AllFreeNovel
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“The Christmas presents.I’vebeen leaving the presents for you every year. I—thought you knew.”
I feel my heart break a little, for me, for him. All these years, all those funny gifts, uniquely things that I would like.
“The crystal hedgehog,” I say. The snow is a galaxy rushing at the windshield, the heavy snow tires thrumming.
“Remember how you always wanted one and your dad wouldn’t get it. You begged and begged but he never gave in.”
“No small animals in cages,” I answered. “That was the hill he planned to die on.”
He chuckles a little but it’s sad, quiet. “In the summer, the dragonflies used to hover over the lake, hundreds of them, all different colors.”
“I remember,” I say, keeping my eye on the road, not daring to look at him.
“That time we got lost in the woods. Your dad had to come looking for us. A compass so you never lose your way again.”
Tears come hot, drift down my cheeks.
“In kindergarten on the playground,” he goes on. “A ladybug landed on your arm.”
“And Max knocked it down and stepped on it.”
“You cried and cried. And I punched him the face and got sent to the principal.”
I wipe at my tears. “Max was always a bully.”
“Still is,” he says.
We both laugh a little, but I’m still crying. “We always talked about going to the beach together,” he continues. “But we never did. So, a shell to say there’s still time to go.”
The road seems endless, our dark errand distant suddenly.
“The lotus flower is the symbol of creativity,” he says. “That was the year you started your novel.”
“But didn’t finish it,” I say. “Barely started it, to be honest.”
“The locket with the seed inside,” he goes on. “Things with Bekka were really bad, and I had to face the fact that I never loved her. That in my heart, I always had this seed of hope that you’d look at me a different way one day. She knew it, you know. She knew I loved you. We fought about it sometimes.”
“I’m sorry.” I reach for his hand, and he laces his fingers through mine.
“You always loved geodes. How something so dull and common as a rock might hide magic inside of it. I thought maybe it was an allegory. Something as common as friendship, might be something more if you just looked past what you expected to see when you looked at me.”
“An allegory,” I echo, my voice just a whisper.
“You were always on me to read Rilke. I finally did.”
“You did?”
“I live my life in growing orbits, that spread out over the things of the world. . . . I still don’t know if I’m a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.”
All these years. All these gifts. Not clues. Not messages from Evan Handy.
Christmas love poems from my best friend.
I’m speechless as Badger pulls off the main road onto a smaller one. The snow seems to come heavier, the night growing ever darker.
“Badger,” I say.
“Can you stop calling me that?” he asks, giving me a quick glance. “It’s like the worst, ugliest nickname.”
