Page 19 of Sweet Silver Bells

His steps were quick and wide as he moved past Olivia into the hallway and turned into his room.

After digging under the bed, he pulled out a golf club laced with dust that had once been gifted to him by someone who wrongly thought he’d enjoy the sport.

He kept it because he thought it could be a useful weapon for a break-in; he didn’t have the guts to keep a gun in his room.

Hunter stomped back towards the living room, hands gripping the black rubbery top of the club. Olivia watched him, her nose crinkled in a way that was too damn cute, so he quickly looked away from her so he wouldn’t lose his focus, his nerve.

“What’s going to happen?” Olivia’s ethereal voice sounded too close to the song, as if she were warming her vocal chords.

“Don’t sing. Not yet.” Hunter demanded.

“Why?”

“I’ll show you why.” With tremendous force, Hunter took his left hand and pushed the television off the shelf.

Olivia jumped back with a scream, but a wicked smile danced across her lips.

The dark, solemn glaze that had sunken over her eyes lifted as Hunter experimented, as he gave her what she asked for: someone who listened.

Hunter let the golf club fall beside him as he grabbed the thirty-inch television and pulled it so forcefully that the cord was yanked out of the socket, snapping as the metal prongs bent backwards.

He threw the screen down onto the floor.

Olivia yelped again at the bang and then giggled, clapping her hands before her chin.

Hunter reached down, clasping the thin metal golf club between his hands, and raised it over his head, hitting the ceiling and sending mistletoe and white drywall crumbling down over them, as if encasing them in a real-life snowglobe.

“This is for the tree,” Hunter yelled as he brought the club down. The thick head broke the screen, creating a web with fat shards waiting to be freed and released.

“Yes,” Olivia screamed.

Hunter raised the club again.

“This is for you,” he said, bringing it back down.

“Yes!” Olivia jumped, her smile beaming.

Once more, Hunter raised his club, feeling liberated, like he could do no wrong, that he could be destructive, that he could show the world his hurt for the first time, that he could show the way that he wanted to heal.

He wanted to heal with her, with his tree siren.

“This is for me.” He smashed the television screen with one more forceful swing down, this one loudest of all, as wires poked through, and a hole four inches wide now existed where there once was a working television.

Break it all. Light the house on fire.

Hunter breathed slowly, in through his nose, out from his mouth as the anger that was hidden beneath his skin writhed, an awakened beast, testosterone running through his veins as his body urged him to keep breaking more shit.

To erase it all, all of the memories that kept him stuck here, stuck here with Sarah.

Why can’t I let go?

With Olivia watching him, Hunter knew it was now or never.

It was time to choose. He couldn’t continue living this way, even if Olivia disappeared, even if he had woken up and realized that this was all some wicked, terrible, heartbreaking dream.

He needed to move forward, and though that didn’t mean leaving Sarah behind, it meant making real space, a real effort to bring more into his life.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Worst possible timing.

Hunter dropped the club, staring into Olivia’s mischievous eyes. His hand twitched, and he opened his mouth wide, popping his jaw, a wildness still pushing his heart rate up.

With heavy footsteps, he stalked towards the door, his neck turning, arching as he refused to give up his eye contact with the woman who brought something new out of him, the woman that made him unleash a new man within himself, one that had been dormant, one that he was surprised had ever existed.

His body was rigid, his hands balled into fists, a peacock showing off its feathers as Olivia stared right back.

Is that pride in her eyes?

She was proud of him. She was proud of how feral he could become. How feral he was for her. If it weren’t for that knock at the door, he might have had to reconsider their first time being right, being romantic. This was the most goddamn romantic thing he had done for anyone.

Hunter gritted his teeth and pulled the door handle back. He was pent up, uncontrollably irritated that he had again been interrupted, and he feared for whoever was there, needing to be in his space. Someone always had to be in his space.

He was a goddamn grown man. And he was okay.

He just liked pickles.

At least I have hobbies. I could be a loser.

When the cold intruded on the space, sneaking in like a welcomed pest as the door hung wide open, Hunter saw nothing.

There’s no one here.

His jaw tightened, rage simmering hotter with every second.

Being interrupted for a foolish reason was bad enough.

Being interrupted for no reason at all was something else entirely.

He stepped out onto the porch, scanning the street for a car creeping away, but instead felt a crisp crunch beneath his boot.

Bracing himself against the doorframe, Hunter glanced down.

Three retail shopping bags, thick paper, garishly bright, each flaunting a different store’s logo, sat brimming at his feet.

Mom.

He’d asked his mom to drop off clothes. He didn’t realize that she would go shopping for an entirely new wardrobe.

Generous. She was always too generous.

Hunter couldn’t stand it. He wished he knew why it bothered him so much to have so much support. Really, what he craved, what he wanted, was no support at all. To be left out in the middle of the woods, with only a knife in hand and a wound on his cheek.

Olivia was teaching him that, teaching him who he could be. His eyes opened for the first time, and he was a newborn, fresh and ready for a world that would try to eat him alive.

But together, they could stop that. Together, the world couldn’t touch either of them.

Hunter grabbed the bags and slammed the door, locking it.

“These are for you,” he muttered. “My mom must really like you. I don’t think she ever bought Sarah an entire rack from a department store.”

“Hunter,” Olivia said, her voice vacant and eerie despite the devastatingly sweet smile on her face. “We need to bury it.”

“Bury it?”

She motioned towards the television. “It still vibrates, hums. If you prefer to keep smashing, you can. It just won't be enough.”

“Enough?” Hunter swallowed. “All of this wasn’t enough?”

Olivia let out an exhale, showing obvious disappointment in his reaction. She shook her head as her eyes darkened to onyx black as she opened her mouth and cleared her throat.

“For the tree, there can never be enough.”

Olivia sang.

“Sweet Silver Bells

Throw Cares Away.”

On the first line, Hunter’s mind went hazy. On the second,he realized whatever immunity he’d thought he had was a severe mistake as his vision went black.