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And so he did.
He took longer than necessary to find the right spot, and while his back was turned asked the question. “Your parents don’t like that you moved away?”
“Don’t like that I moved, didn’t like Zach, don’t like my rambunctious dog…” She tipped her head to where Copper was sprawled across his bed, his feet twitching as he dreamt, and rolled her eyes. “Hate my job, tell me every chance they get that I shouldn’t be letting my degree go to waste…”
“What about you?” He turned slowly. “Do you hate your life choices?”
She looked up from her ornament box and he didn’t understand how she could make him feel things without even touching him, but she did. “No. Not a single one. Well. Maybe Zach. But he got me here, so… no.”
It was too much but he couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move, either.
Then she pulled another ornament from her box and the charge between them dissipated.
“This one is from the first time I went abroad and saw the ravens at the Tower of London.” She handed him a black sequined raven.
It was the same with each ornament she pulled out of the box. Each one had a story, and with each one he learned a little more about her.
“This one my best friend Carissa made for me.” She passed a gold beaded letter ‘L’ to him. “She made this one for me when I got Copper.” It was a matching ‘C.’
When he turned back around from hanging those, he caught her slipping something into her pocket. A matching letter ‘Z’ ornament.
“This one is from my first and last whale watching trip.” She handed him a glass whale with a sparkly pipe cleaner waterspout. “Never threw up so many times in my life, and never intend to again.”
“And this one is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. My mom made it for me.” It was a small bird sitting in a nest with three eggs, glued to a clothespin to affix it to the tree.
He took the nest from her palm, his fingers brushing her skin ever so slightly. Just that small touch, and he was hard and ready to go. Except that was not in the cards. “Did it work?”
“It did, but not the way she meant. I won my first race the next month. When she found out, she offered me a choice: quit riding racehorses and she’d pay for my last semester of college, or keep riding and use my winnings to pay for school. You can guess what I chose.” She gave him a wry smile and shrugged her shoulders. “When I graduated, my parents refused to come. Didn’t want to celebrate a degree I was never going to use.” She put air quotes around the last four words. “I never came in first again after that. I have a long streak of coming in second. Back home, the only trainers who want me to ride for them are the ones whose horses usually run last. I’m like the last resort.”
“You get the underdogs and losers to run better? Second instead of last?” He liked that idea.
“Yeah, I guess it’s my specialty. Sometimes they just need someone to believe in them.” She smiled. “But I’d still like to come in first once in a while.”
He could tell she was talking about more than horses and racing. “I bet the horses like you.” What he really meant wasI like you.He could imagine a horse wanting to try harder for her, just because she believed it could do better. He’d been holding back, and yet she kept revealing so much. “About what you asked me before, about me not being big on Christmas.” He turned away from her, looking for the right branch to clip the nest onto. “One of my best mates died a few years back, right before Christmas. In Syria. Haven’t felt much like celebrating since.” He didn’t turn around. Didn’t want to see whatever expression was on her face.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry that happened.”
He clipped the nest on a slender branch, close to the trunk.Good luck and prosperity.He wanted more of that. Less guilt and grief and panic. He inhaled and turned to her. “It is what it is. No sense dwelling on it.”
“That’s kind of my philosophy this Christmas too. That garbage thing that happened? The way I was just… discarded?” She made a face like she’d tasted something disgusting and shook her head. “Not thinking about it. Except to think about how it’s going to lead me to something better.” Then she set the box that had held her ornaments down and stepped back, and it was like she hit the reset button.
He’d told her something personal and hard, and she’d listened and taken it in. She hadn’t pressed for more. She hadn’t looked at him like he was damaged goods.Because you haven’t told her the whole story, some dark voice in his brain whispered. But he’d told her the big pieces—panic attacks, a dead friend—and nothing had changed except he felt better. Less on edge. Less guarded. Lessvigilant.
“So? What do you think?”
He’d been lost in his thoughts, only half heard whatever question she’d asked. “I think you’re great.” The words slipped out.
“Oh. Thanks?” Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “But I didn’t mean—me.”
She meant the tree. The one they’d just decorated. She wanted an appraisal of how it looked with her ornaments on it.
He fell back on his favourite strategy: ignored his blunder and pressed on like nothing had happened. “Too empty.”
“Yeah. That’s what I think too. We’ll just have to make some more decorations. You have any popcorn?”
“Popcorn? Nah. I think the organic market might sometimes have some, but…”
“You don’t have popcorn? Is it not a thing in Australia?”
