“Don’t listen to her. It tastes fine,” Max countered, and placed his hand on my thigh.
I smiled and said, “I wanted to do a good job for you guys. I know it’s just the three of us, but dinners like this always remind me of Thanksgiving at my grandma’s. My parents, aunts, and uncles playing cards, while my cousins and I were…” I had to stop. Out of nowhere, I felt a pain in my chest and a subsequent lump rise in my throat. I was doing so well too, but with the holiday season here, just the vaguest of mentions of Melanie made a cold chill run down my body. It was Thanksgiving, and she wasn’t here.
Max caught that I abruptly stopped, and put his hand on my upper back. “You all right?” he asked. “You look like someone forced you to eat the turkey.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear and attempted to smile. “Sorry, I’m feeling kind of scatterbrained lately. I forgot where I was even going with that sentence.” I forced out a giggle, but Max wasn’t buying it. There was concern in his eyes. “What were we talking about?”
“Nothing important,” he said. Max was clearly still trying to read what was going through my head. It was better if he left it alone. I didn’t want to ruin the party.
“So when the hell did you get another one?” Priscilla shouted from the end of the table.
I raised an eyebrow. “Another one?”
“Yeah, the multi-colored one.”
“Oh, my cat?” Why did she treat cat like a dirty word? “I’ve had Puffy for months now. I must have told you about her countless times.”
“Ahh, I thought you were just talking about your face.”
I felt my cheeks with my hands. “My face is puffy?”
I could only see her eyes over the rim of her glass, but they quickly darted away as she awkwardly said, “Uh, no.” I promptly looked over at Max, who simply closed his eyes and shook his head, giving me that no, your face doesn’t look puffy expression.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Puffy trying to get back on the counter and eat the turkey, and I snapped my fingers at her to go into the other room. She meowed and cried.
“Hey, you don’t see me throwing a fit because I can’t lie on the counter, do you?” I said. Puffy wandered away, pouting, and was promptly assaulted by a pouncing Biggie.
“I see she still talks to them like they’re people,” Priscilla said.
“Every damn day,” Max added. Hey, he was supposed to be on my side, the traitor.
I cleared my throat and said, “Well, as fun as being made into a crazy cat lady is, I think we should make some kind of toast. Priscilla?”
She scoffed. “Me?”
“Well, yeah. You have the most experience with alcohol.”
Max laughed hard and loud.
Very lazily, she flipped him off. “Okay, fine, I’ll make the fucking toast.”
“I’m getting goosebumps already,” Max commented.
Priscilla raised her glass and began her toast. “Here’s to Cora. If it weren’t for you, I’d be spending this shitty ass holiday alone, eating microwave macaroni, and feeling only slightly more suicidal than usual. And now? I’m just as suicidal, but at least I don’t have to do the dishes.”
We all clinked our glasses and drank.
When Max and Priscilla went back to talking and being smartasses together, I found myself sinking into my seat, my heart hurting. It was so silly, but even in her ridiculous toast, Priscilla managed to say something that tugged at me inside. It was the word alone.
One of the last things Melanie told me as she lay bleeding out in my arms was, “I don’t want to go alone.”
I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could still smell her blood, and no matter how hard I tried, I would never get over that panicked, helpless look she had in her eyes before she passed.
There was something about the holidays that made her death even more difficult.
I wiped my mouth with a napkin, feigned a smile, and told my guests, “I forgot something in my room, I’ll be right back.” I didn’t wait for a response and bolted out of the kitchen so I could be alone. I was feeling overwhelmed at the table, and I needed a moment alone to breathe.
After I snuck into my bedroom, I quietly closed the door, pressed my face against the brown oak, and counted to five. I didn’t even bother to flick the light on. I just needed to work through whatever was brewing inside of me.
My apartment was on the second floor, so from my window, I could see the entire parking lot beneath me. When I drew closer to the window, I noticed there was a fresh sheet of snow over the pavement and the roofs of the vehicles.
I smiled. I always loved this time of year.
My bedroom door crept open and the light from the hallway poured in, lighting up the wall beside me. It slowly disappeared when I realized the door was once again shut. It was Max sneaking in to check how I was doing. I must have been a worrisome sight, just standing alone in the dark, peering out the window. He approached and stood beside me, his eyes locked onto my face even though mine were on the window in front of us.
"It's snowing," I whispered. My voice was so quiet it surprised me that he even heard me.
"I noticed."
"And not the pitiful kind. It’s coming down steady.”
He was quiet for a moment. "Priscilla left."
"And she couldn't come and say goodbye?"
"She said, 'goodbyes take too much time.'” His voice had gone monotone to mock her. "Besides, I think
