Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Wonderful Life with Mom and Dad and Chris and me,” I said.
“I’ve  seen  that  movie,”  Dorrie  said.  “Jimmy  Stewart  almost  jumps  off  a  bridge  because  he’s  so
depressed about his life?”
Tegan pointed at me. “And an angel helped him decide not to. Yes.”
“Actually,  he  wasn’t  an  angel  yet,”  Dorrie  said.  “Saving  Jimmy  Stewart  was  his  test  to  become  an
angel. He had to make Jimmy Stewart realize his life was worth living.”
“And he did, and everything worked out, and the angel got his wings!” Tegan finished. “I remember. It
was at the end, and there was this silver bell on the Christmas tree, and out of nowhere the bell went ting-

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a-ling-a-ling without anyone touching it.”
Dorrie laughed. “‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling’? Tegan, you kill me.”
Tegan  plowed  on.  “And  Jimmy  Stewart’s  little  girl  said,  ‘Teacher  says,  every  time  a  bell  rings,  an
angel gets his wings.’” She sighed happily.
Dorrie swiveled the computer chair so that she and Tegan faced me. Tegan lost her balance but grabbed
the arm of the chair and righted herself.
“Christmas  magic,  Hanukkah  magic,  It’s  a  Wonderful  Life?”  Dorrie  said  to  me.  She  lifted  her
eyebrows. “You going to connect the dots for us?”
“Don’t forget angels,” Tegan said.
I sat down on the end of my bed. “I know I did a terrible thing, and I know I really, really, really hurt
Jeb. But I’m sorry. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Of course it does,” Tegan said sympathetically.
A lump formed in my throat. I didn’t dare look at Dorrie, because I knew she’d roll her eyes. “Well, if
that’s true”—it was suddenly hard to get the words out—“then where’s my angel?”

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Chapter Four
“A
ngels, schmangels,” Dorrie said. “Forget angels.”
“No, don’t forget angels,” Tegan said. She flicked Dorrie. “You pretend to be such a Grinch, but you
don’t mean it.”
“I’m not a Grinch,” Dorrie said. “I’m a realist.”
Tegan got up from the computer chair and sat beside me. “Just because Jeb didn’t call you, that doesn’t
necessarily  mean  anything.  Maybe  he’s  on  the  reservation,  visiting  his  dad.  Didn’t  he  say  the  res  has
crappy cell service?”
Jeb  had  taught  us  to  call  the  reservation  “the  res,”  which  made  us  feel  tough  and  in-the-know.  But
hearing Tegan say it just deepened my despondency.
“Jeb  did  go  to  the  res,”  I  said.  “But  he’s  back.  And  how  I  know  this  is  because  evil  Brenna  just
happened to come to Starbucks on Monday, and she just happened to trot out Jeb’s entire Christmas break
schedule while waiting in line to order. She was with Meadow, and she was all, ‘I’m so bummed Jeb’s
not here. But he’s coming in on the train Christmas Eve—maybe I’ll go meet him at the station!’”
“Is that what made you write the e-mail?” Dorrie asked. “Hearing Brenna talk about him?”
“It’s not what made me, but it might have had something to do with it.” I didn’t like the way she was
looking at me. “So?”
“Maybe he got stuck in the storm,” Tegan suggested.
“And he’s still stuck? And he dropped his phone in a snowdrift like the kissing girl, and that’s why he
hasn’t called? And he doesn’t have access to a computer because he had to build an igloo to spend the
night in and he doesn’t have electricity?”
Tegan gave a nervous shrug. “Maybe.”
“I can’t get my head around it,” I said. “He didn’t come, he didn’t call, he didn’t e-mail. He didn’t do
anything.”
“Maybe he needed to break your heart the way you broke his,” Dorrie said.
“Dorrie!” Fresh tears sprung to my eyes. “That’s an awful thing to say!”
“Or not. I don’t know. But, Adds . . . you hurt him really bad.”
“I know! I just said that!”
“Like deep, wounding, forever bad. Like when Chloe broke up with Stuart.” Chloe Newland and Stuart
Weintraub were famous at Gracetown High: Chloe for cheating on Stuart, and Stuart for being unable to
get over her. And guess where their breakup occurred? Starbucks. Chloe was there with another guy—in
the bathroom! So skanky!—and Stuart showed up, and I got to be there for it all.
“Whoa,” I said. My heart started thumping, because I had been so mad at Chloe that day. I’d thought she
was so . . . heartless, cheating on her boyfriend like that. I told her to leave, that’s how worked up I was,
and Christina had to give me a little talk afterward. She informed me that in the future, I was not to throw
out Starbucks customers just for being heartless bitches.
“Are you saying . . . ” I tried to read Dorrie’s expression. “Are you saying I’m a Chloe?”
“Of  course  not!”  Tegan  said.  “She’s  not  saying  you’re  a  Chloe.  She’s  saying  Jeb  is  a  Stuart.  Right,
Dorrie?”
Dorrie didn’t immediately answer. I knew she had a soft spot for Stuart, because every girl in our grade
had a soft spot for Stuart. He was a nice guy. Chloe treated him like dirt. But Dorrie’s protectiveness went
even deeper, I think, because Stuart was the other Jewish kid at our school, so he and she sort of had a

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bond.
I  told  myself  that  was  the  reason  she  brought  Stuart  and  Chloe  up.  I  told  myself  she  didn’t  mean  to
compare me to Chloe, who, in addition to being a coldhearted bitch, wore red lipstick that was totally the
wrong shade for her skin.
“Poor  Stuart,”  Tegan  said.  “I  wish  he’d  find  someone  new.  I  wish  he’d  find  someone  who  deserves
him.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m all for Stuart finding true love. Go, Stuart. But Dorrie, I ask you again: Are
you saying I’m the Chloe in this scenario?”
“No,”  Dorrie  said.  She  squeezed  shut  her  eyes  and  rubbed  her  forehead,  as  if  she’d  developed  a
headache. She dropped her hand and met my gaze. “Adeline, I love you. I will always love you. But . . . ”
Prickles shot up and down my spine, because any sentence that combined “I love you” and “but” could
not be good. “But what?”
“You know you get wrapped up in your own dramas. I mean, we all do, I’m not saying we don’t. But
with you it’s practically an art form. And sometimes . . . ”
I rose from the bed, taking the blanket with me. I rewrapped it around my head and clutched it beneath
my chin. “Yes?”
“Sometimes you worry more about yourself than you do about others, kind of.”
“Then you are saying I’m a Chloe! You’re saying I’m a heartless, self-absorbed bitch!”
“Not heartless,” Dorrie said quickly. “Never heartless.”
“And not a”—Tegan dropped her voice—“you know. You are not that at all.”
It  didn’t  escape  me  that  neither  of  them  denied  the  “self-absorbed”  bit.  “Oh  my  God,”  I  said.  “I’m
having a crisis, and my best friends gang up and attack me.”
“We’re not attacking you!” Tegan said.
“Sorry, can’t hear you,” I said. “Too busy being self-absorbed.”
“No, you can’t hear us because you have a blanket over your ears,” Dorrie said. She strode over to me.
“All I’m saying—”
“La-la-la! Still can’t hear you!”
“—is that I don’t think you should get back together with Jeb unless you’re sure.”
It was insane how fast my heart was going. I was safe in my room with my two best friends, and I was
terrified of what one of them was about to say to me.
“Sure of what?” I managed.
Dorrie pulled down my hood. “In your e-mail, you said you’ve changed,” she said carefully. “But I’m
just wondering if you really have. If you’ve, you know, looked inside yourself to figure out what you even
need to change.”
Spots popped in my brain. It was extremely possible that I was hyperventilating, and I would soon faint
and hit my head and die, and the blanket clutched around me would turn red with blood.
“Leave!” I told Dorrie, pointing at the door.
Tegan shrank into herself.
“Addie,” Dorrie said.
“I’m serious—just go. And Jeb and I didn’t get back together, did we? Because he didn’t show up. So
who cares if I’ve ‘really’ changed? It doesn’t frickin’ matter!”
Dorrie held her hands up. “You’re right. I suck. That was completely bad timing.”
“You’re telling me. You’re supposed to be my friend!”
“She is your friend,” Tegan said. “Could you stop bickering? Both of you?”
I turned away, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in my dresser mirror. For a second I
didn’t recognize myself: not my hair, not my scowl, not my anguished eyes. I thought, Who is that crazy
girl?

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I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Addie, I’m sorry,” Dorrie said. “I was talking out of my butt like I always do. I just—”
She broke off, and this time I did not say, “You just what?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
I dug my fingers into the fibers of my throw blanket. After several long seconds, I gave a tiny nod. But