Page 9 of Love Letters to Christmas

Please, please, please do not remove the ‘i’ from my name…

Brian

Amelia is normally so… good at baking.

Glancing at my roomie in the passenger seat of my car, I find her cheerfully devouring one of this morning’s breakfast muffins while she plays on her phone, messaging someone, likely Ceres.

I am unsure what I have just put in my mouth, but I do not like it. No, I do not like it at all.

Pained, I manage to swallow the single, earthy bite.

For the record, food should never—ever—be described as earthy . Just. Just a PSA to all right there.

Is it moist? Yes. Is it rich with the flavor of a pinecone?

Somehow also yes.

Clearing my throat, I turn toward Amelia, open my mouth, and think better of it.

The poor girl makes different muffins every morning for us for breakfast. She’s allowed to have one recipe that I don’t love. And I am allowed to not break her heart and soul by asking her if she used dirt in lieu of flour. I can force down some dirt muffin…for her sake.

I attempt to take another bite as I turn into downtown, where our beloved mailroom lies.

I cannot do it.

Something in me rebels. Riots. Resists.

Self-preservation, probably.

“A-mail-ia?” I posture, gently.

Her sweet smile and brown eyes find me, eager, waiting. She finishes up her own muffin as though it is not the physical embodiment of death and says, “Yes?”

I can’t do it. I cannot. I just can’t . “What kind of muffin is this?” I ask, leveling my tone so it’s conversational, not pitching.

She brightens. “Bran.”

Bran.

Who hurt her? How badly do you have to be hurt to confirm that something is bran so chipperly? Yet again, I find myself compelled to seek out an audience and have words with her parents.

Maintaining glistening positivity, Amelia—dear, sweet, innocent Amelia—says, “It’s a healthy recipe I found in this new book I got. It has bran, walnuts, and raisins in it.”

Raisins? There are raisins in this? No. No, thank you.

Bless everything that I managed to get a bite with none of those .

One of the reasons Mars and I bonded in an odd way was, first and foremost, because he made absolutely gorgeous ransom notes, and, second and secondmost, because we both hate raisins .

We practically held back one another’s hair that one time the lunch lady at our school bestowed a deceptively chocolate chip looking oatmeal raisin cookie upon us. Our eyes met, faces green, across the cafeteria, and solidarity had never been so pitiful.

I’m pretty sure Jove threatened that woman into never doing it again because my tastebuds were never more affronted so heinously…but…well…

Where did Amelia even get raisins and bran? Why is she going to the store by herself? She’s tiny, and pretty, and too friendly for city crowds. Someone is going to take her home, and then I’ll have to call in a favor with Mars. That favor, naturally, being murder, but—

Amelia has been talking.

I zone back into the conversation and find her fiddling with her fingers as I pull into our reserved parking spot. “It’s just I realized that we’ve been eating a sugar-heavy breakfast for weeks…so when a healthier muffin recipe fell into my lap, I decided to try it out and look up more.”

Healthier? Healthier.

Amelia, I am too spoiled now to consume healthier muffin recipes. What do you mean healthier? You make dinners with desserts . It’s too late for us.

Doe, her eyes lift, and my chest squeezes. “You…don’t like it, do you?”

I would rather die than disappoint her. And, yet, I cannot. If there are raisins in this, I will not be able to force them down. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t like raisins.”

“You don’t like raisins,” she whispers, breathless, eyes going huge.

I shake my head. They are the devil’s fruit. I am positive they grew, dried and shriveled, upon the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve plucked a desiccated grape from the boughs, and Adam—the fool—ate it for his love of her.

Such a love I am incapable of, I fear.

It is with a heavy heart that I admit…I would not even do it for my love of mail.

Some things are not fit for consumption. And mail would never ask me to.

“I—” Amelia begins, then stops, and bites her lip.

Her eyes cut off me as she reassesses her words.

Evil raisin bran muffin aside, I’m proud of her.

She’s been making concentrated efforts lately to apologize less.

Just yesterday, she was in the living room.

Sitting there. Doing nothing . It looked like she wanted to die, or like she was waiting for me to kill her, but it’s beautiful to see her on a personal growth journey.

Carefully, eyes lowered, she proceeds, “I didn’t know you didn’t like raisins.

I can make them again tomorrow, without the raisins. ”

Haha. “No, no,” I say. “No need for that.” I lift the abomination. “See, the problem with this is that…” How do I put this kindly? “…it’s all bad.”

“O-oh.”

Crap. I cough. “Allow me to rephrase: my body no longer yearns for health. It wants chocolate chips, and strawberry cream, and coffee with the sugar crumbles. It will accept zucchini. It will cry if you feed it parsnip.”

“How did you know I found a parsnip muffin recipe?”

I come very close to swearing. “You are, surely, joking.”

She shakes her head. “It’s in my new book.”

“What’s the world coming to?” First, it moves into an electronic era, making personal letters far less common. Then, it starts putting parsnips in muffins .

“I was going to get slivered almonds for the topping after work today…”

“And that’s another thing!” I set the offensive muffin down, in the plastic bag, that I keep in my car to use as a trashcan.

Amelia startles, but it’s too late for me to adjust my tone. “There’s another thing?” she whispers, frail.

“Yes, there is. Why are you going to the store by yourself?”

Her lashes flutter as she looks at me. “To…get ingredients I need for things?”

“There’s a list for that. On the fridge.

So I can go to the store and get the ingredients you need for things.

You should not be using your own money to then cook my meals.

” I cross my arms, very serious. “This isn’t Bandera.

It’s dangerous to go shopping alone in the city.

There are all sorts of ruffians hanging around. ”

“Ruffians?” she echos, then realization crosses her face.

Inexplicably, my stomach knots. She’s met a ruffian, hasn’t she? And she didn’t even realize it until now? I cannot let her out of my sight.

“Is that what the teenagers who sold me my new cookbook are?”

What.

“It’s the healthy one I mentioned. It’s vegan. And it has lots of pictures.”

What, what.

“They stopped me as I was getting to my car and asked if I was interested. I’ll be honest, I thought they were selling drugs at first, but it was just a really pretty and well-put-together cookbook.

I bought it. I’ve been adapting some of the recipes since we’re not vegan, but the cashew cheese one looks pretty good, so I might give it a try. ”

Liam would love to hear about this.

Wait, no.

I thread my fingers back through my hair and rub the nape of my neck. “I don’t think those kids were ruffians, exactly. Still, you should let me handle the shopping. Just in case.”

“Just in case I’m…sold more cookbooks with bran recipes in them?”

Considering I think I would prefer drugs… “Yes.”

Clasping her hands together against her dress skirt, she blows out a breath and nods. “I understand. I shall be vigilant.”

Tension leaves my muscles. “Good. I’m glad we had this talk.” Mailroom calling my name, I pop open my car door.

Amelia’s timid voice stops me before I can step out. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“Mad?” At her? For…what? Spending her own money on a horrible attempt to get fiber and nutrients in me? “Why would I be mad?”

She opens her door. “N-no reason. I’m just making sure.”

Huh.

Mad. At her. What a wildly impossible thing to suggest.

I’m still thinking about it when I sit in my office and do everything in my power to make my Flag Day event presentation for Liam cute.

I’m still thinking about it thirty minutes later, when Amelia knocks on my door.

My attention leaves the pastel red-and-blue stars I’m scattering all over the PowerPoint slide to find a woman that no one should ever be mad at.

Ever.

It’s unnatural.

It’s unjust.

It’s…

I blink at the small paper bag in her hand. “What do you have there, A-mail-ia?”

She enters my office fully and places the parcel on my desk. She cannot meet my eyes. “I feel bad…thinking about you going hungry.”

I stare at the Sweet & Salty logo plastered across the brown paper. After our conversation about ruffians this morning and how she shouldn’t be spending her own money on me, she left this building and went down the street to the best cafe in the world all by herself to get me breakfast?

That seems like a big breakdown in listening comprehension.

Planting my chin in my hand, I brace my elbow on my desk and sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

She winces. “Sor…” She swallows the apology and stares down at her Mary Jane shoes.

Extending my hand, I say her name. Tangled together, her fingers twitch, then they separate and she reaches for me. As our skin meets, soft emotions flood my chest.

It’s Christmas morning, with music and pine. It’s Easter candy pillowed in a bed of fake grass. It’s a crackling fire and writing love letters by candlelight.

I squeeze her small hand. “Are you okay?”

“I…” She bites her lip, takes a breath, battles to contain herself. “Yes.”

“You can talk to me. I didn’t mean to be so harsh this morning. I still appreciate you. Immensely.”

“It’s not that,” she says, voice breaking. “I’m just stressed.”

“Why?”

Using her free hand, she wipes her eyes and clings to me for stability.

“I shouldn’t react like this. I shouldn’t panic like this.

You should be able to tell me you don’t like a stupid bran muffin without it feeling like this .

I shouldn’t have to feel like I need to fix it.

I shouldn’t worry that if you aren’t smiling and energetic all the time that you’re mad at me.

I…” Her head falls. “I’m sorry . I’m so sorry. It’s so hard. I can’t… I’m sorry.”

I am uncertain what compels me, but I kiss Amelia’s knuckles.

Breath enters her, quieting her apologies, so I kiss again before I rise and reach to curl a finger beneath her chin. I guide her eyes to my face. Starry brown meets me, and I forget what I’m doing, what I’m trying to say, everything.

Wow.

It is actually incredibly stupid of me to let her outside where people who don’t appreciate mail might get to her. Mars asked me to help her. And I’m doing a terrible job of that if she’s crying in my office after only a month and a half.

“It takes an awful lot to get me mad, A-mail-ia,” I supply, once I’ve regained the ability to speak. “It’s going to take time for you to heal from everything you’ve grown up knowing, because you’re right. You shouldn’t be hurting like this.”

“I don’t know how to make it stop. I’m trying, in all the ways I know how. But it’s still so hard.”

“You have time.”

“But—”

“You have time, A-mail-ia. A letter doesn’t make it around the world in a single day.

There’s processing, and customs, and all sorts of other things to take into consideration—like distance.

What matters is that you have an idea of where you want to be and know the steps to make it there.

Don’t rush yourself Out for Delivery if you’re still busy filling in the recipient address.

” I squeeze her hand, then let her fingers slip from mine as I sit back down.

“No one’s mad at you. There are no expectations to live up to.

You don’t have to take care of me or feel responsible for my emotions, likes, or dislikes.

You’re healing. And we’re existing. Together.

That’s all. There’s nothing else you need to stress over.

One way or another, you will reach your destination, and it will be just as beautiful as you’ve hoped for. Okay?”

Her eyes close, and she nods. “Okay.”

Wonderful.

Smiling, I return to the very important business of preparing my pitch for a month-long most-romantic-holiday-of-the-year event and enjoy the non -bran muffin she brought me. Honestly, it should be a crime to be this spoiled rotten.