No One Should Be Alone on Christmas

Patience

No one should be alone on Christmas.

Especially not someone who has felt alone no matter how many people are around her.

I will die loving Autumn Night Shaw. I knew that the day I committed my life to her and I have wholly accepted that and what comes with it. Which means no matter how conflicted I am, no matter that it’s three a.m. on Christmas morning, and I’m all set to cook at my father’s house for all of our family, I still get up so that I can spend the morning with her.

She’s only been gone a few days, in the best facility in the state to help her, but I miss her terribly. Two things can be true at once. She needs help we can’t give her, and I can wish with every fiber in my being that I was waking up to her, too. Well, three things; I’m so proud of her, and need her to know that she isn’t alone, and we haven’t given up on her.

When I leave our shared closet dressed for the drive, Royce is sitting up in the bed, tracking me with his eyes.

“I don’t want you to go alone,” he says, standing when I stop moving. He stalks toward me, dick bobbing heavily against his leg, and doesn’t stop until his hand cups the side of my neck. 

“I’ll be back before you know it.” I tilt my head up to meet his gaze, even though I hate what I have been finding there as of late.

My husband is so broken. He has been broken for so long, different things chipping away at him, but us being separated is taking the cake. He would rather us be together in dysfunction than like this. 

There’s no cure for what Auty has. There’s no medicine she can take. She will always struggle with her mental health, but she can learn to curb the desire to lash out. She can learn to help herself out of survival mode. And how to handle life events, like your twin getting sober and falling in love, or your parents being killed.

And she has to learn that away from us. 

Royce rests his forehead on mine. Even as vulnerability leaks out of him, his dick hardens against me, and my body responds in kind.

“We can go tomorrow, together. Leave the kids with your pops and head out early.”

One of my hands cups his wrist, with the other wraps around his length. I squeeze affectionately, and begin to stroke him. His breath hitches, and he melts against me.

“No one should be alone on Christmas, daddy.” My neck shifts, and I capture his lips with my own.

His hands go to my leggings, ripping them down my legs while chasing my lips. Even in our despair, we’re insatiable. It’s never quite the same, making love without Autumn. We all have our own time with each other, but when it’s all three of us is when it feels right to me.

But I still surrender to him. He needs this. He needs to feel as close to me as possible, so he knows he’s not losing me, too.

So I let him undress me from the waist down, and pick me up. I brace myself when he sits on the edge of the bed, and lowers me onto him.

No warm-up, but he still slides in effortlessly, all the way in until my ass is flush with his thighs. He fills me perfectly, and I hug him to me as both of us try to catch our breath.

His hands grip and grope the globes of my ass, and slowly, I begin to grind on him.

“Tell me,” he moans, his tongue tracing my jaw before his lips latch onto my neck.

“I love you, daddy. I love you so much.” My nipples, already sore, rub uncomfortably against the padding of my bra, but I still increase my movements with each upward stroke.

“We’ll be okay,” I whisper with conviction. Blinking away as many tears as I can, especially when his arms move across my back to hold me closer still.

He nods his head against me, but it’s not enough. I grip either side of his face and pull back so that I see him.

His lips part when I clench, and he finally begins to start meeting me stroke for stroke.

“We’ll be okay,” I repeat. 

He licks his lips, and a tear dislodges from his eyelid.

“We’ll be okay.”

He swells before unloading inside of me, pushing me off my cliff, too. I keep whispering it, keep saying it as our orgasm crests and washes over us, sealing it with a desperate kiss.

“I love you, too,” he says, picking us up. He cleans me up and redresses me, and gives me one more devastating kiss before he lets me leave the safety of our room.

It takes five hours to get to Banning Cliffs, the facility Autumn is staying at. I drive slowly, since it’s up a mountain, but the sun is high in the sky when I pull into the parking lot. I get out of the car, pull my jacket closed and hurry inside. 

The receptionist is surprised to see me. She’s even more surprised when I say who I’m here for, but she gives me a visitor pass, a name tag, and points to the visiting area to my right.

It’s early. Technically, visiting hours don’t start for another hour, though on holidays families can come at any time. The visiting area is supposed to look casual, with beanbag chairs, couches, and every board game known to man to distract from the two-foot security camera in the middle of the ceiling. 

I take a seat on one of the loveseats by the window and settle, but I’m up as soon as the door opens and Auty shuffles in.

She looks the same as she did the morning she left, and yet it feels like years have passed instead of days. The plaits she put in her hair are pulled up in a bun atop her head. The gray sweatsuit she has on swallows her frame, and my heart squeezes now that I realize the healthy habits I thought she was forming were just her obsession with her weight and disordered eating.

She takes a seat next to me, and up close I can see how blue her hazel eyes have turned. My hand shoots out immediately, grabbing hers and bringing it into my lap.

She lets me, even though her hand is limp.

Her eyes track the movement, and her tongue swipes her lower lip. 

“What are you doing here, Pay?” Auty’s voice cracks before she wipes her nose with her free hand.

“It’s Christmas, bae.” I inject false cheer into my voice as I lift her hand to my lips. “This is our seventh Christmas together. I had to see you.”

She gives a jerky nod, her thumb passing over the back of my hand before she pulls it away.

“You shouldn’t have come. Turkey didn’t–”

“Royce isn’t me. And don’t…” I exhale, trying to take all the bass out of my voice. It used to be, we could go back and forth and it’s foreplay. More recently, though, our attitudes clashed and devolved into explosive fights more often than not.

“He wanted to come tomorrow, Auty. He’s not mad at you. I didn’t want to wait, so I came by myself. Six years of Christmas mornings, and now it’s lucky number seven.”

She folds her arms, but when I notice her lips twitch, I know she’s letting one of her walls down.

“How’s it been?” I ask, settling in once more.

“Everyone’s nice. If it wasn’t my first go ‘round with therapy, I’m sure I would be ready to go home. I haven’t really been sleeping, but… it’s getting better. How’s Deucey and Rue?”

“You want me to call him?” I ask, pulling my phone out of my purse.

“No! Just… tell me.”

“Auty–”

“Patience… please.”

I sigh, putting my purse behind me. “You’re his mother, Auty. He loves you, and knows you love him.”

“You didn’t see how he looked at me before I left,” she hisses, looking around like it’s other people in the sterile room. “He’s better off until I’m better–”

“So you’re ignoring him?! Really? Like that’s not why you are the way you are?!”

“It’s not the same, Patience,” she grits. Her eyes screw shut, her chin resting on her shoulder. “You don’t get it. You can’t get it… I owe it to my son to be one hundred so he doesn’t end up like me.”

“You owe it to your son to show him that even if you’re at one percent you still love him.” I reach over and snatch her arms to me, so that she’s in my space. Her eyes pop open, her glare murderous.

“We are all in this together, Autumn Night. You’re not allowed to run away anymore. You don’t get to hide from this anymore. You have BPD, Auty. You’re allowed to have BPD and still be loved. You can have a mental illness and still love yourself.”

“Pay, stop. Please.”

“No,” I sob, tears trailing my cheeks. “I won’t ever stop loving you, Auty. Neither will Royce, or Deucey, or Rue.”

“I don’t deserve it, though. I don’t.” Auty snatches away from me, but I pounce on her before she can stand, and link my hands around her as she dissolves into cries on my shoulder.

This isn't the first Christmas she’s cried. Auty’s been moved to tears on a few occasions. Whether they’re happy or sad tears, I hate them. I hate this, and I wish I could dig up her shitty mother and kill her again myself.

“Come home with me, Auty. You don’t have to stay here. Come home with me and be with your family.” It’s not a good idea, but I say it anyway. For the better part of the year, we’ve been at it like cats and dogs, but I don’t care. I can’t be away from my wife. I know she needs real help, but I also feel I can help her get better myself. It’s why I became a doctor anyway.

“We said–”

“I don’t care… I need you. We need you.”

Wetting my lips, I will a shaky hand to take one of hers, and flatten them against my stomach.

It’s hard, even though it’s still flat, and Auty jerks away from me, her eyes stretching as they land on where her hand is.

Auty had been pushing for us to have another child as a distraction, and the crazy part is, Royce and I knew it. We met secretly and decided against it, with me getting on birth control, since Auty was adamant about not being pregnant despite campaigning for a child.

In the end, Auty gets what she wants, like always. I’m pregnant, and I wanted my wife to know first.

“You can’t come here to wither away and die, Auty. I… I won’t pretend to understand what you’re going through. But baby, I need you to understand that it is okay to not be one hundred all the time. It’s okay to never be one hundred again. All you can do is try, really try… but on the days you can’t, we’ll still be here and we’ll love you anyway.”

Her other hand cups my stomach, and she presses gently, before pulling me back to her.

We hug for a long while, until she lets me go. The blue has receded some in her eyes, brown being the primary color as she grins and caresses my stomach again.

“I hope it’s a boy. Deucey needs a brother.”

“Well, it could be twins, too. You’re a twin, so–”

“I didn’t impregnate you, silly.”

“But Royce’s sisters are twins, too,” I chuckle, threading my fingers between hers. “One month, Auty. Then I’m coming to get you and if I gotta lock you in the bedroom forever, then that’s fine. I can tweak our zombie plan for BPD.”

That gets a real laugh out of her. She brings my hands to her lips and kisses my fingertips. “They have me in a program, and I’m working it… Once it’s done–”

“Make it done in one month. You know how I get when I’m with child.”

“Yes; annoying as fuck. I’m sure Turk is thrilled.”

“We’ll see tonight. I wanted to tell you first.”

Her teeth comb her lower lip. She won’t admit it, but I know she’s happy about it. She can be so mercurial. One day, she’ll only want to watch me and Royce, then another day she’ll accuse us of leaving her out. But regardless, I wanted Auty to know first. It wouldn’t be real until I told her.

“I’m gonna get better, Pay. I-I’m not ignoring Deucey or running away… I’m just getting my mind right. I promise.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

I don’t stay much longer. Auty walks me all the way to the front door. Our kiss goodbye is sweet, and slower than usual. I taste her determination, and smile when she says she’ll call Deucey later on today. My fingertips trace her baby hairs, and reluctantly, I leave one of the loves of my life behind.

I don’t regret coming here this morning. I don’t regret anything in my life, even Monty. The drama with Monty led me right to Auty and Royce. Our little family isn’t perfect by far. All three of us belong in the crazy house if I’m being honest. But I still wouldn’t trade it for anything, and now, our little family may be growing by one more place.

I clear the Banning Cliffs with no issue, and head back to the city on the interstate, over some dense woods. It’s a little after ten, so I’ll be back in the early afternoon. Most of the food was cooked or at the very least marinated already, so dinner will still be on time.

My music fades out in favor of a phone call; Royce of course. Most likely following my location. He’s hovering more so than usual, and I know once I tell him I’m pregnant, it’ll be worse. But I love it. I love it as much as he loves when I call him Turkey.

I reach over and answer the call.

“Yes, Turkey–”

I hear it, right before I feel it.

Metal slamming into metal, then slamming into my body

My entire car snaps to the right, before lifting onto two wheels, then no wheels.

I’m in the air, then I’m upside down.

More metal crunching. This time into asphalt.

I’m in the air again. 

Slam.

Air.

Slam.

Air.

The seat belt cuts into my neck. My hands wrap around it, but it’s no use. Not when I’m in the air again. My stomach leaps into my throat, and I realize I’m really falling. Falling too long. 

I’m off the freeway.

My body is trying to slide out of the seat. When my eyes flutter open, I see trees coming at me too fast, at the wrong angle.

This isn’t right. This can’t happen. Not right now. 

God, please. Not right now.

White flashes as soon as the first branch breaches the windshield.

It’s over just as fast as it starts. Just as the branch impales my neck.