Page 10 of Love Letters to Christmas

Working on myself. I call it DI-cry.

Amelia

“Yay!” I cheer, waving the adorable tiny American flags Brian gave me to help support him during his presentation.

Liam, severe as always, stares at the projection on the wall behind Brian while the firework animations on the last slide go off. Eyes narrow, he blinks slowly.

Dying behind his chair, Amber braces herself on the backrest and subdues her laughter.

Brian frowns. “I’m not sure why you aren’t taking this seriously, boss.” He throws a hand out toward the presentation. “I added so many patriotic puppy pictures.”

Tone seamlessly level, Liam says, “They’re adorable.”

“Do you know how hard it was to find a chiweenie in an American flag outfit? I couldn’t. I had to ask Frank to photoshop a bandana onto the little guy. She said she’d do it for fifty bucks. I gave her fifty bucks so you could have a chiweenie in a flag bandana.”

“I appreciate your efforts.”

Brian plants his hands on his hips. “And still you’re telling me no?”

Liam hasn’t said no. He’s not actually said much of anything. He has sat there. In front of us. And glared. Silently.

Brian begins pacing, cutting his fingers through his hair.

“How many presentations do I have to put my heart and soul into before this poor deprived office can have another month of joy? How many times do I have to bother Frank? How many activities do I have to plan? How many spreadsheets! How many schedules!”

“Brian—”

Brian slices his pointer finger toward our boss. “No. No more excuses.” He sniffs. “Just tell me the truth. Is it HR? Have they banned whimsy?” His hand clenches in a shaking fist. “ Micheal. ”

“It’s not Micheal.”

Brian’s nostrils flare. “ Erin ,” he seethes.

Liam lays a hand across his face. “It’s not Erin, either. It’s not HR. We can only support one event of this magnitude a year, and I pick Valentine’s Day.”

Valentine’s Day…not…Christmas? I know Christmas is my last name, but I don’t think I’m being partial here by finding it a bit odd that Valentine’s Day takes precedence over the most popular holiday in the world.

Well. Not that having a month-long Countdown to Flag Day of all things wouldn’t also have been odd, but if Brian says it is actually the most romantic holiday of the year, then it is the most romantic holiday of the year, trumping Valentine’s by a substantial margin.

I lower my flags as Brian shakes his head. “My disappointment is immeasurable.”

My stomach twists.

“Bri—” Liam starts.

Brian lifts his hand and looks away, sucking in a dejected breath. “I’ll solicit fundraising.”

“It’s not the funds. It’s the distraction from work.” Liam threads his fingers together, muttering, “Our clients rely on us, and silly string battles in the lobby during work hours was not…the best business decision.” His shoulders slump. “In hindsight.”

Surely, surely , hindsight was not required to come to that conclusion; nevertheless, is not morale important in this building?

Only happy employees can create happy clients!

“S- sir?” I begin, and Liam’s heavy attention falls on me.

Gulping, I say, “Is there nothing we can do? Even if it’s not at this scale…

maybe some of the plans can still be used? The…least obtrusive ones, perhaps?”

Rubbing his jaw, Liam sighs and says, “Perhaps for Christmas we can reevaluate our capabilities.”

Brian points his remote at the projector and presses a button that shuts the whole thing down. “Welp. Thank you for your time.” He disconnects his laptop and tucks it in his arms, against his sweater vest. “A-mail-ia and I will be leaving early June 14th.”

Amber hums, cocking her head. “Really? You’re leaving the mailroom early?”

“Really.” Brian sniffs. “We’ve a wedding to attend. Please mark it on his schedule, Madam Secretary.”

Liam’s brows lift, and he looks between Brian and me. “A wedding?”

“That’s nearly as fast as ours,” Amber says.

“No, it isn’t.” Liam faces his wife. “It’s a month away. After our reunion, we were married in a matter of days. They’ve been reunited for over a month already. We were fastest.”

Brian, unamused, says, “It’s not our wedding. And there’s no race on who can marry their childhood friend faster. You’ve already, obviously, won.”

Satisfied, Liam settles back in his chair. “I have, yes.”

“Yet poor loser Brian can’t have his Countdown to Flag Day.” Brian turns the woe up tenfold. “Back in my hometown, they have an entire festival for Flag Day.”

They…do? I blink at Brian, wondering when that happened. How come I’ve only just left home, but I’m already out of a loop that Brian’s somehow maintained for years?

Turning up his nose in a final, pitiful flourish, Brian says, “I expect letters of apology and condolences to arrive within the business week. Come, A-mail-ia.”

As we’re leaving, I overhear Amber murmur, “That one is such an odd egg,” followed by Liam’s, “Get my stationery, please.”

“You got it, Cutie,” is the last thing I can make out before the doors close behind us and I trot after Brian toward the elevator.

He pouts in the corner, hugging his laptop against his chest and looking somewhat utterly dismal in his baggy cardigan. Head tilted against the wall panel, he hefts a sigh.

“Are you okay?” I broach.

“First Easter, now Flag Day.” He droops. “Is this…hatred?”

I’m sure that a man currently drafting an apology letter does not hate Brian. I’m sure that no one can hate Brian. He is, after all, Brian . Just…just look at that face .

Eyes downcast, lip jutted, tiny sniffles wrinkling his perfect nose…

Yes, this is a man that no one can hate. No one at all.

“At least now we won’t have to worry about coordinating anything for the event while we’re back home for the wedding?

” The wedding that Amber and Liam thought was ours .

The wedding that Brian immediately brushed off as absolutely not ours, don’t be ridiculous, you think I’d marry this thing? No way.

Er.

Well.

That’s absolutely not what he said. He just also barely reacted to the speculation while I am still a tomato and fighting desperately to regain my working on myself and not asking for more peace.

It is…very hard.

Especially when Brian is being particularly adorable right now.

I just want to wrap him up in a hug and tell him that he can have all the Flag Day events he wants.

But I am incapable of that, and I am not making other people’s troubles my responsibility right now.

I am strictly working on myself and other things I can control .

As though “controlling my feelings” is actually an attainable goal.

Brian’s gaze drags off the ground, finds me, and stops. He stills, then he straightens. Cutting his fingers through his sandy hair, he murmurs, “Back home…?”

My brow furrows. “In Bandera? For Mars and Ceres’s wedding? On Flag Day?”

He watches me, vaguely distant. He watches me so long, my stomach begins to curdle and the slowest elevator in the world reaches the very opposite part of the building, opening up to reveal his kingdom of mail.

Dropping his arm, he strides past me, murmuring, “That’s not your home.

Home is where your mailbox is.” He sets his laptop down on one of the desks, letting his fingers trail across the silver back as he continues toward his office.

“Mail will be here soon. Let’s get ready to do our rounds. ”

As every organ in my body gains twenty pounds, I force myself to regulate. To take in air. To practice character growth . Ceres would be proud of me for it. But I’m not seeking external validation…so…that doesn’t matter.

Yeah.

And Brian being upset right now matters , but it’s not something for me to fix . I can be here for him as a friend without needing to find a solution when there probably isn’t one.

I can bake him some flag-shaped cookies to go with dinner tonight, and I can let this weight go. Because it is not my job to handle the world’s problems while I have so many of my own.

Yeah.

Yeah…

Yep.

Easy.

“I don’t want to work on myself anymore,” I whisper, into the carpet, because I am lying facedown on the carpet, while on video call. “Ceres, do you have any problems I can work on instead?”

“Mars wants me to wear a veil at the wedding.”

I shift my nose out of the rug and look at my friend, who is—as always—sitting at her computer, working. Today, blessedly, it’s girlie time. No Mars on the couch behind her, throwing his cards at who knows what. “I do not understand the problem.”

“I do not want to wear a veil.” Her clicking fingers fly across her keyboard.

Sitting up, I lift the phone and scoot in—problem solver extraordinaire. “Have you communicated that to him?”

“Yes.”

I gasp, letting my eyes widen. “And he got upset? Is that why he’s not here today?”

Ceres arches a brow at me, then she says plainly, “No? He’s not here because it’s Tuesday.”

Tuesday? “Yes? And?”

“Tuesday is meeting day. He’s with Jove.”

Ah, yes, of course. How silly of me. Tuesday is always meeting day.

I know this. Just like I know the third Saturday of every month is shopping day.

Ceres spares very little information about herself, but what I have managed to glean during our beautiful three-year friendship, I cannot help but cling to.

As it stands, Ceres is the first person in my entire life who has both not grown to hate me and who I have been able to keep secret from my parents.

She lets me be me . And now she has a problem…

I think. I press, “So…he didn’t get upset when you told him you didn’t want to wear a veil for your wedding? ”

“Mars only gets upset at baddies. There’s no reason for him to ever be upset with me.” She smiles. “I’m a good girl.”

Uh-huh. “So, what’s the problem?”

Her attention flicks off her computer screen and finds me. “Oh, there isn’t one. I just said the first thing I could think of that resembled the most dissonance I have experienced in roughly three years.”