Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Notebook. I want you to fly me across the ocean at the prow of an ocean liner! Like the guy in Titanic,
remember?”
Jeb turned. “The guy who drowned?”
“Well, I don’t want you to drown, obviously. It’s not about drowning. It’s about you loving me enough
to be willing to drown, if you had to.” My voice caught. “I want . . . I want the big gesture.”
“Addie, you know I love you,” he said.
“Or even the medium gesture,” I said, unable to let it go.
Frustration and anguish warred with each other on his face. “Can’t you just trust in our love, without
asking me to prove it every single second?”
Apparently  not,  as  demonstrated  by  what  happened  next.  No,  not  “what  happened.”  What  I  did.
Because I sucked and I was a jerk, and because I downed thirty-eight quarters worth of beer shots, if not
more. Or maybe not thirty-eight, but a lot. Not that I can blame it on that, either.
Jeb and I went inside to the party, but we went our own ways because we were still fighting. I ended up
in the basement with Charlie and some other guys, while Jeb stayed upstairs. I heard later that he joined
some  theater  geeks  who  were  watching  An  Affair  to  Remember  on  Charlie’s  parents’  flat-screen  TV.  It
was such a horrible irony that it would have been funny, except it totally wasn’t.
In  the  basement,  I  played  quarters  with  the  guys,  and  Charlie  egged  me  on  because  Charlie  was  the
devil. When the quarters game broke up, Charlie asked me if we could go somewhere to talk, and like an
idiot, I stumbled obediently after him to his older brother’s room. I was a little surprised, because Charlie
and I had never had a heart-to-heart before. But Charlie was part of the group of guys we hung out with.
He  was  arrogant  and  smarmy  and  pretty  much  an  overall  asshat,  to  steal  a  term  from  a  Korean  guy  at
school, but that was just Charlie. Since he looked like a Hollister model, he could be an asshat and get
away with it.
In his brother’s room, Charlie sat me down on the bed and told me he needed advice about Brenna, a
girl from our grade he sometimes hooked up with. He looked at me in an I-know-I’m-cute-and-I’m-going-
to-work-it way and said how lucky Jeb was to be dating someone as great as me.
I snorted and said something like, “Oh, yeah, whatever.”
“Are you guys having problems?” he asked. “Tell me you guys aren’t having problems. You guys are

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golden.”
“Uh-huh,  that’s  why  Jeb’s  upstairs  doing  God  knows  what,  and  I’m  down  here  with  you.”  Why  am  I
down here with you? I remember wondering. And who shut the door?
Charlie  pushed  for  details,  charming  and  sympathetic,  and  when  I  got  teary,  he  moved  in  close  to
comfort me. I protested, but he pressed his mouth to mine, and eventually I submitted. A guy was paying
me all sorts of attention—a really cute and charismatic guy—and who cared that he didn’t mean it?
I did. Even during the moment of betraying Jeb, I cared. I’ve replayed that moment again and again, and
that was the part that killed me. Because what was I thinking? Jeb and I were having problems, but I still
loved him. I loved him then and I loved him now. I would always love him.
Only yesterday, when he never showed up at Starbucks, he sent the message loud and clear that he no
longer loved me back.

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Chapter Two
A
ping on my windowpane intruded into my pity party. It took me a minute to pull myself back to reality.
There was another ping, and I craned up from my bed to see a heavily bundled Tegan and an even more
heavily  bundled  Dorrie  standing  atop  a  drift  of  snow.  They  beckoned  with  mittened  hands,  and  Dorrie
called in a glass-muted voice for me to come out.
I clambered to my feet, and the strange lightness of my head reminded me of my hair disaster. Crud. I
looked around, grabbed my throw blanket off my bed, and put it over me like a hood. Holding the fabric
beneath my chin, I walked to the window and jerked it up.
“Get your booty on the dance floor!” Dorrie hollered, the sound of her suddenly much louder.
“That’s not a dance floor,” I said. “That’s snow. Cold, frozen snow.”
“It’s  so  beautiful,”  Tegan  said.  “Come  see.”  She  paused,  regarding  me  quizzically  from  beneath  her
striped wool hat. “Addie? Why do you have a blanket on your head?”
“Ehhh,” I said, waving them off. “Go home. I’m a bummer. I’ll bum you out.”
“Oh, don’t even,” Dorrie said. “Exhibit A: You called and said you were having a crisis. Exhibit B:
Here we are. Now get down here and experience this glory of nature.”
“I’ll pass.”
“It’ll cheer you up, I swear.”
“Impossible. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes. “Such a baby. C’mon, Tegan.”
They high-stepped out of my sight, and a couple of seconds later, the doorbell rang. In my bedroom, I
adjusted  my  blanket  to  make  it  more  of  an  official  turban-y  thing.  I  sat  on  the  edge  of  my  bed  and
pretended to be a nomadic desert wanderer with startling green eyes and a desolate expression. After all,
I knew all about desolation.
Parental  chatter  floated  up  from  the  hall—“Merry  Christmas!  You  girls  walked  all  that  way  in  the
snow?”—and  Dorrie  and  Tegan  annoyingly  chose  to  reply.  Their  happy  voices  made  happy  Christmas
chitchat,  making  me  grouchier  and  grouchier  until  I  wanted  to  yell  down,  “Hey!  Girlies!  The  wretched
soul you’re here to comfort? She’s up here!”
Finally, two sets of stockinged feet jogged up the stairs. Dorrie burst in first.
“Whew,” she said, lifting her hair off her neck and airing herself out. “If I don’t sit down, I’m going to