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DEAR SANTA
Piper
Piper—Age 5
Cannon—Age 10
My favorite Christmas song was playing. The lights on Auntie Emmie’s beautiful tree twinkled to it. It was mesmerizing, and all I wanted to do was stare at it as I twirled around in my pretty new dress. I imagined this was what a princess wore to Christmas parties, the way the red tulle made the skirt all poofy.
The tiara Mommy had put in my hair before we came over to Auntie Emmie’s house made me feel even more like a princess. Everyone had said I looked beautiful or adorable or “too stinking cute for my own good”—whatever that meant.
As I danced around, I saw a few presents, but none of them had names on them. Bending, I peeked at them a little closer, trying to see who they were for. Maybe they were just for decoration. Aunt LeeLee wrapped empty boxes with glittery paper and placed them around her house to make everything more festive. I thought it was weird, but Mommy said to each their own.
I didn’t know what that meant, but Mommy loved Aunt LeeLee, and she probably didn’t want to hurt her feelings because she thought it was weird too.
Mommy said before we came to the party that someone was getting engaged tonight. She didn’t say who, and I really didn’t care. If I cared, then they would make me be the flower girl. Again. I was a big girl now, and I didn’t want to be a little flower girl. I wanted to see all the presents. Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawled around to the back of the tree. If Asher saw me, he would say I was being nosy. He didn’t understand because he was older than me, and he knew everything.
Well, I needed to know things too.
But people thought I was too little to actually explain most things to me. If I wasn’t nosy, I wouldn’t ever learn anything.
I crawled around the entire tree, but I couldn’t find a single present that had a name on it. Seeing Auntie Emmie nearby, I crawled toward her, trying to avoid the many people walking around the party. If anyone would know who each present belonged to, it was her. Not just because this was her house either.
Auntie Emmie knew everything.
Just like Asher.
When someone called her name, she turned to leave the room. Everyone was leaving, going out onto the patio. I crawled faster, wanting to ask her before she went to watch whoever become engaged, but someone tripped over me.
“I’m sorry!” I cried, hoping I wouldn’t get in trouble. No one else was in the living room, though. Just me and whomever I’d made fall. “Please don’t be mad. Santa won’t bring me a present if—”
“Santa?” Cannon Cage spat the name at me as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.
I bit my lip as I realized I’d made a bigger mistake than I realized. Not only had I tripped the one person I always dreaded seeing—and yet always wanted to see—but I’d made him spill his cup of milk and the plate of desserts he’d been carrying. The milk was in a puddle on the floor between us, but the yummy chocolate cake was all over him. There was icing in his hair, smeared across his face, and smooshed into his shirt.
Cannon was never nice, so I knew this wasn’t going to end well. But the good news was, no matter how mean I had been to him back in the past, Santa had always brought me a gift anyway. I was pretty sure Cannon was on the naughty list.
“Only babies believe in Santa.” Cannon grabbed a handful of the cake sticking to his shirt. I should have run away as soon as I realized whom I’d made fall, but that weird feeling I always got in my tummy when I saw his dimples had kept me in place. He rubbed his hand across my dress, covering me in cake and icing.
I gazed down at the fingerprints on my new dress and felt tears sting my eyes. “I’m not a baby. I’m five now.”
“Santa isn’t real,” he sneered, getting to his feet.
“Liar!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. My hands balled into fists at my sides, but I reminded myself not to hit him. Last time I had, I’d hurt my hand. Because I’d slugged him in the head. Lyric and Luca had taught me how to punch without hurting my hand the next day, but I promised Mommy and Daddy I wouldn’t hit anyone. Not even stupid Cannon. “Santa is so real!”
“No, he’s not,” Cannon said with one of those evil smiles. It made my tummy hurt. Every time I saw him smile like that, something bad always happened. But that wasn’t why my tummy hurt. It was those dimples. Why did they have to be so…so… Ugh! “Your parents lied to you. He doesn’t exist.”
“I saw him!” I argued.
“Where?” he asked with a mean laugh. “At the mall?”
“Yeah!”
“That’s just some guy in a suit with a fake beard.” He bent his knees so his eyes were level with mine. I hated when he did that. It made me feel even smaller than I normally did. I didn’t like having short legs. “Your mom and dad tell you that lie because they don’t like you enough to tell you the truth. They think you’re stupid, which you are.”
“I. Hate. You!” I screamed and tackled him to the ground. I’d promised Mommy and Daddy, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter if I never got another present ever again. Cannon was a liar. A big, stupid, mean liar. “I hate you!” I yelled as I hit him again.
My hand hurt, but that didn’t matter either. Tears spilled down my face, and I could feel snot dripping from the tip of my nose. My heart hurt. He was a liar. He had to be. Santa was real. Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t lie to me. They loved me. They would only ever tell me the truth.
“Piper!”
I didn’t stop hitting Cannon even when I heard someone yell my name. My knees were in his stomach, and I pushed my whole weight on him as he struggled beneath me. He might be taller than me, by a lot, but he was just as skinny as Asher.
“Piper Alexis Bryant!”
Hearing Mommy’s voice, I lifted my head defiantly, but I couldn’t see her through my tears.
“Holy crap!” someone, I thought it was Shaw, exclaimed. “Cannon, what did you do to make Piper so mad?”
“N-nothing,” he whined, turning his head to keep me from hitting him in the eye and nose, but my fists hit him in the cheek and mouth instead when he did that. His bottom lip started to bleed. I hit him again and again and again. “She’s crazy.”
Suddenly I was picked up, and Daddy turned me around in his arms. His blue eyes frowned down at me, and I gulped, but I lifted my chin. His lips twitched funnily, like he was trying not to smile, but his eyes were still full of “the look,” the one he always gave Asher and me when we’d done something naughty.
