seen circling the Earth until the Earth is circling the sun. Until the entire galaxy is spinning and expanding and pulsating.

The scene zooms out even more until the universe is just a white speck, a sparkle in a sea of black. Again, this sea grows smaller and smaller until it is a sparkle in an eye. Until it is a sparkle in Kayla's eye. Until Kayla is sitting in my car, exactly like the beginning.

"I love it," she whispers softly. Her eyes are sparkling just like in my flipbook. "Thank you so much."

"I'm glad you like it," I smile. It took me forever.

"Why did you make this if we're fighting?" She sounds sheepish. I'm assuming she didn't get me a present, but I'm not bothered. I'd rather give gifts than get them.

"We're fighting," I agree. "That doesn't mean we've called it quits on our friendship. We're too far in at this point; I'm too old to train a new friend."

She laughs and then sighs. Neither of us is sure if we want to keep fighting or not. We both feel so strongly about our opinions. We both feel so sure that we're right in our beliefs.

"And it's okay that we believe different things," I offer. "If we agreed on everything, we wouldn't enjoy each other."

She smiles a weak smile. She knows I'm right, but she'll never say it.

"And, it's okay if we keep fighting," I smile. "But let's call a ceasefire until after New Year's."

Kayla smiles, throws her arms around me and squeezes so hard I think my eyes are going to pop out.

"Since we're calling a truce," Kayla says seriously. "We need to talk about your father."

By the time we're through, we both feel like different people than when we started. It's like Christmas Eve is a chance for rebirth with everybody.

"You know what would make tonight better?" Kayla has a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

"These?" I pull a bag of mom's homemade Christmas cookies from my jacket pocket.

"Oh my god," Kayla giggles excitedly. "You have no idea how badly I hoped you'd bring these! I'll be right back!"

When Kayla returns, she's got two glasses of ice cold vanilla almond milk. I resist the urge to fake gag again. Why don't her parents buy anything real?

"When we graduate," I laugh. "I'm going to buy you four hundred pounds of junk food."

Kayla and I erupt into laughter as we tear into the cookies. We enjoy the glow of good friends and good conversation. We talk about nothing and everything. We become the people we were before this year. We become the friends we've always been. Why can't it always be this way?

"It's late," I look at my phone and see it's already 10:00. "I've got to get home."

I wish I didn't have to leave. Something in me fears that when I walk out of Kayla's bedroom, we'll go back to being the same fighting friends we've been all school year. That tonight was one isolated night of happiness amidst a fading friendship. I'm not ready to lose Kayla, yet.

When I get home, Dad's Porsche is still in the driveway. The lamp in the living room is still on and the TV is flickering. The smell of chimney smoke hangs in the air from somewhere in my neighborhood. I wish it would snow; then it would truly be a magical Christmas. But this is Texas. We never get snow at Christmas.

When I open the door, I find my parents on the couch. My dad has his hands inside my mom's shirt and his lips are pressed against her neck. A moan stops in the back of her throat when they hear the door open.

"Oh my God," I can't shut my mouth. What the hell? What are you supposed to do when your parents are making out on the couch?

"Cade," Mom says, straightening her shirt and smoothing her hair nervously. "We didn't hear you pull up."

"Well, that's apparent," I roll my eyes. I am not prepared for my parents to be dating each other. "What would y'all have done if Thomas had caught you?"

Mom looks sheepish, but Dad doesn't look embarrassed at all.

"He'll have to figure things out at some point," he says in a tone that can only be described as chauvinistic.

"He's seven," I say flatly. "I don't think he's ready for that whole birds-and-bees talk."

"We would have stopped when we heard him on the stairs," Mom says evenly. She's panicking but trying to save face. That's what the Swansons are all about, isn't it? Saving face.

"Just like you heard me coming in?" I'm trying not to be accusatory, but it's difficult.

The room is weirdly quiet for a while. Dad looks pleased with himself. Mom looks embarrassed. I feel sick. I want to go back to my art studio. Or back to my bed. Either way, I don't want to be here, doing this.

"Isn't it time you go home?" I ask, nodding toward the front door. Dad has overstayed his welcome today and I want to still like him tomorrow.

"It's late," Mom says. And for a moment I think she's agreeing with me.

"I know," I nod. "I'm about to fall asleep standing here. I need to put out Thomas's Christmas presents and go to bed."

"You don't have to do that," Mom smiles. "I figured your father and I could do that and he could spend the night here."

"No," I cross my arms. When did I become the parent?

"I always put out Thomas's presents. For four years, that's been my thing," I'm not even trying to hide my irritation or my jealousy. I'm too tired and the magic is wearing off.

"This year I'm not working," Mom says. "And we thought it would be nice to do Christmas together again, this year."

Her eyes are saying more than her words. She wants Dad to stay. She wants to super glue this family back together as quickly as possible. She wants it to be smooth and seamless and effortless. But that's not how things work.

"That makes sense," I say before I can stop myself. "He gets to disappear for four years and waltz right in and play Santa again."

"Cade," Mom warns. But I've passed the point of redirection.

"I'm trying, Mom," I'm exasperated and exhausted. "But this is too much for me. I'm sorry."

"You need to calm down," Dad pipes in with his sternest father voice. I almost laugh.

"It's okay," Mom says quietly. "I can take care of this."

"No, Teresa," Dad says sternly. "He needs to remember to respect me; I'm his father."

It sounds so immature when he says it. He says it like he's reminding himself that he has authority over me. He has no authority over me.

"That's hilarious," I cackle. "I didn't ask for a daddy this Christmas. I'm not Little Orphan Annie. I was doing just fine without you. This isn't a Christmas miracle. Don't kid yourself."

I storm my way to my art room, pleased with myself in my teenage rage. I'm well aware that I'm behaving exactly how I always try not to. But enough is enough. I can cut my mom some slack trying to rekindle the flame with the man she loved. I can understand her wanting him to be in our lives again.

But I can't deal with this. I can't deal with him trying to walk in after four years and act like he's SuperDad for Thomas and my disciplinarian and authority figure. He lost that right the day he walked out.

When I get into my studio, I look around me. There are mostly-finished pieces of art covering every square inch of my room. I sit down for a moment, trying to calm my rage. I look at Thomas's Christmas present, a large, very detailed, very realistic watercolor of our day at the zoo. This is life as it really happened. Thomas is on one side of gleaming glass; the tigress stalks patiently on the other. My heart aches when I see it. Tomorrow, we'll exchange gifts and he will appreciate my gift to him. Then he'll look at whatever expensive crap my father buys him, and he'll immediately love it. And once more, I'll be knocked back into my place.

I look at my mom's present. It's somewhat of a self-portrait. In black charcoal on white paper, I've drawn a very detailed version of my face, serious and intense. In white charcoal on black paper, I've created Thomas's face, smiling and jubilant. I wanted it to be like yin and yang. I want us to be opposite and complementary. There's a perpetual hint of mischief in Thomas's eye that I've tried to capture. I've hoped to capture soft, loving eyes on my own likeness.

When it's apparent I won't be getting any work done on my art, I leave my studio and make my way to my bedroom. At the top of the staircase, I hear my parents whispering quietly. Dad sounds angry; mom's apologetic. I stop and listen closely. It's like I'm ten years old, all over again.

"No," my dad says sternly. "He needs to learn some respect."

He sounds angrier than I anticipated.

"It's hard from him, Cole," Mom says. She sounds defending me? Why?

"I don't care, Teresa." I picture him with his arms crossed and his chest puffed out. I can see him looking at her disdainfully. "Life is hard; he doesn't get to have a chip on his shoulder."

"He kind of does," Mom says softly. I see her small as a mouse, scared of my dad's gleaming fangs. "He's justified in his anger."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Dad says. He's gritting his teeth. He's a boiling pot whose lid is about to fly off.

"I'm not saying the way he spoke to you is acceptable," Mom's no longer a mouse. She's a fox. Her voice is soft and comforting; her tone is as if she's agreeing with my father. But her words still support me.

"Then what are you saying?" My father is softened, if only a bit.

"I'm saying that maybe we pushed him too hard, too quickly," Mom's victorious. She's a lioness in her own right.

"Thomas has had no problems adjusting," Dad says flippantly.

"Thomas never has trouble adjusting," Mom half-laughs. "He's the easiest kid that way."

She's got a point. Thomas has always been able to go with the flow.

"Cade is different, though," Mom's voice has returned to the original hushed volume. It's becoming difficult to understand them.

"Cade deals with things at a different pace; he feels things a lot more intensely than most people," I almost feel offended, but she says it with such love. "It's what makes his art so beautiful."

Suddenly, my eavesdropping feels more invasive than it had before. Suddenly, it's not like I'm listening to a conversation about me, but that I'm listening to an intimate discussion between my parents. Guilty, I open my door, slip into bed, and give way to the weight of sleep.

"Bub!" An elated Thomas screams from my doorway as soon as I shut my eyes.

I moan and look at the alarm clock. Eight hours have passed, but I'm positive I've only slept ten minutes. I've got a pounding headache and the last thing I really want is for Thomas to be screaming from my doorway.

"Bub, come see!" Thomas waits impatiently for me at the door. "Bub, come on!"

I drag myself out of bed and walk down the stairs. I see Thomas as a blur, bounding from step to step faster than I can comprehend. I slug my way behind him. I cannot keep up with him this morning.

"Bub, look!" He's more excited than I've ever seen him. His voice is liable to wake the neighbors, it's so loud.

When I enter the living room, I'm surprised. The living room is covered in gifts. There are wrapped presents from one end of the room to the other. I can't even begin to process everything I'm seeing. We've never had this many gifts in our house at once. It kind of makes me sick. He's evolved to trying to buy our affection.

Thomas has a stack of presents practically as tall as he is. I know just by looking at them that my painting will pale in comparison. I know that Thomas will thank me, but he'll spend all day playing with the iPad or PlayStation or whatever is in that stack that will keep his attention. I know that Dad will cross his arms, pleased with himself for bribing Thomas into loving him. I know that I will be angry with both of my parents.

My own stack is nothing to sneeze at and I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I want to open them all and see what expensive crap he's bought me. I want to take stock and see what I can sell to fund my art or my education or maintenance on my car. I want to see what things he's thought will buy my heart. On the other hand, I want to ignore them out of protest. I cannot be bought. I want him to understand that buying me presents and buying my art aren't going to absolve him of his wrongdoing.

"You know Mom doesn't like us to open our presents until she's up," I tell Thomas quietly. He looks disappointed, but nods.

"You boys go ahead," Dad's deep voice comes from behind me, startling me. He's in pajama pants and a tank top. For a moment I'm taken aback by how fit my dad is; I guess I don't expect dads to be athletic, I don't know. I'm shocked that he's here, but I shouldn't be. I am shocked that he's in pajamas, though. Mom made it seem like a snap decision to let him stay over last night.

"No," I put my hand on Thomas's should before he can tear into his presents. "We'll wait for Mom."

"It's okay," Dad looks like he's about to grow a second head and devour me whole. "Let her sleep in."

"We will," Thomas smiles. "We can wait to open our presents until she wakes up."

I smile at my victory. I haven't totally lost Thomas yet. He's anxious to open his presents, but he's not anxious enough to violate our tradition.

"You don't have to keep making things so difficult," Dad says softly to me. I'm not sure if he sounds defeated or irritated, so I say nothing back. One of us has to be the mature one, but what I really want to tell him is that he started it.

"Let's go get breakfast ready," I tell Thomas. His eyes light up.

This is another of our traditions. Thomas and I have made Mom breakfast on Christmas morning every year since Dad left. Thomas always insists on making Mom cinnamon French toast with eggs and bacon. He always cuts the bread into hearts or Christmas trees or some other cute shape and calls it done. He's never participated in the actual cooking.

"I'll take care of things," Dad says, joining us in the kitchen.

"No, it's okay," I try to sound as pleasant as possible. "This is our tradition."

I see his face drop and for the first time I think I've actually hurt my Dad. It kind of upsets me and I don't expect it. I've been taking little digs at him for days now, but something about one of them finally connecting feels wrong. Vengeance isn't really my thing.

"Cade, can I talk to you in the living room?" Dad asks as Thomas starts cutting pieces of bread with large cookie cutters. It looks like he's decided on snowmen and is cutting stacks of circles of bread.

I follow my Dad into the living room. It's like there's no room for us among all the gifts. It's like there's no room for my thoughts among the gifts. They're big and they're pressing, and they represent so much more than Christmas presents. I don't know if they're apologies or if they're something insidious. I'm afraid they're beautifully wrapped rattlesnakes.

"When will I get to stop apologizing to you?" He asks. He sounds tired. Have I actually worn him down?

"When will you start?" I promised Mom I wouldn't fight with my father. But he's cornered me.

"I've been trying," he throws his hands up.

"No, Dad," I say, trying to hold my anger in. "You haven't. Can we please not do this today? It's Christmas. For Mom's sake can we please just pretend like we get along?"

"We used to be close," Dad says as a last-ditch effort. "Can we go back to that?"

I don't answer. I'm trying hard to keep my promise to my mom. I'm not going to fight with him. Not today. It's Christmas.

Instead, I go into the kitchen to help Thomas prepare breakfast. I notice he's set out enough food for all of us, including our father. I'm glad Thomas is more thoughtful than I am. I wouldn't have made any breakfast for him.

"Can I at least do something to help?" Dad says, sounding more like Thomas than like a parent.

"You can help me set the table," Thomas's smile is infections and I feel myself give way to it. I'm glad he's here as a buffer. It's impossible to be upset when Thomas is around. My family doesn't deserve Thomas. We're not good enough to have somebody as sweet as him.

"Yeah," Dad says in a voice that sounds a lot like mine when I speak to Thomas. "I think I can handle that."

While Thomas and Dad busy themselves setting the table, I get to work at the stove. I scramble eggs and fry bacon and cook French toast. I make the bacon too crispy and the eggs too dry. I'm always burning or almost-burning food. I catch a smile spreading across my face, broader and brighter than I expected this morning.

"We'll move to Austin," I tell myself as I plate breakfast. "Isaiah will be a teacher. I'll burn the lasagna, but the cheesecake will make up for it."

Mom emerges from her bedroom as I put all the food on the table.

"It smells delicious," she says by way of a greeting.

When she gets to the table, she blinks and looks from Dad to me to Thomas and back to me again.

"You guys look happy," she sounds almost surprised.

And I guess we do. But not for the reasons she's thinking. I can't wipe the foolish smile from my face as I think about me and Isaiah and getting away from all this. Thomas can't wipe the smile from his face because he's always smiling. My father can't wipe the smile from his face, but God knows why. He's probably picturing himself kicking puppies or something.

After we eat, Mom leads us into the living room. She's excited to watch us open our gifts. Thomas is excited to open his. I'm ambivalent. I can't shake the image of beautifully-wrapped rattlesnakes. It feels like opening these lavish gifts from my father would be betraying myself.

"I need to run upstairs," I tell Mom. "I left your presents upstairs."

I run up to my studio and grab Thomas's and Mom's presents. Something in me feels endlessly guilty that I don't have a gift for my father. I open and shut the door to my studio four times before I decide to dig through my completed works to see if there's anything I can give him to appease my own guilty conscience. I hate myself for this.

I sort through stacks of paper until I find a small pastel. It's kind of generic, just depicting a waterfall in a forest somewhere. He doesn't have to know I didn't make him anything. It'll ease my guilt and I won't have put out any extra effort. It's a win-win, right?

When I come back down, my family is waiting patiently. I figured Thomas would have torn into his presents, already, but he'd decided to wait for me. I feel my heart throb. I haven't lost him yet. He's still mine. Dad hasn't won, yet.

"I didn't wrap them, or anything," I tell my family. "But here are your presents."

I give Dad his, first. He looks at it for a long time, unsure what to say. He looks at it like a parent whose kid just gave him an ugly stick-figure drawing for the refrigerator. He looks like his next response is the make-or-break moment of our relationship.

"It's beautiful," he says. And for some crazy reason I believe he means it. "Thank you, Cade."

I feel oddly satisfied. It's gratifying to have your dad's approval, even if you don't like your father, guess. I can't stop the smile that spreads across my face as I thank him.

I give Thomas his watercolor painting. In the picture, he's as gleeful as he is in real life. I revel in this brief moment of superiority when my gift exceeds all else. He looks like I've given him the keys to the world. He looks like he's never been given anything so beautiful.

"Thank you, Bub!" He hugs me tight before dashing off to his room to put it safely away.

"And this is for you," I give Mom her yin and yang portraits of Thomas and me. Her eyes fill up with tears as she looks at them.

"Oh, Cade," she smiles so broadly the room is washed out from her brightness. "They're beautiful. These are amazing. Maybe your best work, yet."

I curl up in the warmth of her smile. I'm born anew when she hugs me. For just a moment, I'm 3-years-old and want nothing more than my mom to hold me forever. Things have gotten so complicated lately; I miss times like this. I miss my mom ruffling my hair and our late-night chats. I miss the mom I had before we moved and before Cole came back and before things got so oddly complicated.

When Thomas comes down, Mom instructs us to open our gifts. I watch as Thomas opens his presents and it was just as I expected. Dad has gone out of his way to buy our affections. Thomas has a new TV for his bedroom as well as a brand-new tablet wrapped in beautiful packages. There's a small laptop and an e-reader. So much technology. So many useless things that a seven year old doesn't need. Why didn't Mom tell him not to give Thomas those presents?

"Oh my god, oh my god," Thomas says as if it's one word. "These are awesome! Thank you, Daddy! Thank you, Momma!"

I cringe when Thomas says Daddy. It seems too familiar. It seems to intimate. Dad is mostly a stranger to Thomas.

"Cade, you're not going to open yours?" Mom encourages. She's pressed against Dad, his arm draped casually around her. It looks territorial, not loving. Or maybe I'm projecting. Is my hate so deep for my father that I can't imagine him doing anything kind?

My stack of presents is as extravagant as Thomas's but tailored to me. There's a new floor lamp for my easel, with a dock for a tablet. I don't have a tablet, though, until I open the next present and there's a brand-new, state-of-the-art drawing tablet. There are high-quality paints imported from Australia. There are canvases and real-hair brushes. The extravagance is too much. This is just stuff. These aren't gifts. This is hush money.

I've never known Christmas to be so unfulfilling.

I thank my parents all the same and feel guilty as I cart my new things to my art studio. Just because I didn't ask for this stuff doesn't mean I can't use it. I decide, as I arrange things, that I won't sell any art using the materials my father gave me. I will donate it all to charities. I will use his hush money to make my PRIDE in the Urban Jungle piece. I'll put his bad decisions to good use.