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“Hi there, we’re from St. Vincent’s Catholic Church, would it be okay if we sang you some Christmas carols?” There are probably fifteen people standing in my driveway, old as balls and covered in far too much green bell-patterned fabric to be taken seriously.
“Yeah, for sure! That’d be great.” I lean back into the house. “Hey Bear, c’mere, we’ve got carollers!” It takes me a good thirty-seconds to remember that my roommate is still at Brian’s.
“Do you want us to wait for your friend?” One of the elderly women at the front asks.
“Nah, it’s okay. He’s probably in the shower.” It’s easier somehow to lie than to tell this group of super religious strangers that I’m just missing my ex boyfriend on Christmas eve.
“All right, dear.” The woman flashes her toothy grin and then leads her group in Deck The Halls.
What time is it, anyway? Barry should be home by now, shouldn’t he? God, these people are awful. Does this song ever end? “Suck my balls to make me jolly, fa la la la la, la la, la la.” I watch as the expressions change from cheery to horrified as they realize what I just sang, then I swing the door closed and collapse on the floor in a fit of laughter.
"Oh my god, Barry, you should’ve been here a few minutes ago, we had Christmas carollers from that Catholic church, and you should’ve seen their fucking faces, when I, when I—" I can’t even finish my sentence I’m laughing so hard. "It was priceless. Anyway, I’ll let you go, but I hope you get back here soon."
I flop onto the couch, intending to catch a Christmas movie on TV before my roomie gets home, but flipping through the channels is just irritating tonight. Lame, lame, fuckin’ lame. Not even the fire log program can take the chill off my heart right now.
Oh my god, is that snow? I spring off the couch and pull the curtain away from the window to see the fluffy white flakes better. Holy shit.
"Believe it or not, Barry, it’s actually fucking snowing in California! Are we in the twilight zone? I’m starting to think we might be. Call me back soon, okay? I’m worried about you, dude."
After the novelty of watching the snow hit the cement wears off, I curl up on the couch and pull the closest blanket around my shoulders. I’m a certified New Jersey BABY, so I get cold at the mere thought of snow. The blanket smells like Barry; like tea and syrup and hard work. It’s comforting to have him close, even though he’s not here.
My eyelids are heavy and I’d kill to take a nap right now, but the lights from our Christmas tree are at just the right angle to shine in my face and make me miserable. The logical solution would be to turn them off, but I can’t bring myself to. It’s our tree; we took a good hour to unravel and check the lights together, and the hour after that was spent deciding what our Christmas aesthetic would be this year, settling on four different colours of tinsel, a roll of toilet paper (“Because we’re shit, and by ‘we’ I just mean ‘me.” Barry said, “If you mean we’re the shit, then yeah. And the ‘we’ is still you, by the way.”) and some video game themed ornaments, as well as some old photographs of our families and friends. I would hate myself forever if I find out something awful happened to Barry and I turned the lights out on our last collaborative effort.
"Hey buddy, it’s two thirty and you’re still not home." Wow, really? I’m sure Barry has no fuckin’ idea he’s not here, dumbass. "Just hoping you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. That’d be supremely uncool on Christmas morning, you know? So call me back soon. Or better yet, come home." If he hasn’t called back by now, he’s not going to, Dan. I rub my eyes with my palms and try to resist the urge to crawl into my bed and say ‘fuck it’ to the whole situation.
Maybe I should call Brian. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it earlier, but now I dial the number and cross my fingers.
Sigh. "Hey Brian, I’m sorry for calling so late but I can’t get a hold of Barry, and I’m hoping he’s still there. Call me back when you get this, please?" I hate answering machines.
"Hey Bri, it’s Dan again, still hoping Barry’s there so I can come over in a few hours and kill you both for not answering your fuckin’ phones!"
It’s 5:30am Christmas morning, where the fuck is my French toast? (More importantly, where the fuck are you?) I try texting this time, hoping for a better outcome than the phone calls I’ve made.
I throw the blanket on the floor and stand up again, finally turning the Christmas lights off in an act of spite, then return to my spot on the couch to get some shut eye. Sitting up isn’t going to help anything; either Barry’s dead, or he’s being an asshole, and right now I’m leaning toward the latter.
“Merry Christmas, Danny!” Brian shouts into the phone at roughly quarter to balls am. “We didn’t want to wake you—” Too late.
“Oh my god. 'We'? Does that mean Barry’s still there?”
“Yeah he’s—”
I'm gonna kill him. “Put him on the phone.”
“Okay, but you should know—”
“Right now, Brian.” I’m still half-asleep and furious.
“All right, one second.”
“Merry Christmas!” Barry sounds my exact opposite, wide awake and far happier than a dead man should be.
“Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone?” I’m not in the mood for pleasantries.
“I’m so sorry, Dan, I forgot it at home.”
Fuck. “What about Brian? I called him twice.”
His voice is muffled, probably from turning away from the phone to say something to Brain.
“We must’ve been outside.” I hear Brian say in the distance.
“Motherfucker," I practically spit into the phone. "I worried about you all damn night.”
“I’m really sorry, Danny.”
“You fucking owe me, dude.”
“I know, I know, I didn’t forget about the French toast.”
“Yeah, I want that, plus a beej.”
I’m kidding, and I’m sure he knows it, but I hear surprise in his voice when he says, “We’ll discuss that when I get home.” He pauses. “Speaking of getting home, um, I don’t know if you’ve noticed that it’s snowing or not, but I’m kinda stuck here.”
“Hey now,” Brian sounds indignant. Serves him right. That bastard. He should've called me. “You’re not ‘stuck here’. You get to be here. It’s a privilege, not a punishment.” Barry laughs and my stomach flips. They’re definitely flirting with each other, and knowing them both as well as I do, they’re probably fucking, too.
Maybe I should be happy for them, but it feels so soon, and I’m just not there yet. “Whatever. I’m going back to bed. I’ll call you when I don’t want to rip your fucking throat out anymore.” That might be a while, but at least I know Barry’s safe now and I can hopefully get some real sleep. I drag the Barry scented blanket behind me all the way to my bedroom like a child, then flop onto the bed, too tired to be too upset for long.