Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Beckett slows to a complete stop, his gaze slamming against mine. Yeah, he wasn’t expecting to see me any more than I thought it’d be him gliding through the doorway.
I tense, my muscles stretching in searing bands. Unmoving. What do I even say?
Merry Christmas Eve, why’d you get rid of me that easily?
Couldn’t even talk to me about it first?
Did I not deserve that?
It hasn’t even been two months off his detail. I hope years from now, it won’t hurt to see him. To be in his company. ‘Cause right now, it feels like walking over glass, and I’m not even moving a muscle.
Dark half-moons shadow his yellow-green eyes. He must not be sleeping well. The longer we’re trapped in Scotland, that’s another day without cocaine. Unless he brought some.
I try not to picture that.
“You alright?” I ask him quietly.
He nods tightly and produces an even tighter smile. He’s agitated. Drug withdrawals, most likely. Or maybe he just can’t stand to look at my face. I dunno.
His face isn’t bringing warm fuzzies either.
As his eyes flit around the cupboards, the fridge—everywhere but me—I try to refocus on the sweater. Seems like Beckett has the same avoidance list and my name is scrawled somewhere on his, too. Instead of leaving, he surprisingly comes further into the kitchen.
Tension bakes my body with an uncomfortable heat, and if someone told me we were stuck in the Sahara Desert, not a snowstorm, I might believe them.
I hear Beckett open a cupboard near the fridge.
The wind roars and rattles the icy windowpanes, and right as he shuts a cupboard, the flame extinguishes on my candle.
“Fuck,” I curse, and I unpocket my lighter. Let’s try this again. Cupping my hand around the wick, I try to produce a flame. It extinguishes too fast. Shit. I roll my thumb over the lighter’s wheel.
Come on, baby flame.
Light my world.
Come on.
Just light up enough so I can see this fucking counter at least. I’m not asking for a whole lot, am I?
Beckett is watching my focused attempts while he fills a glass of water from the sink. After a full minute, the fire finally stays long enough to catch the wick.
Never doubted you, lighter. I kiss my cheap lighter and shove the thing in my pocket.
Back to the sweater, I break the safety pin further open. It’s not a needle and thread, but it should work as a hook to fish the yarn. I’d say I’m handy. Crafty. I should be able to fix this.
Beckett opens a few drawers.
It distracts me, honestly. I bite back frustration, and after accidently unspooling a yarn that’d been perfectly fine and I form a bigger hole, I set the safety pin down and wonder where I went wrong.
I sense Beckett nearing, and I cast a glance towards him.
He’s found a sewing kit, and without a word, he extends his hand towards the sweater. I know he can sew. And it’s not that I have a vindictive instinct yelling at me to deny his silent offer.
It’s that it hurts to accept it.
Just as silently, I take a few steps back, letting him have the sweater and the light. Beckett stands where I’d been, and without a word, he flips the sweater inside-out and threads a needle.
I take off my reading glasses. Pocketing them. And while he stitches the hole shut, we say nothing.
Not one thing.
I lean my shoulder blades against the fridge, a rock in the pit of my throat, and I can’t even watch him do me a favor. Should I have said no?
Should I have rejected the offer? ‘Cause this is more painful than I thought it’d be.
The flame never goes out. Beckett is either barely breathing or he’s so graceful, he moves without stirring the wind.
He bites off the thread, does something fancy with his fingers (can’t really see; still trying not to look) and then turns the orange and green alien sweater outside-in.
Once he’s done, he hands it to me.
The thanks, man is lost. It’s buried behind, You happy without me? You wish you talked to me before you got me transferred? Why couldn’t I stop you from using?
Why did I never try?
I take the sweater. I can’t speak.
A fist is now in my throat.
His eyes are full of tormented things, and he cuts his gaze to the rattling window. And quietly, so very quietly, he whispers, “Goodnight, Donnelly.”
And he leaves. He leaves with his glass of water and without another sound.
I’d think I hallucinated the exchange, but I have the patched sweater to prove I didn’t. As I return to the candle, to blow it out, more footsteps patter along the creaky floorboards.
I wait to extinguish the light.
My face contorts seeing him.
Frustration and anger simmer inside me as O’Malley, of all people, crests the threshold of the kitchen. Am I in A Christmas Carol or what? The Ghost of Christmas Past just left, and now I’m facing Christmas Present? If that makes me Scrooge, then fuck that.