I nuzzled my face between Savannah's shoulder blades. I'd been woken up by my mother banging around in the kitchen and the smell of bacon and sausage. The snow was causing the morning sunlight to be exceptionally bright and white, even through the drawn curtains. She stretched and I put my arm around her. She pulled her arms back under the covers quickly and found my hand. It was cold in my room, but warm in my bed. Savannah was awake, but she didn't say anything and neither did I. I was continuing the stupid little fantasy in my head, fucking playing house.
I rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. Wanda was up awfully early and was making an awful lot of noise. When I rolled back over Savannah was sitting up on the edge of the bed, putting her hair up.
"Come back," I said. "She'll yell when the food's ready."
"What're we doing, Marti?"
"Nothing. Now lay back down." I lifted up the blankets and sheet.
She sighed and smiled slightly then she curled up next to me with her head in the crook of my arm. She sighed and I pulled the blanket up over her shoulder. She draped one of her arm over me and I pulled her close.
"Marti?" She said quietly.
"What?"
"Why are we doing this?"
"Because it's fun. Don't worry about it," I told her. "It is fun, right?"
"Well...yeah, I guess," she said. "But..."
"But what? Quit thinking about it," I said quickly. It was vital that she not panic.
She hugged me and changed the subject accordingly, "Do you think I can shower real fast here before breakfast?"
...
Travis shuffled out into the kitchen with a yawn and we ate breakfast. It was pleasant. Wanda was good for keeping conversation going. She made sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, and French toast. She also made mimosas. Savannah politely declined and had normal orange juice for fear that she would never be able to leave.
My mother managed to not bring up Dan until toward the end when she said, "Has anyone heard from Dan Patch?"
I responded with a very quick and unpleasant, "No."
Savannah shifted around in her seat and then looked at me for a second before saying, "I was thinking since it was almost Christmas that I might send him a text and see how he's doing...just to be nice."
"Why don't you do that, Marti?" Wanda asked me.
I glared at her and Travis said, "Leave the poor girl alone about Dan Patch."
"Fine. Fine. I just hate seein' these friendships fall apart after all these years." She was convincingly sad about it, but I wouldn't give in.
Maybe if Dan tried again to apologize to me I would grudgingly accept, but only if it were on Christmas Day really. Maybe I was being harsh. I had barely thought about him over the last week or so. I'd gotten over missing my best friend, which made him not so much my best friend anymore. Savannah was my best friend minus that one huge secret. More and more people were becoming aware of that secret.
Savannah offered to help clean up and Wanda shooed her out of the kitchen while Travis and I helped her clean up. She'd gotten dressed in her clothes from the night before and began milling around sending texts on her phone.
"Get outta here, Marti. I'll help your mom. Go have another mimosa," Travis said, urging me away.
I was still slopping around in my sweatpants and had no intention of changing out of them for the next two days at least. I itched at my shoulders where Savannah scratched me the night before as I poured another mimosa from the pitcher still on the table.
"Sav, can I talk to you for a second?" I asked her, not really sure what I had to say.
"Yeah," she responded, not seeming to think anything of it. She followed me back into my bedroom and I closed the door. "I texted Dan," she immediately confessed. "I don't really like holding grudges."
I laughed, "I'm the one that wanted to talk to you and you came in here and started spilling secrets."
"I'm sorry. I don't want to have secrets is all. It wasn't a secret. Your mom got to me. She made me feel bad."
"I'm immune to her, I guess." I shoved my hands into my pockets.
"What'd you want to talk to me about?" She asked.
She acted completely normal and like nothing happened. That was what I wanted though, wasn't it? I slouched my shoulders and said, "I hope you have a good Christmas."
"Is that it?" She smiled. "You wanted to privately wish me a Merry Christmas?"
"No..." I said quietly. I wanted to tell her the truth. That was what I wanted to do, but that was really stupid.
"You're being weird again. You're getting all flustered like last night. What's wrong?" She reached out and grabbed onto my wrists, pulling my hands out of my pockets. She swung my arms lightly and when I still didn't say anything she said, "Is this about the stuff I said earlier this morning? I was just sleepy. I didn't mean to get all broody."
"No...I...just..." I didn't know what I wanted to say to her at all and now everything was awkward. "I just wanted to tell you that you're a great person and you deserve to be happy and, you know...Merry Christmas."
She stopped swinging my arms and suddenly hugged me. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and said, "Merry Christmas."
I hugged her back and tried to smile, "You can text me if your family gets crazy this week."
"Ok. I can't help but think that you brought me in here to say something else."
"No, I just wanted to get away from Wanda and Travis."
"You can tell me..." She said and placed her hands on my cheeks.
Shaking my head I said, "Thank you for my presents again too."
"Thank you for mine," she smiled and brushed my cheek with her thumb.
"Don't get back with Dan again. I don't care if you talk or whatever, but don't get back together...no matter what cheesy, stupid shit he might say."
She laughed and looked at me oddly for a moment, "I won't. Dan was a mistake."
I wanted to ask her if I was a mistake too. I wanted to say so many things and I almost thought that it might be ok if I just told her the truth. Enough of me thought about the potentially awful things that could happen though and it was enough to make me keep my mouth shut. We ended up talking about Nationals for a few minutes and she asked me again to tell her what was bothering me, but she didn't press it excessively. She told me to tell her whenever I was ready. Of course she did because she knew when to bug me and when to stop bugging me.
She headed home a few minutes later and texted me saying she made it there safe and in one piece. I didn't hear from her again until Christmas.
