Spirit: A Straight Holiday Novella Read online

  SPIRIT

  A “STRAIGHT” HOLIDAY NOVELLA

  SETH KING

  Copyright © 2016 by Seth King

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  for Corey

  “There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice.”

  - F. Scott Fitzgerald

  PART I: THE AFTERMATH

  CAROLINE FRIAR

  Dor (Romania) – The longing for a person that is out of reach, whom you love very much

  I run this word through my head over and over again as I look at the Instagram photos of my ex-boyfriend, the guy I wanted to marry, at a bar with his new boyfriend.

  His boyfriend…

  I check the date on my iPhone. It’s nearing the end of December, and usually this is the absolute most magical time of year for me. Seriously, I am the Mariah Carey of Savannah, Georgia: I hire a professional team to deck out my parents’ house, I hit up every single tree lot I can find in the hopes of finding the perfect monster for the triple-height family room, and you won’t catch me listening to anything other than the holiday station on punishment of death. Something about Christmas just recaptures the magic I felt as a kid, and makes me believe I am as happy again as I was back then, before bills and breakups and all the rest of it came and fucked everything up and killed the spirit. But this year has been an absolute disaster to rival all disasters.

  Love is the ultimate decider when it comes to Christmastime. When you are in love at Christmas, everything is a real-life snow globe. Things are just better and more joyful and sparklier. (Is that a word? It is in my world.) But when you are heartbroken, Christmas becomes a living bag of leaky garbage juice. I should be holding hands beside bonfires and sipping hot chocolate in warm kitchens and sledding down freezing hills with the one I love. I should be dressing in my best festive outfits and then pretending like I don’t want compliments, and I should be wearing MAC’s Ruby Woo everywhere I go for no reason at all. My Christmas should’ve been an explosion of confetti and joy and snow like All I Want For Christmas is You, but instead it’s that boring, depressing holiday song where that guy moans about how his baby is gone and he has no friends. Here I am, dealing with the remnants of a breakup in December, even though I’ve found someone I really like. I have no problem that my ex-boyfriend is apparently gay or bisexual now, and I will shred anyone who talks about him in front of me without respect, but still…how do I wrap my head around this? Did he ever want me? Did he ever love me at all? Or was he just trying to love me?

  All December long I’ve been trying to forget about it all and focus on this huge project for one of my classes, an introspective on words you can’t translate into English. I’m supposed to find dozens of un-translate-able terms and muse on what they would mean in English, and talk about how they illuminate the differences between different tongues across the world. Dor in particular resonated with me, because I will always love Henry Morgan. We have a bond that cannot be broken. Until the day I die I will look at that kid and just want to wrap him up in a hug and make everything work out for him. But what now? Not only am I still mourning the presence of Henry in my life, but my parents are at each others’ throats every time they’re in the same room, and we can’t have a family get-together without the whole thing exploding into one protracted shouting match that ends in cut downs, tears, and slammed doors. And this goddamned election has only made everything so much worse…

  Still, none of the family stuff really compares to the pain of Henry. The thought of him being with someone else, anyone else, lacerates me and makes me panic in a way I do not understand. He should have been with me. One of the last times I saw him, I poured out my heart to him and he shrugged. Shrugged! I confronted him with the depths of my misery, and he shrugged in return. What an asshole. But then again, I’m not much better, and my moral high ground is basically below sea level…

  Okay, while I’m already the Grinch anyway, I’ll just admit it: I’m dating his best friend.

  But hold on, I’ll get there in a second…

  Mamihlapinatapei (Chile) – The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who want to initiate something, but are too reluctant to start

  When I set out to date someone and get over my ex, I really didn’t mean for that “someone” to be my ex’s best friend of fifteen years. I really didn’t. It just kind of…happened, like breakup sex, or those nights where you just want to drink one glass of wine but end up getting wasted off whiskey shots anyway and crying in a gutter somewhere. Oops.

  I remember it was a terrible, drizzly night, the kind that makes you hate your whole life and want to bury yourself in bed forever. My texts and Snapchats were going to Henry completely ignored, and so I went to Whole Foods alone to wallow in my misery. That’s where I saw Thad, Henry’s best friend. He was alone, too. Dark-blonde and muscular, I’d never really given him much thought, as he was always just the kid by Henry’s side – but not anymore. He was probably an inch shorter than me, but suddenly I didn’t care – he was still better looking than anyone else who’d talked to me lately (hint: that was absolutely nobody.)

  I asked for help picking out a bottle of wine. In my hand I had a brand of Pinot Grigio called Blonde, and he laughed.

  “What’s funny?” I remember asking.

  “Nothing, it’s just that…the name of that wine suits you, that’s all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, do you remember in high school when you asked whether Canada was ‘a state or a province?’”

  “Yes, and now I know it’s a continent, thank you very much.”

  He laughed again for some reason. “Ha. Sure. Whatever you say. Blondie.”

  “Fine,” I said, “I am aware that I am blonde. My mom called me the absent-minded professor’s wife, and my dad said my life was one massive blonde moment. Sorry – I know I’m usually out to lunch, but I can’t help it. Apparently I have a very high IQ, but it’s not my fault I come across like a bumbling idiot.”

  He laughed again and got busy showing me all the wines his mom’s friends liked. Soon it became clear I had to go, and if I didn’t, this would go somewhere inappropriate. We were crossing some kind of unspoken line. But he asked me if he could Facebook message me, and I gulped and said yes. It’s not like he was asking for my number – just to message me. So I agreed. And that was it – that was the start.

  The thing that shocked me was how easily we fell in together, once we got over the initial fear and started talking and hanging out. We knew all the same people, we went to all the same places, we liked many of the same things. We didn’t mention the Henry thing at first because obviously that was awkward, but soon I realized I couldn’t avoid it. And when I finally broke and cried, he held me until I turned around and realized he was hard. As in, sexually hard….

  Soon we were making out. We had sex that very night, and the next day I felt so weird that I blocked his number and freaked out. But of course I came back, and we did it again. And again…

  I didn’t want to let him get close enough to hurt me, but I learned very quickly that Thaddeus didn’t have borders or walls – to know him was to be an inch away from him at all times. He was so friendly and open and normal, which was refreshing after dealing with Henry’s distance and mood swings and all the rest.

  When we did bring up Henry, it did nothing
but make us closer. It was like we’d both been jettisoned, cast away like an old T-shirt, and we found in solace in each other. There was something about Henry that just drew people into him – he was the sun and both of us were apparently his orbiting planets. Now we were in the dark. Thad had the same story as me: one day Henry had just stopped responding to his texts, and the only communication now was a random stream of Snapchat pictures of his dog or his house or his classes. What was going on? The question bonded us, and soon I learned he was just as lonely as me.

  But not for long. We fixed that for each other.

  Sprezzatura (Italy) – false nonchalance; feelings concealed under a studied carelessness

  This word quickly became the defining term of our early relationship. I couldn’t admit it because it was weird and awkward, but I really enjoyed this kid. He was low-key, sure, but at the same time he was passionate about his nieces and his baseball teams and the garden behind his house. I appreciated guys with passions, because if they didn’t care about anything at all, how could they ever care about me?

  Although we squabbled here and there, I couldn’t stay away, obviously. Something in his dark eyes made me come back. He wasn’t just sweet little Thad anymore, Henry’s eternal sidekick – he was a rock, a safe place to fall when the grief over Henry became too much, someone who could make me laugh at the ridiculous mess my life had become. And soon I realized Thad wasn’t trying to take up the space inside me that Henry had left – he’d moved into a different room altogether, and didn’t even remark about the vacant space at all. He seemed okay with everything I was, and everything I wasn’t, and soon it made me feel more okay with myself, too.

  And his dick, thick and well shaped, didn’t hurt, either…

  Abhisar (India) – Going towards; a meeting (often secret) between lovers or partners

  The only sucky thing was that we had to hide our entire relationship. Well, actually, we didn’t really hide it, we just made sure Henry specifically didn’t find out. Thad said he still didn’t know how to break it to him yet, so we avoided Henry’s favorite places and the few blocks around his family’s townhouse. We still had a lot of other places to visit, though: River Street and the mall and the inland bars and Tybee Island sometimes when we were feeling adventurous.

  I also put him through my own personal relationship tests, all of which he passed with vibrant colors. He withstood meeting my father without killing himself, he survived a night out with my friends and didn’t even bat an eyelash when Whitney got wasted and threw up all over Ava’s legs in the back of the car, and finally he proved he was able to spend an entire weekend with me watching my favorite show, Golden Girls. (I’m a Rose with a touch of Blanche, if you were wondering.) I put him all through this, and still he didn’t flinch – he didn’t run off or slowly stop responding to my texts. He stayed.

  You see, before this I had only ever pursued guys I now call Time-Wasters. You’ve seen the Time-Wasters, and you know them well: there they are, making adorable little statements with a strange sort of distance in their eyes. There they go, playing games with your time and waffling back and forth just to keep you on the edge of your seat. There they are, coming over and making love to you and saying they want you to be their only one, then taking off again and muttering vague things about “needing space” and “having so much on their plate right now” while you sit at home alone. They manipulate your feelings and dignity, they control you like a marionette for the hell of it, and then they step back from your reaction and act like you’re the crazy one. They make you wait for texts that never come; they keep you sitting at home on Friday nights anxiously waiting for them to make plans they never make. They spin impossible promises they abandon after a few days, they close the door on your fingers and then laugh at you for crying out, and the worst part is that you are to blame, because you are the one who shows up and willingly comes back and buys a ticket for a cruise on a sinking ship all over again.

  These Time-Wasters are snakeskin salesmen, spinners of lies and fantasies and sadness, and in the end it all comes down on you like a guillotine. And where does it get you? Nowhere. I am humiliated to admit that after chasing the same guy on-and-off for years, it still didn’t work out, and I am back to living with my own mother. I am about to go on a damn family vacation to Turks & Caicos at twenty-five years old, all because I still haven’t built a life and a family unit of my own and I have nothing else to do. That is not normal. I wasted half a decade and I have nothing to show for it, and who looks bad in the end? I do. The female is lonely and desperate and starting anew all over again, and the male is a playboy lothario. My friends and family members wouldn’t even look me in the eye after the breakup – go fucking figure. If this culture disrespected women any more than it already did, we’d be called the United States of Kabul.

  Now, Henry Morgan wasn’t a typical Time-Waster, and he is a very good person, but he was still a million miles away from me. But Thad was the first to take my time and value it, and value me, and it wasn’t so much refreshing as revelatory.

  On a beach trip on a windy day when it was just the two of us, Thad asked me if I liked him. I said I did.

  “Why?” he asked. “As friends, or what?”

  “No. Obviously more than friends…”

  “How, then?”

  I sipped my drink before I answered – this bit of truth was going to need some help coming out of the front door. How did I explain this without sounding crazy?

  “Because…because you’re picking up my scattered pieces,” I finally said. “My dad was around as much as my gardeners were, and Henry could be worse. All my dad ever did was leave, and then email me and apologize for leaving, and then come home for five seconds and then leave again. And dating Henry was almost was bad. But you…you make me think you’re going to stay. Your ass is really nice, too.”

  “Thanks. And I will stay,” he said, rubbing my neck. “For as long as you want me, I’ll be here. Long after I’ve overstayed my welcome, in fact. You made me come alive again. You’re also hilarious and inappropriate, which is always good”

  I smiled at him, but I knew I must’ve looked evil. (There was probably a reason my parents called me Crazy Caroline when I had my mood swings.) “Promise you’ll be here as long as I want you here?” I asked, and he nodded with a mischievous light in his eyes.

  And that was the beginning of the end of it.

  Aloha (Hawaii) – The breath of presence

  “I love you, Caroline Friar,” Thad tells me back in my house on Christmas Eve, his sweet breath wetting my cheek. I’ve heard this a hundred times over the course of the fall, of course, but still it feels just as sweet each time. I know we rushed into saying the phrase, but why wait when you feel something you know to be true? My past made me wear my emotions on the edge of my sleeve. My Uncle Eddie was dead by the time he was 42, and I’ll never be able to tell him how much he meant to me again. Why not tell people how we feel about them when they’re still right beside us? Why send love to the dead when we are still surrounded by the living?

  Thad’s come over to watch OnDemand and go over the latest about what we’ve heard regarding the Henry situation and to just mourn our Christmas situation in general. I can’t even believe this date has arrived so quickly like this, and now that it has, I’m severely regretting letting the Henry mess hog up all my attention. I didn’t even have a Christmas at all, actually: I’ve attended zero tree lightings, I’ve listened to Kelly Clarkson’s Christmas record for probably a grand total of five minutes, and I only went to the mall to soak up all the holiday spirit probably only four times, which is far less than my average monthly mall attendance…

  In short, I don’t even recognize myself. What happened to the undisputed queen of Christmas?

  “I love you, too,” I tell Thad. “Even if my life is a debacle.”

  “Ugh,” he sighs. “Can you believe it? Can you believe Henry has a boyfriend?”

  I drop my phone and look over at
him. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be able to believe it?”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just…”

  “You just what? Gay people are not deserving of scandalous whispers just because they’re different,” I say. “Yes, it is weird that we’ve broken up, but none of the rest should be considered weird. He doesn’t deserve that. Especially not in a place like Georgia, where it’s already hard enough.”

  “Right,” he nods. “You’re right. Sorry. I mean, I was even named after Thaddeus May, a Georgia ancestor who owned a dozen slaves and fought in the Civil War, so I should keep that in mind more than anyone. I’ll remember to try not to sensationalize him because of who he is. But at the same time…”

  “What?”

  “Well, you did date him, and this would rock a lot of people. How are you so…evolved with this?”

  I swallow. Half of my male friends are gay, and I’ve seen firsthand the way they were really treated by other guys sometimes – they were either ignored, or treated like some kind of pet, some type of oddity. Straight guys talked down to gays like they were children, and I’d lost my temper several times and wanted to demand their equal treatment. But I never did. And the biggest case of my inaction still haunted me to this day.

  “Uncle Eddie,” I say. “That’s why I’m so evolved.”

  “Who?”

  “Uncle Eddie, the funniest person I ever knew, my favorite person in my whole family,” I begin. “He lived in California, so I only saw him around this time of year. He was loud and obnoxious and had the most inappropriate jokes ever. Everyone knew he was gay, but at the same time he wasn’t allowed to admit it – he had to dance around it, because my grandparents were huge Bible thumpers. So one year he brought his boyfriend out of nowhere and said he was his ‘roommate.’ Everyone was nice enough to him when he walked in, but nobody would make eye contact. And after we ate dinner, my grandpa apparently told him he’d crossed a line and needed to leave and wouldn’t be welcome back. I remember watching Eddie look around the room for support, and nobody said anything in his defense. Not a word. Nothing. I was probably fifteen at the time, so I could’ve helped, you know? I could’ve said something, and I’ll regret it forever. They left in humiliation, and Eddie skipped the holidays the next year, and by the following summer he was dead from lung cancer. We lost the only time we ever could’ve gotten with him, and now we’ll never see him again. And because of what? Because my eighty-year-old grandpa used a book written thousands of years ago to kick him out of our house? How senseless is that?”