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“Alison.” My name is whispered on the other side of the door, between knocks, and the hairs on my arms stand up like electricity has just arced across me.
“Who is it?” I ask, not leaving my perch on the bed.
“Won’t you come out?” The voice is soft. “I’m the ninth wheel out here.” He laughs a little, and I hear him slide down my door, and I figure he has turned to sit with his back against the door. Down the hall somebody calls for “shots,” and I hear the head on the other side of the door bounce against it. “Can I come in?” There is such a pleading sound to it that I want to let him in. I imagine the speaker wants to not be here either, but feels compelled.
I don’t respond, and a few seconds pass before another bounce of his head knocks on the hollow wood. I draw the chair away and open the door. He looks up at me, his hair mussed, his eyes dark and shadowed in his face. He contorts his body and hops through the door as he is coming to his feet. He is certainly more boy than man. He is certainly more of the Cal variety than the Mitch variety. A small metal stud pierces his left eyebrow, and his arms are inked, skulls and snakes, like Cal. I recognize him as one of the people who had been in the living room, but I hadn’t really given him a glance then. He has dark blue eyes and black hair. His cheeks are smooth, and his lips are red. He would be a wonderful art subject. His bottom lip pulls into his mouth and comes out with a sheen of saliva covering it. I notice all of these things in an instant, but feel that I’ve been gazing at him for a bit too long when he finally speaks again. “Warren.”
“What?”
“That’s my name. Warren. Can I come in?” His voice is deeper than I would have thought, rusty from a cold or too many cigarettes. Without waiting for an answer, he is sitting on my bed beside me, leaving the door to fall shut of its own accord.
“I guess you already are.” This is not good. This is not good at all. There is an intensity in his presence that makes me feel small. Why did I open the door? Why did I open the door? The question runs on a loop inside my head. Slack-jawed and stupid, I gape at him. I can’t seem to stop staring . . . at his shoulders under his black sweater, loose around his collar showing some very nice hollows, at the way his hair stands up slightly away from his forehead.
“What’s this?” He leans down and picks up my sketchpad from where it has fallen to the floor and looks at the angry lines on the page, the spreading puckered circles from where I cried.
“Nothing.” I reach for the pad, but he doesn’t release it.
“Can I see?” His voice is so soft; his eyes are so open and deep, deep enough for me to fall into.
“I guess.” I let him look. I watch him looking. Strange as it is, I want him to be impressed, and he is. He pauses at a sketch of Dylan and asks who he is.
“A friend.”
“Boyfriend?” he asks, and for whatever reason, I feel myself blush as I deny any possibility. “Good.” He smiles, his full lips parting over straight, white teeth. He finishes looking through the pages, pausing for a long time at a sketch of the three horses. “These are amazing.” I blush again and take the sketches as he extends them out to me. I stash the book on my dresser, out of reach.
“How do you know my mom?”
“Cal’s my brother.” He shrugs. “Well, half-brother.” I don’t know where to sit, not wanting to sit on the bed next to him, so I finally slide down the door and sit with my back against it.
“I guess that makes sense.” I don’t know what to say. The room feels electrified since he stepped into it. My stomach is fluttering like a butterfly when he looks at me, with those thunderstorm-blue eyes.
“Why don’t you come out? These people aren’t that bad. I know you’re mom would appreciate it.”
“It’s Christmas,” I say, as if that should explain everything.
“Yeah, a good day to celebrate.” He smiles, his full lips stretching and drawing my eyes.
“Not like this.” I’m not sure what makes this party so much different than the Friday Fires, which I loved, but it is different.
“Because your dad’s not here?” He makes an effort, but seriously he is so far off the beam I almost feel sorry for him. I’m so far past missing a father I never knew that I almost smile at his naïveté.
“Well, just everything.”
“Like what?” He has a quiet way about him that makes me feel safe, or at least not threatened.
“I mean everything, it’s just not right.” I pause, not really sure why I’m talking to this guy, like he’s somebody I know and trust, but I am. “It’s just Christmas. It’s Christmas. There should be something more.”
“Like a Christmas tree or lights or something? Like presents?”
“Yeah.” I smile. “I guess like that.” Not really what I had in mind, but since I had nothing in mind, I latch on to this, because clearly there is no tree, no lights, and certainly no presents. Santa stopped coming to my house many years ago.
“So if you had a tree, would you come out?”
“No, probably not.” A small laugh escapes my body, and I draw my hand up to cover my mouth.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t belong.” I don’t belong anywhere, not just here. I never fit. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
He winks at me, “You belong wherever you make yourself comfortable.” Then he reaches out and grabs my hand, “Come with me.” He draws me up from the floor and swings wide my bedroom door. I’m padding down the hall behind him, even as I’m thinking that I don’t want to. His hand is warm, electric, and comforting after this long day of solitude. We reach the kitchen, and they are milling around, filling drinks and eating from a tray of cheese and vegetables. There is a football game on the TV, and several people adjust so we don’t interrupt their view on our way past. Otherwise, nobody notices us. Warren is talking about my coat and shoes, but I can’t really hear him to understand. The men at the TV erupt in cheers as one team scores.
We reach the kitchen, and he is grabbing his leather jacket from the couch, shouldering it, telling me to grab my coat. I tell him, “I don’t want to go anywhere,” nervous about being spun out of my room and ushered from whatever vague safety there is behind my locked door.
His laughter is low and bemused. “I’m not stealing you. I just want to show you something. Come on.” So I grab my jacket and put on my shoes. I follow him out the front door and nearly slip in the moist snow, but his hand wraps around my upper arm and steadies me. We are moving down the driveway to a car parked in the back. He pushes his hand into his pockets and comes out with keys. We pass by the doors, and he stops at the trunk, which he opens and begins riffling through the tightly packed contents, and I wonder if he lives out of his car. He pilfers through blankets and plastic bags and clothes until he finally finds that which he is searching for. A single strand of Christmas lights. He turns back to me, the smile of a mischievous imp parting his lips. “Voila.” He says it: wall-ah. He leads me around the trailer and pauses at the evergreen that stands just beyond my window.
It comes clear to me his intention, and I hear myself laughing with the craziness of it. We zigzag the strand of lights across the front of the tree, laughing and helping each other as our fingers grow cold and damp from the snow melting at our touch. Our breath fogs the air, and our laughter reaches the others in the house. Heads poke out the back door, and somebody delivers us an extension cord. Soon we are all crowded around the tree, blowing on our hands, laughing. I am part of this for the first time in years, my mother standing next to me, Cal behind her, Warren on my other side. I reach out and slip my hand into my mother’s, and she squeezes my fingers and lets me.
The snow begins to fall with more force, and one of the women begins to sing Silent Night. Her voice is soft and clear. Other voices join in, and I find myself leaning into Warren, the savior of my day, singing quietly, off key, my hand still clasped in my mother’s. Our rendition of Silent Night is fully out of tune, with some of us humming through parts that we aren’t quite sure of the words, until the whole group collapses in laughter, and we retreat to the relative warmth of the trailer for the rest of the festivities. When Mom lets go of my hand, it feels suddenly cold and lonely. She catches my eyes as she turns and smiles, her face lit up, flushed with the cold, beautiful. We leave the extension cord closed in the back door, running to our twinkling beacon through the night.
When we tumble into the living room, Warren hands me a drink. I have drank before, not often, because I don’t like feeling out of control, but I don’t want to go back to my room. I don’t want to be alone anymore. One is no big deal, and I probably won’t even finish it. The impromptu tree lighting and concert have made me feel better, maybe. I take the drink he offers and sip it. I have not eaten all day. My stomach feels raw from the inside out, and the liquid is burning as it moves through my body. I feel flushed; my hair is suddenly hot against my head. I eat a few chips, bumping into Warren as we stand together, still close, still giddy with the gift he has given me. There is dancing to the radio, and I fall into Warren, heady with the drink and the change from cold to hot. We are neither of us good dancers, but we laugh and he keeps me on my feet until my head is spinning, and then he takes me to my room. Nobody seems to notice our going. I’m not even sure I notice us going.
We trip into my room, and I stumble over my own feet. His arms are there, catching me, drawing me against his body until I can feel his heat. I can feel his breath coming from his slightly parted lips, those lush lips that I can’t seem to take my eyes off of. Then he is lowering me onto my bed, his warm red lips on mine. The sounds from the rest of the house are muffled by the door and by the sudden rush of our breathing.
Outside, the snow continues to fall, covering the slowly blinking lights outside my window. He is on my bed with me, his hands cupping my face, kissing me, electricity jolting through my nerves at the sensation his touch brings. My head feels so heavy; my body feels so heavy. Then he is drawing back, dropping a last kiss on my forehead before walking to the door, turning the knob to lock it before he draws it closed. I slide under the deep layer of the alcohol, thinking how alcohol never made me feel like this before. I didn’t drink much tonight. There is no reason I should feel so numb, so unable to move. I know I’ve drank more at the Friday Fires, so why is this so different? I didn’t want him to leave, but was already drifting beyond language when he went.
I can hear him, just outside my door, his voice rising, falling, another voice. Something crashes against my door, and I try to respond, but I am unable to move. What is wrong with me?