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Christmas Fiction

The ground was dusted with freshly fallen snow as the crunching sound of footsteps filled the air as Connor, a teenager in high school made along the path up the large house. Stopping to look around he noticed the walkways were all coated in a thin layer of snow since it started up again a short time ago. Ahead of him was a house decorated with Christmas lights and decorations ranging from reindeer to Christmas trees. Music could be heard from inside the house as others all around his age were celebrating the holidays.

Lifting his phone and checking the time of the invite he saw that he was a few minutes late since he had missed the first bus to get him here on time. Shrugging it off he continued his walk up to the house and pressed the doorbell. In a minute the door opened, and he was greeted by the smile of Casandra, his classmate and host of the party.

“Hey Connor, so glad you could make it” Stepping out of the way she gestured for him to come on in and make himself comfortable.

“There is plenty of eggnog and sparkling cider, I had to be careful about anyone spiking it, since I promised that I would keep the house intact for the party.” She said as she closed the door behind him and offered to take his coat for him and placed it on the rank with the others.

“Now go on Connor, the others from our class are here. Go mingle and have fun like I know you can.” She said with a big smile on her face before her attention was diverted to her long-time friend.

“Nora where have you been hiding yourself” said Casandra as she walked off paying no more mind to Connor as he walked further into the house, those words lingering in his mind. ‘Have fun like I know you can’. It was true he wasn’t the wild kind of teen like many of his classmates. Whenever they would have some wild scheme in mind, he was the voice of logic for the group. Despite the fact they never listened to him, and he could only sit back and watch as they got in trouble for breaking something expensive in some museum or something.

So, among his peers he was seen as being a stick in the mud and therefore never sought out excitement like the others did. But he never thought of it as missing out as he focused his efforts on his studies. For a moment Connor was lost in thought when a familiar voice caused his head to turn sharply.

“Crap” he muttered under his breath as another person entered the house and it was someone he had known all too well, Sara. “Why did she have to be here?” he asked himself as he felt a whole host of mixed emotions when he saw her. Of all his classmates she was the one he could never figure out. Some days she was a good friend but that would never last, and she would revert to being the thorn in his side.

He pretended to not notice her and made his way to the drinks on the table on the other side of the room. But unknown to him as he was serving himself a glass of eggnog, Sara had walked up behind him.

“Hey Connor, pleasure to see you here” her voice was dripping with sarcasm it made him shiver in discomfort.

“Sara, you’re here. I see Casandra managed to rope you into this Christmas party too.”  He said before taking a swig of the creamy off-white liquid the aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon filling his senses.

“Mm that looks good, I think I’ll have some too” she said before pouring herself a glass of eggnog and taking a sip. “Oh, Casandra got the good stuff and not that cheap stuff at the discount store.”

“Look Connor, I don’t want to start anything. I know we have a bit of history but how about a Christmas truce, an armistice as it were. Like in World War One” Connor blinked as he looked flabbergasted at what she said.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, I paid attention in history.” She said before walking off to see if her friend had made it to the party and the two could talk about things close to them. Leaving a very stunned Connor in her wake and he stood there for God knows how long till he was shaken out of his stupor by Harry, his best friend.

“Connor, you okay man. You look like you had seen a ghost.”

Turning his head slowly to face his friend “I think I might have; I never knew Sara to pay attention in class or at least I thought” It was almost as if his world view of Sara was shaken and there was something about her, he had never known before, and it surprised him. 

“Well forget her for the night, let’s go see what John is up to” he pulled his friend away from the table to see what their other friends were up to.

Hours passed as the party went on without a hitch, leaving Casandra to feel relieved that she had hosted a party without something bad happening and this would be a big relief to her parents too. Whom put a lot of trust in their daughter to keep things civil and perhaps with this success she could host other parties in the future, maybe even a pool party in the summer.

One by one the guests left the house and Connor left with them.

Though he had no mode of transportation like the others and so he had to walk to the bus stop to get home. ‘Well, that was a fun night’ he thought to himself and checked his phone for the time as he readied his transit app to pay for his fair. Footsteps drew near as he finished the transaction on his phone when he saw it was Sara standing next to him. ‘So much for that good night I was having’ he thought as he waited for the bus.

Minutes passed before the hum of the engine called their attention and each of them stepped on board the bus paying no mind to each other. Taking their seats they couldn’t help but glance at each other now and then, just feeling a sense of unease among each other. As the bus traveled its route through the city, there was a sudden rocking motion and the bus swerved, its back end was rammed by a car that lost control in the snowy conditions.

Connor was on the side of the collision and was knocked out of his seat and to stop his fall his forearm hit the post, and a crunch sound filled the air. He howled in pain as he felt the bone break. When everything settled, he clutched his arm and let out a groan of pain. Acting on instinct Sara leapt to his side and began to examine his arm.

“What are you doing Sara leave it alone” Rolling her eyes she ignored him and found the break and without a word she searched the bus for something to set the break.

‘What is she doing?’ he thought as he watched her go around the bus before she came back with a wooden broom someone had on the bus. “Sorry sir, I’ll replace it.” With that she snapped it over her knee and broke it into two pieces. She improvised some wrap and secured it to his arm.

“There that should do till help arrives.”

“Where did you learn all this?” he asked, still baffled by what she just did. “I picked up a few things when I broke my arm a few years ago during a baseball game, I took a bad fall.”

“I remember that you had that cast on for a while and you drew all over it. But why help me, don’t you hate me?”

She slumped back as she sat on the floor next to him. “That isn’t quite true” she said as she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I may like you more than you know” he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is an interesting time to tell me this, on Christmas Eve.”

She chuckled softly and nodded “Well I wanted to tell you sooner but I could never muster up the courage but now you have a broken arm so you can’t get away so easily” she smiled and chuckled at her own joke trying to ease the tension between them. Connor smiled too as he felt more at ease now as he started to see an all-new side to her.

“You know Sara, I could never understand you, somedays you were kind and the rest you were rude to me.”

Sara was silent for a moment till Connor pressed her again to which she finally said something. “Alright, alright.” She said as she felt herself warming up.

“I felt that if let my true feelings out then the others would think of me as weak and bully me.”

“So, you became the bully in turn” She shook her head “I guess we do some stupid things out of fear.”

The sound of the ambulance came closer, and Sara got up to help Connor to his feet and out of the bus. As they reached the door, the others had been helped off the bus and they were the last two to on the bus. “Easy does it” said one of the paramedics “We got you” they said helping Connor off the bus.

One of them noticed the makeshift splint and looked up at her. “Did you do this?” She nodded and earned a smile from the paramedics. “Nice work, now let’s get your friend to the ambulance.”

She followed behind them as they lifted him onto a gurney and then into the back of the ambulance. They were about to leave when Sara called out to stop the pair. “Can I come with him?” she asked, trying to plead with them to take her along.

“Are you family?” they asked. “No, but I’m all he has right now” Turning to look at him to see what he thought. “Well?”

“I would like that” he said with a smile as they ushered her on board the ambulance and in moments the vehicle was on its way to the hospital.

“Why did you want to come along Sara?”

“You shouldn’t be alone on Christmas” she said in hushed tones, the two paramedics smiled to each other.

“You have a good friend their son.” He said patting the shoulder of his other arm gently. For the first time in his life, he felt something different about Sara, something deeper, something closer to love if you could call it that. He didn’t know what to make of it just that he wanted more.

Later that night he was at the hospital in bed that hospital gown draped over him and had been tended to by the doctor and nurses and now he just had to stay the night before they would discharge him.

“Look what I found Connor” she walked into the room holding a mini-Christmas tree that sparkled in the light. “You wouldn’t believe what the guy on the corner was charging for this thing.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me Sara.”

“Your right I shouldn’t have” she turned around and pretended to leave before turning back around. “It’s not Christmas without a Christmas tree” she set it down on the tray next to his juice.

“There, perfect.”

Connor smiled as she set up the tree, the walls she had set up to keep anyone from seeing the real her, were crumbling down and he saw a brand-new person. Someone that he could admire and possibly develop feelings for. It may not be the way he imagined spending his Christmas, but now he couldn’t imagine it happening any other way.

“Merry Christmas Sara”

“Merry Christmas Connor”

January 04, 2025 01:48

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