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I hesitate. Xavier may be a big jerk, but he's not a murderer. I'm sure of that. And the tunnel thing seems to be pointed in the right direction. When he crouches low and disappears, I follow.
"I'm glad I ran into you tonight," Xavier says as we slosh through a puddle.
"You were dreaming of walking through a dark tunnel thing with me?"
"No." He steps out of the tunnel into light so bright it's hard to see. The colorful lights of the tree glow behind him as I face him. "I wanted to see you to tell you I'm sorry and I—"
Movement over his right shoulder catches my eye. It's my mother, and she's making a break for it.
"There she is." I skirt around Xavier and catch Mom just on the other side of a bushy branch where she's been stopped cold by the sight of a pink disco ball ornament.
She pulls it off the tree and stuffs it in her over-sized purse. Damn it. The giant purses she and Natalie brought with them tonight should have been a dead giveaway they were up to something.
I yank on the bag, but Mom's holding on tight. "Mom, come on. They're going to lower the drapes any second now."
"I just want to grab a few more." She's staring at the tree like it's magical. "Some of these look really expensive."
I yank the bag away from her, but she grabs three more ornaments off the tree and wraps her arms around them. Aunt Natalie flies past us and ducks into the tunnel, big bag stuffed to brimming.
Outside, the crowd starts counting down. "Ten… Nine…"
"Come on," Xavier hisses. "We have to get out of here."
I grab Mom's elbow and pull just as the drapes fall to the ground. There's no slow lowering, it's an all-at-once dramatic drop.
Mom sprints to the tunnel after Natalie. I look out at the crowd, horror creeping over me. Some of the onlookers are cheering, but the closest to us are staring in shock.
I turn to Xavier, planning to tell him to save himself, but the idiot grabs the nearest ornament off the tree and holds it close to his chest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Cherry
"What the hell were you thinking?" I ask Xavier. He's sitting next to me in a tiny holding cell in the tiny Yuletide police station.
Mom and Aunt Natalie, who drunkenly got turned around in the tunnel and came back out right next to us just as the police were escorting us off the property, are on the bench across from us, laughing uproariously about some nonsense.
Xavier looks tired, but not unhappy. In fact, he looks way too calm about having been arrested and locked up. "I didn't want you to go to jail alone." He scoots an inch closer to me. "Plus, this might be the only way you'll hear me out."
I cross my arms over my chest to keep my heart from bursting through my ribcage. "I've already told you we can't be friends, Xavier. I appreciate your help tonight, but I don't want to see you for a while."
"Okay." He looks down at his hands his fingers laced together between his legs. "Close your eyes and just listen."
I'd rather have a cave to crawl into in case it's bad news, but I like the idea of not having to look at him. I lean my head against the wall and scrunch my eyes closed tight.
Something presses against the space between my eyes. Xavier's thumb or finger. And he rubs that spot gingerly. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I promise I won't say anything to hurt you now."
Instead of relaxing me, his words make my eyes burn and a tear rolls out from under my lids and down my cheek. I hate he knows he hurt me and I'm not at all confident he won't hurt me again. What he thinks is hurtful might be very different from what I view as hurtful.
"Don't cry." His voice is raspy. "Please don't cry, baby."
"Just spit it out already. Quit trying to soften the blow."
The pressure of his thumb vanishes and the surrounding air goes cold, like he's moved away from me. "My parents were gone a lot when I was a kid and Alice and I lived with my grandmother. I was a bratty kid, always pushing the limits my parents set, always arguing with them. I figured they left so much to get away from me, because I was bad. They've always been so in love and I really believed they never argued or even disagreed. I assumed if I wanted someone to stay with me, I had to be very good and we couldn't argue or even disagree."
"Everyone argues." My eyes are still scrunched closed, but I wish I wasn't such a chicken. I want to see him.
He chuckles, but it's wry like he's laughing at himself. "Yeah, I'm getting that. I had this idea I had to have everything in my life settled, that I had to be successful and stable. Everything had to be perfect before I let myself fall in love. That's the only way I could be sure I wouldn't be left behind again."
