Blue Snowflakes

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

I might not hate men anymore, but that doesn't mean that they make any sense to me.

In fact, oftentimes, I truly think that they're moronic. And if men are morons, then maybe Derek van der Yates is their king.

Because inviting Holly on our road trip was utterly moronic.

Noah and James gave me a speedy, confusing run-down of our friend's bombshell as we weaved our way through the crowded airport parking lot. Holly was returning from studying abroad on the same day that the rest of us were leaving campus for Christmas break. Her family lived partway between my house and the ski resort, so Dex had both kindly and moronically offered to give her a lift home.

Because, apparently, he was taking on Saint Nick for the right to represent Christmas spirit.

How exactly he managed to actually invite Holly, however, was beyond my understanding. I wasn't even aware that they were back in contact in the first place. After all, this was the same Holly who led him on for weeks in order to get closer to his best friend.

A best friend who she wrongly believed that I'd once dated.

A best friend who'd rejected her very obvious advances in front of a nightclub full of people.

And who'd then come home with me.

To say that the five of us left things on bad terms was a vast understatement. I couldn't even see us going to lunch together let alone driving across the state in one car. I had to roll down the window and take a deep breath of the fresh, cheek-numbing air just to process the blood-curdling thought.

That time, Dex didn't argue.

James' car crawled slowly to the front of the pick-up zone, the latter overflowing with zealous friends and happy families reuniting for the holidays. They were all celebrating and basking in the atmosphere of the season—just as everyone should be doing at Christmas time. Just as I'd been doing minutes prior, too. But, suddenly, my stomach was tangled into too many knots to count.

But those knots somehow managed to duplicate when I caught sight of the last person on earth I'd expected to see when I woke up on that brisk December day.

She was leaning oh-so-coolly against the brick wall next to the sliding doors, one plastic knee-high boot crossed over the other as though she was some up-and-coming model posing for Vogue. Dark ringlets poked out from underneath her denim newsboy cap, the latter matching the chic jacket she'd tied around her waist to accentuate the curves on either side. I didn't know where on earth she was getting back from, but her daisy-dotted summer dress and sparkling tan suggested that it was somewhere far more tropical than windy old Camden town. Somewhere far more trendy, too.

I, on the other hand, had thrown on a pair of black leggings and a varsity crop hoodie. Because apparently I was taking 'one of the boys' to a whole new level of 'not even trying'.

Needless to say, fashion wasn't my strongest suit, and that was never more apparent than when I was in the presence of the uber-stylish Holly Tapia. Maybe if I'd known she was coming, I would have at least bothered to swap my tights for a skirt.

Maybe.

I prayed and prayed for a last-minute miracle to save me from the fresh hell I'd woken in. Unsurprisingly, it didn't come. Our car came to a stop directly in Holly's line of vision, and she bounded off the wall with the world's prettiest grin plastered over her full coral lips.

Dex was the first to jump out to greet her, but neither Noah nor James were too far behind. The three of them started loading her Pinterest-esque luggage into the trunk before I could even register what was happening, and I found myself standing at an unimaginable crossroad.

At that moment, I was faced with two choices.

One, I could stay in the car and work through whatever repressed emotions were snaking their way up from my stomach to my throat.

Two, I could open the door and try to act normal.

'Normal' was as much my strong suit as fashion was. But I knew without thinking twice that it was my only option.

So, I forced the car door open.

I stepped out onto the asphalt.

I dared to meet my old friend's familiar brown eyes.

And then, I hugged her.

I hugged her.

And then I told her that her hair smelled like strawberries.

Because it did.

Holly Tapia just has that effect on people. The word beautiful truly doesn't do her justice. Holly is intoxicatingly peppy, effortlessly charismatic, and cool enough to know three whole languages. She's as stylish as an Instagram model, as edgy as a Tumblr girl, and as bewitching as the kind of manic pixie dream girl that Hollywood writes films about. Minus the mania. Because, yes, she can get more perfect.

At the end of the day, I was only human. I was only a socially awkward mess who hadn't even processed the news of her arrival let alone figured out how to respond to it. What could I do but be dazed by her magnetic charm?

Especially when she was being so nice to me.

"Madi!" she squealed, returning my reluctant hug with one hundred times more enthusiasm. She pressed us together for even longer than I'd anticipated, her signature dewy perfume tickling my nose and churning my stomach. "I've missed you! How are you?"

While my mind was short-circulating, my mouth seemed to be on autopilot. Without even realizing it, I was engaging in civil, polite, and even friendly conversation with the girl who'd once lied to me for weeks on end.

With the girl who I'd once lied to for weeks on end.

But the strangest part of it all—stranger than the small talk or the obvious contrast between our polar-opposite outfits—was that she didn't even seem angry. She didn't seem angry at me, at James, at Dex, or at Noah. Which made zero sense, especially since she jetted off to who-knew-where before we got the chance to work through whatever the hell happened between us all of those months ago.

And what the hell happened had been pretty darn big.

So, as we pulled out of the airport parking lot, heading back the way we came and making the right turn at the intersection that time, the air of comfort I'd contrived in her presence seemed to dissipate, revealing the lingering discomfort underneath. I couldn't seem to shake it, even with the light-hearted conversation and laughter swirling in the spacious car around me. And I knew precisely why.

While what Holly did to Dex was horrible, I couldn't lie to myself. I knew that I wasn't totally blameless either. I did lie to her about dating James. A lot. I lied about my intentions for setting her up with Dex, too. And some sliver of my mind refused to believe that she couldn't be just as upset with me as I'd once been with her. I just couldn't figure out why it seemed like she wasn't.

So, rather than feeling at peace with the fact that Holly seemed to be suffering from a convenient bout of amnesia, I felt as if our car was suddenly traveling on top of a dormant volcano. One that could erupt and eradicate us at any moment, with any one of us in it being the trigger.

It was at that moment that I realized that James was right. It was going to be a long, long journey back to the coast.

My musing was interrupted as something landed on my arm. I jolted in my seat as the image of magma and lava flooded my mind, both my reflexes and my penchant for melodrama failing me once again.

"Sorry," James chuckled, apparently quite amused by the way I'd jumped under his featherlight touch. But he was quick to gather himself when he took a closer look at my expression, eyeing our passengers in the backseat before addressing me lowly. "Are you okay?"

I forced my shoulders up into a simple shrug. "Of course."

He studied me silently, his lips forming a stern, dubious line. His brow crumpled slightly, his eyes darting between mine and the road with a knowing sort of concern.

He always was so good at reading me.

I sighed and wiped the phony smile from my mouth. It wasn't much use around him. "If Dex is, then I am."

That felt like the right thing to say.

But it didn't feel truthful.

James seemed to be just as doubtful of my words of assurance as I was. Because the truth was that I wasn't even sure whether Dex was okay. Was Holly working her magic on him again, trapping him under her powerful, intoxicating spell? Was she simply using him for a free ride, only to hurt him and shatter his sweet heart of gold all over again?

Until I knew the answer for sure, I couldn't relax. My spine couldn't unstiffen, my jaw couldn't unclench. Maybe I was being over-protective, but I couldn't bear the thought of my doe-eyed friend being crushed by the vixen in the backseat for a second time. I knew what it felt like to have your heart toyed with, and I'd sooner go through it all over again than let Dex experience it, too.

James sensed my maternal instincts. He must have. Because his eyes drifted off of mine and to a festive red sign mounted by the side of the road, a coy grin that screamed 'trouble' tugging at his lips.

"World's Best Cup of Hot Cocoa?" he read aloud, embellishing his voice with just the right amount of nonchalance so as not to rouse the suspicions of the trio behind us.

I wasn't as easily fooled.

"Is it too early to knock an activity off that list?" he asked, his eyes finding Noah's in the rear-view mirror.

"Yes," I answered. Extremely pointedly.

But everyone else seemed to disagree, and I was quickly outvoted before I could change James' mind.

I knew what he was up to. I knew it even without catching sight of the small smirk he threw in my direction. He was giving Dex and I a chance to talk. Or, rather, he was giving Dex a chance to address my concerns. He knew as well as I did that I wouldn't be able to relax until he did.

That was the thing about James. He always knew exactly what I needed, and he never held himself back from doing whatever he could to give it to me. It's what made him such a good person.

It's what made him such a good friend.

I pushed against the bright red restroom door, shaking the water from my hands as I re-entered the narrow hall lined with framed records and glitchy Christmas lighting. The sound of arcade games led me back to an old-fashioned diner, where my road trip companions were exactly where I'd left them—over by the rock n' roll themed pinball machine with a dodgy flipper, celebrating their new high score and debating whose name to leave on the scoreboard to immortalize their collective achievement.

I caught myself smiling as I watched them from the other side of the room. Personally, I didn't get the appeal of gaming. Maybe because I was objectively terrible at it. But it was hard not to get swept up in the joy of the moment, especially amongst the cozy atmosphere of the diner we'd found tucked into a parking lot off the highway. The whole thing was decked out like a nineteen-fifties Christmas party, complete with a jukebox decorated with tinsel, flashing green and red fairy lights, and, of course, the World's Greatest Cup of Hot Cocoa. We'd quickly discovered that the latter was codeword for 'more chocolate and sugar than medically recommended'—probably a marketing ploy to make the makeshift arcade seem that much more appealing.

A ploy that apparently worked wonders on my companions, who were each two-cups deep in their sugar rush.

I busied myself with the jukebox as their laughter lit up the room behind me, flicking through the tracks inconspicuously while a terrible cartoon of who I think was supposed to be Elvis watched me with a snarly, lopsided grin.

Apparently, I wasn't inconspicuous enough.

"Mads?"

I went with Blue Christmas (fitting, I thought) before spinning around to lean back on the machine. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"

"Four hundred and seven," Dex replied, pursing his lips to feign thought. "But five hundred to make it official."

"I'm pretty sure we're up to five-fifty."

He peered back at me silently, his grin fracturing the slightest bit under my cool stare. Noah and Holly were still arguing over who got to use the good flipper in the arcade, while James was a good ten feet away paying for our meals.

In short, there was nothing keeping Dex and I from talking about the elephant in the room.

The extremely beautiful and well-dressed elephant in the room.

"I was planning to tell you sooner." The words were quiet as they left his mouth, but I could see his trademark sincerity pouring from his wide eyes.

I cocked my head, indulging in the cynical expression pulling at my features. "You mean sooner than five seconds before we picked her up?"

He tried to grin back, but it came across as more of a grimace. "Right. Sooner than that."

"What, ten seconds?" I scoffed. But another realization sprung to the front of my mind, one that tugged on my tongue before poor Dex even had a chance to speak. "Is this why you called and hung up at two AM this morning? And three AM yesterday?"

He bowed his head, scuffing his red Converse on the polished black and white tiles. "Maybe ..."

"Oh, well that's a relief. I thought you were sleep-dialing again—"

"Don't be mad."

It wasn't just James who'd gotten better at reading me over the past few months. Even relatively-oblivious Dex knew that deflection and sarcasm were my signature moves for avoiding talking about things that I really didn't want to talk about.

But I had to face facts. Sooner or later, Dex and I would have to talk about Holly. Sooner or later, I was going to have to accept the fact that she was here to stay. But I knew myself, and I knew that I couldn't do that unless I was sure that she wasn't a threat.

Apparently, Dex knew it, too.

His puppy-dog eyes bulged back at me, the laughter creasing them seconds before suddenly replaced with something more akin to concern. Something more akin to the true emotion lurking in mine. It was only when I registered it that I realized that he was just as nervous as I was. But while my nerves were caused by the thought of him getting hurt, his derived from the very understandable fear that I was going to kill him.

Again, he knew me well.

"I'm not mad," I assured him. And that was the truth. I wasn't angry or upset that he'd invited Holly on our trip. Not really.

The truth was that I was just worried. I was just concerned for my friend.

He blinked back at me skeptically, and I tilted my head.

"Really." I laughed. "Do I look mad?"

"Well, no ..." he conceded, his eyes buzzing up and down my frame. "But—"

"No buts. You really don't have to explain yourself to me." I wasn't as confident about that line as the first one. Just like when I'd tried to reassure James in the car, it seemed like the right thing to say, but it didn't feel truthful.

To my relief, my friend smiled softly. "I want to," he insisted. "Really. Just hear me out."

I folded my arms under my chest, considering his offer while Elvis' voice decorated the silence. Part of me wanted to brush him off and leave the whole situation alone. To pretend that I was fine with it. After all, the Madison that arrived at college at the beginning of the school year was a shake-the-bottle-and-leave-it kind of girl. She didn't deal with anything. She repressed every emotion and pushed every inconvenience—minor and major—down into the depths of her subconscious, hoping that denying their existence would make them go away.

She very quickly learned that opening the lid on a shaken soda bottle is a terribly bad idea. Especially when that bottle is filled with bottled-up trauma instead of, say, Coke.

So, I let out an over-the-top sigh, resting my weight on the jukebox and motioning for Dex to say what he felt he needed to say. I couldn't guarantee that I'd like it, but I could try my best to listen and support him.

He took a deep breath, his face awfully serious in a way that I would have found adorable if I wasn't so nervous myself. "We've been talking—"

"How? She's been on exchange." I clamped my mouth shut almost as soon as I'd opened it.

Listening and supporting was a lot harder than it sounded.

He must have read my mind, because he smiled fondly before he continued. "While she was on exchange. It was nothing at first. She sent me a PlayStation invite, we played a few rounds. Noah, too."

"Noah knew?" I shrieked, directing my gaze to his silhouette. "That slimy little Hufflepuff."

"Yeah, he's the worst."

I rolled my eyes before casting them back on his. I could feel my heart beating in my ears—a tell-tale sign that my anxiety was setting in. As if Dex could sense it, he stepped toward me tentatively.

"We're just friends," he said softly.

I tilted my head suspiciously. "Really?" If memory served (which it did), Dex wanted to propose to Holly the first time he saw her.

"Really," he confirmed. "I mean, we always had a lot in common, you know? We like the same video games, we like the same music. And she's a nice girl."

"When she's not using you to get to your best friend." I might have had the 'listening' thing down, but the 'supporting' thing was proving to be far more difficult.

Dex chewed on a mischievous smile, his eyes flashing with a hint of rebellion as he dared himself to utter the words on his tongue. "We've all made mistakes, Mads."

I appreciated his tact, but the insinuation hit me in the face nonetheless. I knew a lot about making mistakes.

I'd also learned that they didn't define me.

Maybe that's what Dex was trying to tell me.

He leaned into the sudden vulnerability swelling between us, throwing me a small shrug and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I see what you and James have," he explained quietly, "and I think it would be cool to have that. To have a best friend who's a girl."

A sudden fluttering roused in my chest at the sound of his friend's name. At the sound of mine coupled with it. You and James. Me and James. Madi and James.

It was like I was twelve years old again, reveling in my first schoolgirl crush.

But the rest of Dex's sentence ploughed through the fantasy, pinching my heart

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net