Chapter Text
The tree sat in the corner of the front room, next to the big comfy sofa that took up almost the entire wall that faced the other houses on the block. The snow outside reflected the leftover sunshine from the day through the room, colored softly by Christmas lights her moms neighbors already had up.
Christine used two hands to force the plastic branches apart, still stiff from the box the tree came in. Neo danced around her feet in a black, scruffy blur in the corner of her vision, not taking his eyes off of her since she walked in the door earlier that day.
The rustling of leaves drowned out the soft melody of Christmas tunes her mom had insisted on playing in the background. She worked just as diligently next to her — silently, for once — probably still winded by the amount of questions she had for Ellie over dinner.
It was nice not being the center of attention for these things again. It's not like she didn't like telling her family anything, it just… tended to make her feel like the ‘baby’ all over again.
But Ellie, oh, they loved Ellie. Of course they would. She needed some babying.
It was funny watching her be completely flabbergasted at the amount of interest they took in her. How the farm works, what food she likes, how long she's had her horses. Small talk she knew she'd be comfortable with.
Her life was a lot more interesting than whatever Christine had going on right now, anyways.
After a couple hours of conversation over empty plates, the smell of a burnt pie had wafted in from the kitchen. The decision was made that the boys would venture out to find a place open for some kind of dessert, leaving all four of them in the house to start decorating.
Ellie came in from the garage with another tub of Christmas decorations, giggling about something with Megan as they set them down in front of the couch.
Christine opened the plastic bin to look for ornaments, only to find bent old pictures and leftover tinsel tangling them all together. Great.
She managed to dig out a box of them at the bottom despite that and started to place the gold orbs wherever she thought the incandescent lights would reflect off of them the most.
“Oh, Chrissyyy! I didn't know these were in here!”
She turned around to find all three of the women huddled around the plastic tote, holding small piles of the photos in their hands like they were playing cards.
Her mom held a picture from kindergarten in her old ballet outfit, her hair up in a tight bun as a jacket way too big to be hers at the time hung over that god awful itchy tutu. Big blue eyes stared daggers into the camera, only exaggerated by the red reflection of the flash in her pupils.
Her bottom lip stuck out as she showed it to her sister.
“You still look like that to me, by the way. I hope you know that.” Megan teased.
Christine rolled her eyes over the grin that crept onto her face, moving in between them all to grab another handful of loose ornaments, picking off the tinsel stuck to them.
A movement from Ellie caught her attention from her peripheral vision. Before she could glance up fully, her hand had already returned to the pictures.
Huh. Weird.
Her mom let out a belly laugh before she could ruminate on it. For now.
“Remember this recital?” her mom asked Megan as she showed the picture to Ellie, who also made that stupid pouty-lipped face. “She was pissed. Did not want to go on that stage. She sat down in the middle of the whole thing!”
“On the stage?” Ellie giggled.
“Yes! In the middle of the dance!”
Christine gave up trying to decorate the tree alone and sat in the free space next to Ellie, letting Neo climb into her lap as she shrugged.
“I told you, I'm not into sports.”
“It wasn't a sport! I was trying to find something for you! You just weren't into extracurriculars, period.”
Her mom flipped over one of Megan's senior photos, complete with her cheer uniform and only the chunkiest of highlights.
“Not like your sister, who had me driving everywhere”
“Hey, you're welcome. I was an easy kid.”
“Oh? Says who?” Megan scoffed.
Christine shot her an intense scowl over the plastic tote before she could help it.
Neo’s ears perked up as he scuttered towards the couch, jumping up on her moms golden retriever, Pancake, who slept soundly through the gremlin of a dog barking its lungs out on top of her.
He jumped down, running past Ellie, directing a few more barks towards her on the way to the front door. Her eyes went wide before darting them towards hers with a brow raised.
Christine pointed. “Thats payback for Alfredo."
Ellie's lids dropped, as if to say ‘Really?’
Kevin and Oscar came through the door, making a b-line for the kitchen with a couple grocery bags in hand.
“Ice cream!” Kevin shouted.
Megan sighed under her breath as her and her mother got up from the ground.
“It is… literally snowing outside, but okay.”
Ellie started to clean up the pictures they had left on the ground.
Christine went to help her, even though they could have just waited until they went back to decorating to clean them up.
As she picked up the few scattered around where Megan was sitting, she leaned over to reach one that had fallen face down behind where Ellie was sitting.
“Wait!-”
She had turned the picture over in her hands to look at it before Ellie could get the word out of her mouth.
It was… her. Kind of.
Her hair was lighter and fuller, curled loosely over her shoulders. She had done her makeup carefully, wearing those fluttery fake lashes she used to keep safe in the bathroom drawer for special occasions. They took half an hour alone to get right.
She doesn't remember exactly when she stopped wearing her jewelry.
She knew she had unpacked those silver chains and tattoo chokers. They sat in a shoe box on the bottom of her closet. She used to wear them all the time, as cheap as they were.
It was probably around the same time she stopped wearing her ring.
“I-Im really sorry… I just- I didn't want to make you upset, and…”
Christine wordlessly thumbed over the white script wording that ran along the navy blue border of the picture.
‘Save the date’
‘Lucus & Christine’
His arm was draped over her chest, across her pretty little white dress, like he was supposed to be hugging her from behind. Her ring sparkled on the hand she had gingerly placed over his forearm, making sure it was right in the center of the picture.
Her smile would've looked ecstatic to anyone who couldn't see the panic behind her eyes. No one really had at the time.
It morphed her into someone she didn't even recognize.
Ellie's head dipped, scanning her face carefully. “You… looked really happy.”
She was. And that was the worst part.
“I looked like a baby.” She said, mustering a half hearted chuckle.
“You girls comin’?” Oscar yelled from down the hall.
Ellie was the first to rush up from the floor, abandoning the pile of photos she attempted to pick up.
Christine followed, folding the picture up, shoving it into the pocket of her sweat pants.
✯
After mostly everyone had turned in for the night, Christine had somehow talked Ellie into watching all of the Disney princess movies. In chronological order, of course. How else was she supposed to do it? Ellie hadn't seen any of them.
They were half way through Cinderella by the time midnight hit, snuggled into opposite ends of the couch, Neo sleeping in a ball on top of the back cushions.
Christine had made sure to silence her phone while she was up here, but… that didn't stop her from checking her lock screen every 20 minutes. Just in case.
Maybe gmail notifications weren't coming through? She hadn't gotten a thing since Rowan had reached out.
She opened the app and pulled down on the screen to refresh a couple times in vain, staring at the looping circle taunting her.
Nothing.
“He’s so dreamy.”
“Huh?” Christine snapped her head up, locking her phone. As if there was anything to hide, which there wasn't.
“The prince?” Ellie pointed towards the T.V.
She watched Cinderella float around the screen in her glittery ballgown as ‘So this is love’ echoed quietly through the living room.
“I like him better than the last one.”
Christine looked back over to her, already snickering slightly.
“Do you like him more than Mr. Bingley??” She said in fake astonishment, in the same fancy accent the ladies in the movie used, accentuating the ‘B’ sound.
A smile grew on Ellie's face as she looked back over at her.
“Oh, no. Never Mr. Bingley!” she returned in the same fake accent, albeit, pulling it off a lot better than she had.
“I have that as your contact name, you know.”
“What?”
Christine crawled over to where Ellie was laying, sitting next to her head as she opened her contacts and lowered her phone to show her.
“See, M I S T A Bing-lee” She smiled wide as she read it out loud.
Ellie bunched her brows together and squinted at the screen, which only made her giggle more.
“That's not how you spell it??”
“What, would you rather be Mr. Darcy?”
“...Was ‘lizzie’ not an option?”
Christine snorted. “Well, ya, but… that's boring.”
Ellie huffed out a laugh as her focus went back to the T.V. screen. “Heh, I guess…”
She crossed her arms, barely able to see the screen around her knees as she sank deeper into the cushions behind her, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
Ellie was knocked out cold by the time the movie finished, judging by the small snores escaping the throw blanket she was bundled under.
She leaned over to check her face, just in case. As she suspected, she found her eyes fully closed, half obstructed by copper curls that had fallen out of her ponytail.
Without the T.V. light, the christmas tree had the chance to warmly light up the room, humming with the music from the credits.
She picked up her phone again out of habit. Nothing. The screen locked as quickly as it opened.
Christine carefully moved to get up, careful not to nudge her awake with the movement.
A tiny plop of weight hit the carpet from behind her as she stalked down the hallway, followed by little lazy pitter patters of nails against the wood flooring. The light from the tree struggled to reach her, the only source coming from whatever backyard light that bled in from the frosted window pane, casting the kitchen in a dim blanket of blue hues.
She stood in front of the open trash can for a moment, unfolding the picture that had been burning a hole in her pocket all night.
She glimpsed into her own eyes, the only thing she could make out in the darkness.
And ripped.
In half.
In fourths.
In eighths.
A long dead feeling contorted in the back of her throat, burning like molten lava as she did, until the pieces grew small enough to flutter down from her shaky hands like ashes, scattering over the leftovers from dinner.
Her chest rose and fell, in a terrifying mixture of rage and… relief. Not in any way that felt permanent, or particularly good. More like a flame snuffed out in the middle of a wildfire.
she’d take what she could get.
Her body turned back towards the distant sliver of light from the living room. Enough to see her phone resting on the couch. Face up. Offering nothing but darkness.
A reminder of what was still missing.
And what she may never get back.
A thought that turned all her fire — her confusion, her anxiety, her rage — into a deep lake for it to drop down into like a boulder in the pit of her stomach.
They could have reached out by now. It WAS possible, she'd experienced it twice.
What made them stop? Was it that hard to find her? Or was it that they just weren't bothered to?
Like she was… nothing. Nothing all over again.
A stupid jester they played a couple games with. GOD, why would they even bother?
And she wasn't stupid. She knows Gangle is the only reason Rowan even went looking for her. Because why else would they?
And Ellie, the best case scenario, was… she was great.
Shouldn't she be happy enough? To have a friend who cared about her and that she could talk with on a daily basis, who kept her smiling. This was a dream come true for that girl that laid in pieces in the garbage right now.
Hot dampness trickled down her cheeks and she stood trembling on the tile floor.
It was her. It had to be.
She should be happy by now.
She stared down at Neo. Still at her feet. Watching her sleepily and probably thinking ‘what the heck is this lady doing?’
“Come out for leftovers, too?” Her moms voice rang out from behind her.
Christine jumped, wiping her face quickly with the sleeve of her hoodie as she turned around, attempting to make a sound in response that didn't sound like a little mouse before she whipped around to face her.
Her mom took a couple steps towards her from around the island. “Everything okay?”
“Y-Yeah. I'm just…” She dashed past the woman towards the fridge on the opposite side of the kitchen "I'm just getting a drink.”
“Okay…” Her moms voice stilled behind her as she reached over the soda cans in the front to get to the beers Oscar had leftover in the back of the fridge. She didn't know what brand they were. Didn't care right now.
“...You’ve been quiet today.”
She opened the can in the refrigerator light. “Am I… not allowed?”
“You are.” Her mom scooted around her carefully in her robe, picking out a couple tupperware containers to place on the counter.
Her mom paused, looking her earnestly in the eye.
“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Christine averted her eyes, nodding as she turned away, letting the fridge door close behind her.
She trudged down the hallway, sipping her beer as she curled herself back onto the couch as she picked up her phone for the last time that night.
Surprise. Nothing.
She leaned back on the couch, pathetically cradling the beer she was still working on, watching the light from the microwave bounce along the walls in the dark.
I wish I could talk to you.
Tears welled up in her eyes again, her chest wobbling under the cold aluminum of the can as she looked over to Ellie.
About anything.