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“Oh, we have to go in here.” Hot chocolates long since discarded, I pull Andrew into the glass hut to look around.
He chuckles, having grown used to my enthusiasm, I think.
After greeting the attendant, I look around, admiring the wares until I turn and see a green ceramic Christmas tree with lights on one of the tables.
My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my god.”
“What’s wrong?” Andrew comes to my side.
Tears sting my eyes as a flood of memories wash over me.
“Kenzie, are you okay?” His voice is soft as though he’s afraid he might startle me.
I nod. “I’m okay. It’s just that this Christmas tree reminds me of my grandparents and the Christmas holidays I used to spend with them.”
I finger one of the lights, remembering how my grandma would always let me stick them in every year when I arrived at their house.
“Your family spent Christmas with your grandparents?”
“No. Just me. My parents always wanted to travel and so did Finn, so after enough begging, they let me spend every holiday with my grandparents in Colorado from the time I was seven.”
The nostalgia is overwhelming and suddenly the space feels too small, too hot and confining.
“Let’s go.” I bolt out of the shop into the crush of people walking down the center of all the huts.
“Kenzie.” Andrew takes my upper arm and steers me off to the side so we’re out of the way, forcing me to stop. His gaze darts all over my face as though he’ll find some clue as to what my problem is. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
His lips form a thin line. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say that. But don’t stand here and pretend you’re fine when you’re clearly not.”
This attitude of his is the first glimpse I’ve had in a long time of the Andrew I met that first night.
“That tree is really like one that my grandma used to have, only hers was white. She used to do her house up to the nines with holiday decor, and that tree was my absolute favorite of all of it. Seeing it just took me back, that’s all.”
Andrew looks at me to continue, so I do.
“They both passed away in a six-month span of each other a few years ago. Seeing such a stark reminder of my grandma just brought up some of the grief again, you know?”
He frowns and nods. “Do you have the tree now?”
I shake my head. “No, my parents went to Colorado to have all my grandparents’ stuff sorted after my grandma passed, and even though that’s the one thing I asked them to set aside for me, they forgot. It got donated or thrown away, they weren’t sure.”
His jaw hardens. “That’s bullshit.”
“Pretty much. It’s not like it would bring her back, but putting it out each Christmas would have been a nice reminder of her, you know?”
He nods.
“You already know how I felt growing up. The time I spent at my grandparents’ house was some of the happiest of my life. I always felt safe and accepted and loved there.”
“That’s why you love Christmas so much.” He says it more to himself than to me, but I nod anyway. He frowns, and the crease at the bridge of his nose deepens.
I study his face for a moment. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because now I feel like an even bigger asshole than I usually do.” He wraps one hand around the back of his neck and cringes.
“I’m not following.”
