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Aunt Katie’s words proved to be the nail in the proverbial coffin. I stayed up most of the night, my mind churning with things she’d said echoing louder with things my parents had said.
I don’t think you’ll ever realize how much you hurt your mother, Katie had said. But I could remember it so viscerally. I remembered the look in her eyes when I’d first come home after coming out. The shame. The hurt. It was so ridiculous that everyone assumed I wasn’t aware, but they also seemed to have a disregard for my pain at their hands.
But I couldn’t help but see that, yeah, I had caused unnecessary pain for my family. I was so caught up in fighting to be seen as who I was that I’d forgotten one important fact. I only had a couple more days here. I could stop the arguing, stop the affection towards Adam. There didn’t need to be anymore scenes. If they wanted a compliant shell of me for the last three days, I would give that to them.
And then I’d never be back again.
The finality of that resolution struck me, even as my tired mind conjured it, half asleep. After this Christmas, I wasn’t coming back. But I could play nice until I left.
I was still churning in my sleep when Dani hit my shoulder with an excited shove. I shot up, startled, eyes wide in alarm as I searched for my attacker. I hadn’t been sleeping, not really, but the assault had been so sudden.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dani said, fighting back laughter.
I groaned and fell back onto the bed, covering my face with my pillow. “I don’t feel like exercising today,” I whined.
“Luckily for you, I don’t run in the snow.”
“Wait, it snowed?” I lifted my pillow from my face, cautiously.
Dani nodded. “Do you want to build a snowman?”
She left, and I threw on some over clothes. My heart pounded excitedly in my chest. Snow was something I’d missed after moving to Seattle. Though it snowed there occasionally, it often led to the city getting shut down, and me being stuck in my apartment. Here though, snow meant we could go out into the yard and enjoy it.
After brushing my teeth and pulling on an extra layer of clothes, I ran into Adam’s room. He was already up and getting dressed.
“I see Dani already told you too,” I said.
Adam grinned like a kid. “Race you to the yard.”
We ran down the stairs two at a time and darted for the front door. Cold air bit at my face as I passed through the threshold. Snow had fallen heavily over night and was a good three inches deep of pure white powder. Still more was falling lazily from the overcast sky. It was a little early in the season for the snow to stick around for more than a few days, but we would enjoy it while we could.
On the far side of the yard, Dani was already working on rolling a large ball of snow into what was destined to be the base of her snowman. Adam’s feet hit the snow with a crunch and he swooped down in a smooth motion, grabbing a handful of the white powder and throwing it up into my face, laughing.
The cold hit my skin and sucked the wind from my lungs. Gasping for air, I glared at Adam.
“I don’t think you know what you’ve started,” I leaned over and began scrunching up snow into a ball.
We launched into an intense snowball fight. The clumps of snow flew everywhere as we dodged each other’s and launched our own in retaliation. We laughed as we fought until our sides split. Dodging an incoming projectile, I reached down and scooped a huge amount of snow and threw it at Adam. I watched in horror as it hit him in the face.
“That’s it,” he growled, and he charged at me, tackling me to the ground.
We lay there with him on top of me and me half buried in the snow, laughing. He slowly stopped after a minute and looked at me with a sudden intensity. I could tell he was about to kiss me and I was about to let him.
Until the sound of the front door opening broke whatever trance I’d been in. I glanced over our battlefield of churned snow to see Mom and Dad standing on the porch, wrapped in warm jackets and holding mugs of steaming coffee. They said nothing, but there was something in Mom’s eye that brought back Aunt Katie’s words with a vengeance.
I don’t think you’ll ever realize how much you hurt your mother. Or how much you continue to hurt her over and over again. And for what?
Mad at myself for forgetting my earlier resolve, I pushed Adam off of me and got to my feet, brushing myself off. Snow and wet fell to the ground around me.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked in a low voice.
“We should just cool it for now,” I said, heading over to where Dani was now stacking her second tier of her snowman.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just not worth making a scene in front of my parents,” I said, barely above a whisper. “We just can’t.”
“So no kissing?”
“No anything, Adam,” I said. “Look, we just have to make it three more days and then we’re free to do whatever when we get home. Okay?”
Adam said nothing. It didn’t matter we were next to Dani at this point who’d either not heard a word of our conversation, or else was pretending she hadn’t.
“Nice of you to join me,” She said. “I thought for a second you were going to fuck in the snow.”
“Ha ha,” I said sarcastically.
Adam and I started making our own snowmen, each rolling around our own balls of snow separated by half the yard at points. Adam wouldn’t meet my eye the whole time. And even after my parents had vacated the porch for the warmth inside, I didn’t brave the awkward rift that I’d formed between us.
“Everything okay with you two?” Dani asked me quietly as she put the finishing touches onto her snowman. Adam was still working on the torso to his and was closer to my house than us.
“Yeah, everything is fine,” clearly I didn’t sound convincing because Dani gave me a look. “I told him we needed to cool it around our parents,” I clarified.
“I see,” Dani said.
“What?”
“It’s none of my business, big brother,” she said. Adam was approaching with the oversized middle of his snowman, but she got in one more word. “I’m just saying they could ‘cool it’ around you, too.”
***
AFTER A FEW HOURS IN the snow, we went inside for hot chocolate and warm showers. My parents went out to run the remaining errands that they had to do before the parade later that night.
I was fresh out of the shower and walking into the room where Adam was sitting on my bed with fresh clothes and still wet hair. His mouth tugged down in the corners. Something was wrong.
“You okay?” I asked as I looked for the outfit I was going to wear.
“Yeah,” he was lying. “I just wanted to apologize for earlier. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you or...”
“Don’t apologize,” I said before he could get too far into it. “It wasn’t fair of me to flip the script on you like that.”
“What was that about?” He asked.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, debating on how much to tell him. I decided to go with everything. If there was one person I could talk to, it should be him, right?
“Last night my Aunt Katie talked to me in the kitchen and she kind of got in my head,” I admitted. My face felt hot with shame. “She kept saying how selfish I was and how I kept hurting my mom. It kept me up all night thinking about what my parents have said since I’ve walked through that door. And today when I saw my mom watching us, all I could think of was how sad she looked.”
My eyes were burning. Were these tears? Christ, I needed to pull myself together.
“It will just be easier to play by their rules for the rest of the trip,” I said the tears were threatening to spill over my eyes. “It’s not fair or right, but I’m so tired of fighting this.”
I took a shaky breath, desperate to get control of my emotions.
Adam reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me closer to him. “Hey it’s okay,” he said gently. “We can stop the PDA around everyone. They won’t even know we’re dating.”
A harsh laugh escaped my lips. “So we’ll be doing the opposite of what we were supposed to be doing all along. You were supposed to be my friend, and we were pretending to date. Now we’re dating and we’re pretending you’re just my friend.”
“Well, not exactly,” Adam said. “I’m still very much pro being honest about our relationship.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know that, I just think it’s funny.”
“You know,” Adam wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “We have some time before we have to be ready for the parade.” He hooked a leg around me, pulling my body closer. His hands grazed my waistband, seconds away from pulling it off completely.
I felt my body ignite at his proposal. I was about to help him get me undressed when Dani cleared her throat pointedly in the doorway. Both Adam and I jumped at the sudden noise.
“Thought you might want to know that our parents are back,” she said, looking at her nails. Her damp hair fell casually over her shoulders. “I don’t know, it seemed like something that might interest you.”
“I appreciate the tact,” I said. She turned to leave, and I called after her. “Thank you!”
“Yeah yeah, get your ass dressed,” she replied.
***
A FEW HOURS LATER, most of which were spent with me being disappointed that my parents’ return had interrupted Adam and me, my family left to go to the parade. As per usual, the downtown area was packed with onlookers. Some had come from the even smaller surrounding towns. Some had family in the parade. Everyone was clamoring for the one event out of the year that Kalispell did better than anyone else.
There was excitement humming in the air with enthusiastic chatter over the smell of hot chocolate and spiced apple cider. Though it was already dipping below freezing after the sunset, it didn’t feel that way packed in the crowd. Dani, Adam, and I separated from my parents and shuffled our way through the mass of people after purchasing hot chocolates. My hand tingled from the warmth seeping through the cup as I moved, and we eventually found our way to the barricade that lined the streets. The air was cooler here, making me grateful for the container of liquid warmth that I held.
“When does it start?” Adam said, his voice betraying his excitement.
Dani scoffed and pulled out a flask of something a bit stronger than hot chocolate. “They start it right at seven. Just like every other year.”
“You could at least pretend you don’t think this is the worst thing in the world,” I said, the corners of my mouth tugging up despite myself.
“It’s fine,” Dani said as the first of the floats appeared. It was a shabby little manger on the back of a farm trailer. “I just wished they’d changed them up, you know?”
She had a point; I had to admit. The first float was one that I recognized from when I was a kid. Now I was watching children reenacting the nativity on a float at least twice their age.
They could’ve at least given it a paint job.
But even so, there was something charming about the whole parade as it rolled out. Float after float. Trailer after trailer. Some with just one or two people. Some with whole churches. And the occasional mechanical one purchased or built by someone who wanted an excuse to spread Christmas cheer.
A smile broke out across my face as my favorite float - the one of Santa stuck in a chimney - came around the corner. I looked over at Adam, who was grinning ear to ear in pure enjoyment.
As I looked down at what would come next, I noticed my parents standing with Aunt Katie not too far away from us. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, her eyes made contact with mine.
I forced myself to focus on the parade in front of me. It wasn’t hard. As it went on, the school marching band made an appearance, playing holiday tunes that people in the crowd sang along to as they wound their way through the streets.
There was a warmth filling up my chest as it progressed. This is what it meant to be home.
I then made the mistake of glancing over at Aunt Katie again because I could feel her staring at me and my mood immediately soured. Who was she to watch me with imperious judgement from where she stood next to my parents? It was as if she’d made it her personal mission to ensure I adhered to not rubbing their noses in my gayness. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to ignore her.
Instead, I looked over at Adam. His cheeks were flushed with the cold and Christmas lights reflected in his eyes, making them sparkle with red and green and gold. Huge plumes of vapor danced in the air with every breath he exhaled. And then, as the passing choirs sang on their floats and the marching band played, it began to snow. Not a lot, just a few light flurries. But it was enough to make the entire scene perfect and magical.
Looking at Adam staring with wide-eyed innocent joy at the parade was enough to make me want to reach out and kiss him. But I didn’t. I just stood there and took him in.
His hand found its way into mine, and our fingers intertwined. He gave me a gentle squeeze that I swore I felt in my heart. When I was younger, I’d always thought this right here was something unobtainable. I was a gay kid from a small town with serious self loathing issues. There was no way I’d ever find a man who’d come home with me. Who’d watch the local parade with me. Who’d hold my hand in silent defiance of the world with me.
I love you.
The thought shocked me. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever felt that about someone before. But this week had torn down all the walls I’d carefully constructed for keeping Adam as a friend. And instead what had once been a longing I’d never quite let myself feel was now a deep burning passion for this man standing next to me, holding my heart in his hand.
And it didn’t matter that my Aunt was probably still shooting daggers at me with her eyes or that my parents were likely doing their best to pretend we weren’t holding hands in public. Nothing mattered right now except him.
Adam looked at me, realizing I was staring. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Everything is perfect.”
And for that moment, there in the falling snow with the Christmas lights shining all around us, it was.