Page 135 of Daddies' Holiday Toy

It’s all too much—the relief that my mom’s gone without making good on her threat of involving the police, the guilt over how she found out, the shock I can still see burned into those men’s faces.

Threaded through all of it, heavier than anything else, is the baby.

The fact that there’s a baby at the center of all of this, one I didn’t plan for, one I’m not even sure I can, or want, to keep.

I pull the robe tighter around me, curling in on myself until my forehead rests against my knees.

The tears blur everything, my chest tightening until I can’t tell if the ache is from crying too hard or from the sheer weight of the mess I’ve made of my own life.

31

HOLLY

The days blur together after that.

I tell myself to just get back to normal, whatevernormaleven means anymore.

That’s the only way I’ll survive any of this.

The worst part is that the only person I could call right now and vent to about all of this has been stuck at her job pulling double shifts for the past week and a half, and when Mallorydoeshave time to actually text me back to check on me, she’s usually so fried she can barely string together more than a few words before the rest turns to complete gibberish.

As desperate as I am for my sounding board and my friend, I can’t dump all of this on her right now.

It wouldn’t be fair.

So I keep it all stuffed inside me.

I throw myself into work because that’s something I can control. Fulfilling orders, completing invoices, checking off lists.

One week until Christmas means every minute counts if I want to deliver on time, and I will, no matter how hollow I feel doing it.

Even in this fog, my hands know what to do.

The steady movements soothe me: measuring, mixing, folding, packing.

And the customers seem happy.

At least no one’s sending anything back or complaining about delays.

I plaster on a smile when they come in, wish them a merry Christmas, and send them off with boxes tied in ribbon.

It’s a performance, but it’s one I’m incredibly good at.

It’s late when I finally look up from my work two days before Christmas.

The sky outside the front window is an inky black, frost pressing light against the glass.

I’ve been here for hours, chasing some imaginary finish line in my head, trying to get ahead so I can maybe have a day to breathe and decide what to do about my future and the life growing inside me.

Just as I’m finishing pulling the last of the left-over cookies from the display case, the bell above the door jingles.

I almost call out that we’re closed, the automatic greeting already forming on my tongue, but then I see her.

Mallory.

My absolute saving grace.

She’s framed in the light from the nearby streetlamp like she walked straight out of a daydream, grinning despite the faint dark circles smudged under her eyes.