A cheer. Little Tiny Tim leapt into Scrooge’s arms and he lifted him high upon his shoulders.
“Mr. Scrooge!”
The room filled, leaving Kate distinctly apart. A viewer of this spectacle. The object of their collective stare as much as they were an object of hers.
She wanted to vomit.
What on earth could have possessed them to all come here and be a part of this? Maybe it was Miss Carolyn. Surely Clark didn’t do this all by himself. Miss Carolyn must have threatened to throat punch him if he didn’t comply. They were trying to fix her Christmas cheer, surely. Or bring her back into the fold after a tough night of disillusionment and Clark was a part of that. They all bought into the dream, a dream she no longer knew how to be an active participant in.
Next in the story came the “Scrooge was better than his word” speech. Another surefire “Kate always cries at this part so make sure someone has Kleenex handy” moment.
It felt like Christmas. It looked like Christmas.
And she couldn’t stomach it. She didn’t know what Clark was doing in the middle of all of this. She didn’t know what his game was. She didn’t know what he wanted from her or why he seemed intent on hurting her through the one thing she used to love most in this world.
All Kate knew was that she needed to get out.
Chapter Eighteen
Clark spent half of his morning memorizing this Dickensian text, only for the woman he memorized it for to storm out of the house before he could even get halfway through his final speech.
The door of the Cratchit house slammed behind her, silencing the small living room as fifty heads turned to him in hushed anticipation. Paralysis set in, even as he clung to little Bradley, who waited patiently on his shoulder for his final cue. For a moment, the room could have passed for a ride at one of those high-priced theme parks, where the guests floated through fantastical scenes with broken animatronic characters who could only blink and jerk their heads. The heat of the room’s bated breath left beads of sweat on Clark’s forehead, trickling down his forehead as his only indication of the passing of time. He couldn’t wrench himself away from the closed door; the place where Kate once stood now tortured him endlessly. The absence of her ripped at him; a punch in the gut would have been less painful and robbed him of less breath.
After too long a silence for the little boy’s taste, Bradley clonked the top of Clark’s head with his cane, a new brand of pain almost bold enough to shake him from his stupor.
“Hey.” Clark blinked. Another clonk. Bradley addressed him in a stage whisper through clenched teeth, a manner of confidentiality he probably mimicked from a million Saturday morning cartoons. “Hey, Mr. Clark. I think they’re waiting for you to say something.”
Michael caught Clark’s eye first, a small miracle. After staying up to read his present from Kate, he tracked the young man down. A frantic phonebook search later and he had both Emily and Michael in the living room of Michael’s cabin, where he told them the entire story. Being the sort of guy who never spilled his guts, Clark struggled, but eventually explained everything.
They didn’t get on board with his plan, however, until he told them the entire truth. I think I’m falling in love with her and I don’t want to lose my one chance because I was too blind to see that some people are good people. Halfway through the Dickens book, Clark started to understand why he’d been so happy to assume the worst of Kate, even when everything she said and did instructed him to believe the best.
He couldn’t believe what a jerk he’d been.
Once Emily and Michael got on board, they went to work greasing up Miss Carolyn who did not care for him, expressing frequent and blatant desires to punch him in the throat. In the end, she only agreed to the entire scheme because Emily convinced her it was the only way to save Kate from her disillusionment…
Well, that and Clark allowed her one free punch to his stomach. The old woman had surprising strength for her age; no doubt a bruise started forming almost immediately. The rest fell together at Miss Carolyn’s instructions. She yanked children out of bed and hustled parents into costumes. They organized a feast and reset everything in the town square.
And by the time the clock struck 9 that morning, everything seemed poised to work. Clark would win the girl, save the town, and give them all the Christmas they deserved.
Only…it didn’t work. Kate stormed out before he could even tell her the good news. Before she even had time to hear his apology. Or fall in love with him again.
“All right, everyone.” Clark cleared his throat, a strangled sound as his trachea contracted and tightened. “I’m going to go—uh, to go investigate.”
Depositing Bradley—who gave him an unsubtle wink and thumbs up once he landed safely on the ground—Clark bolted. He didn’t know how to lose her like he’d lost her yesterday.
The streets and buildings around him blurred as he picked up speed (no easy feat in the Ebenezer Scrooge costume, which rarely saw this much physical activity), and he blew past every door and obstacle on his way. Even if she was halfway to Argentina by now, he was determined to find her.
Determination went unrealized when he skidded to a halt in front of the gazebo in the dead center of the town square, where he found Kate, facing away from him, sitting in a puddle of skirts on a set of wooden steps. She flinched as his footfall hit the wood
