I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as I turned to face Holly, as I braced myself for the scowl on her face or the daggers shooting from her eyes. I didn't want to face her. No, what I wanted was to retreat back into my shell of delusion and denial.

That sounded lovely. If not entirely illogical.

Finally, there it was. After an entire day of avoiding, of pretending, of civil chatter and strained smiles. Not just a sliver of acknowledgment. A whole entire bucket-load.

And so casually poured over our conversation, no less.

But Holly wasn't scowling when she turned away from the festive display. Her magenta smile didn't crack. In fact, she didn't seem angry at all. While the can of soda had been opened, it didn't seem to drench me in its wake.

Maybe that should've unnerved me more than I already was. Not that I likely could have been unnerved more than I already was. Still, it didn't.

Because it didn't feel disingenuous.

"I'm sorry."

Unlike so many other things that I'd said on that trip—things I'd said to James and Dex simply because they felt like the right things to say—I actually meant that one. It wasn't just a knee-jerk response to the awkward situation I'd found myself in, or a weird coping mechanism for the repressed feelings springing to the surface. It wasn't even something I said because I simply felt obliged.

Rather, I was sorry.

I always had been. I was sorry for using Holly and Dex the way I had. I was sorry for lying the way I had. I was sorry for treating people like objects as if that would somehow stop one from hurting me ever again. I felt guilty and nauseous and utterly irresponsible.

Because Noah was right. I still had unfinished business with Holly, just like I had unfinished business with Lola until the day before. It was why I'd been avoiding her ever since she'd hopped into James' car. It was why I clung to my friends like saran wrap when she was around and panicked at the thought of being left alone with her. And I hated feeling that way. I hated running. After my conversation with Lo, I knew how good it felt to suck that kind of poison out of my life.

Sometimes, apologies aren't about the receiver at all.

Holly cocked her head, registering my regret. Her eyes were twinkling, glimmering flecks of hazel and almond reflecting the patterns cast by the decorative lights. She didn't have to ask for clarification, for what exactly it was I was apologizing for. We could pretend all we liked, but we both knew our friendship had been built on rocky foundations.

If you could even call it a foundation.

Or a friendship.

The music and caroling were replaced by light applause. But all I could hear was that frantic rhythm of my heart.

Until Holly smiled.

And shrugged.

"Don't sweat it."

She turned back to the carollers, lifting her hands to clap along with the rest of the crowd.

I, however, was stunned in place, still searching the clear depths of her bright brown gaze.

"You're not ... mad?"

She laughed, the sound just as lively as the ensemble in front of us.

"Mad?" she repeated. She rummaged through her shopping bags before locating her purse, pulling out a tiny tube of body spray and touching herself up. "Girl, you wanted something, and you went for it. Sure, I got caught in the crossfire, but how hypocritical would I be if I got mad at you for doing something that I did?" She scoffed, scrunching up her face like she'd tasted something bad. "Actually, I was worse. You were just trying to help your friend."

I masked my cough with a scoff, trying to breathe through the overly-floral scent she'd sprayed into the air. "And get an internship."

"An internship?"

"Yeah ..." My voice trickled away, lost to the singers as they re-started their set. Because Holly's face was blank—like she hadn't the faintest clue what I was talking about. "I thought ... Didn't Dex tell you? About my assignment?"

She tilted her head as she popped her spray away, her dainty Hibiscus earrings grazing her shoulder. "What assignment?"

The perfume's residue had somehow settled on my tongue, coating it in the world's most foul-tasting rose bouquet. But when I processed Holly's expression—one of total, complete, and genuine confusion—an even worse sensation snaked its way across my entire body.

She didn't know. Holly didn't know. She didn't know about the assignment.

Which meant that I had just thrown myself under the sleigh for no freaking reason.

If Holly didn't hate me before, she was certainly about to. But at least her ignorance explained why she didn't already.

"Holly..." The word came out as coarse and dry as my throat. But telling the truth was like ripping off a bandage; I had to trick myself into thinking that I was brave enough for the pain to come.

I knew, because I'd had a lot of practice.

I sighed. "I wasn't being totally selfless when I tried to set you up with Dex. I was ... doing an assignment."

Just as expected, Holly's smile fell. Her features were hardening with every passing second, a cloud like I'd never seen before passing over her warm face.

"I was trying to turn you into the perfect couple," I explained. "I mean, I wasn't at first. I was just trying to help Dex. But then I had this professor that I was trying to impress and an internship that I was trying to get, not to mention the fact that I was totally poisoned against the idea of love. I wanted to prove that every relationship was as doomed as mine was. That all men were as awful and selfish as my ex. Like that would somehow make what he did better or something." I rolled my eyes, shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. At that way that I—logical, mathematical, rational Madison—had become blinded by something as fleeting as emotion. "But I'm not making excuses. What I did was awful. And I'm sorry for using you like that."

I had to give it to myself. For someone who loved running from her past, I sure was getting good at facing it all head-on.

Or maybe I was just getting better at filling awkward silences.

The carollers started moving away from us for good, and most of the crowd moved along with them. But my suede boots were anchored in place, the rest of my body bracing itself like it fully expected little Holly Tapia to body slam me in the middle of the mall.

To my credit, it wasn't like even one of the frantic shoppers would look up from their Christmas lists to notice.

"Huh." An odd sound left Holly's mouth—a puff of air caught between a sigh and a laugh. I watched her swallow hard, watched that mask over her face slowly lift. But, when it did, it didn't reveal anger. Bewilderment was there, but it was mixed with something more juvenile.

With something akin to amusement.

"You should have told me," she shrugged quite plainly, sticking a wad of gum in her mouth. "We could've helped you. We could've totally aced that assignment." She blew a bubble and popped it with her teeth, then extended the bright pink packet out toward me.

I hid a frown as I looked down to take a stick. I'd torn off the bandage. I'd opened, shook, and re-opened the can of soda. And there Holly was, primping and priming herself in the middle of the mall, joking about how badly I'd treated her.

Not for the first time, I genuinely wondered—did nothing upset that girl?

I absolutely could not relate.

"Yeah. I should have told you, all right."

"Do the others know?"

"They know," I confirmed. Boy, did they know. They were still holding it against me in their own tongue-in-cheek way, often using it as leverage against me so I'd buy the first round of shots whenever we went out.

She masked a giggle in her palm, looping her other arm through mine in the world's most confusing BFF-moment. "So, we both suck then?"

"Oh, for sure," I said without even thinking twice.

"I guess it's somewhere around here where I admit that what I did to Dex was pretty messed up," she confessed, her eyes scanning the array of shops around us mindlessly. "I know that it's not an excuse, but I just ... I don't know, I didn't think about it at the time. I didn't know any of you, so you weren't really people to me. Does that make sense? Like, I saw James, and I figured ... all's fair in love and war. Or whatever they say."

While her confession sounded borderline psychotic, I decided to bypass the narcissism of it all. It was the least I could do, but it was also all that I could think to do.

Part of me still worried that the silver rings coating her fingers were seconds away from leaving indentations in my cheeks.

"That is what they say."

"Yeah, well what they don't tell you is how rotten it feels," she said. "To use people like that."

I inched my face toward her, toward the bittersweet edge laced through her tone. It was the closest thing to real emotion I thought I'd ever heard from her.

Then again, it was hard to tell.

It was at that moment—as we walked arm-in-arm away from the makeshift North Pole and back towards the shops—that I realized that I was never going to figure out how Holly's mind worked. I was always going to be wary of her, just like she was likely always going to be wary of me. As I said, the foundations of our friendship were rocky.

At best.

But there was a lot about Holly that could be admired. For one, she wasn't the kind of person to dwell on negativity. Or to really dwell on the past at all. She was somebody who lived in the present, who surrendered to whatever she felt in the moment and dealt with the repercussions afterward. And maybe that wasn't any healthier than the way that I lived—overthinking the little stuff or blowing it out of proportion. But that didn't mean that I couldn't learn something from her approach. It didn't mean that I couldn't try to strike a balance.

And there was no time like the present to start.

"Are you still into James?" I asked.

In our close proximity, I heard her breathing stagger. Her arm tensed around mine, and I wondered if, maybe, I had pushed the limits of her laidback nature too far.

But when I turned to look at her, I realized that the reason she'd braced herself wasn't because of my question at all. Rather, she was moving out of the way of an oblivious shopper whose bags had almost knocked her to the ground.

The realization calmed my nerves. But my unanswered question still lingered in the air.

When Holly finally recollected herself, straightening out her own bags after they'd tangled in the scuffle, she met me with a look as playful as before. "Are you kidding?"

I blinked back at her dumbly. No, I was most certainly not kidding. The anxiety coursing through me at the mere idea was no joke.

"Madi ..." Holly sighed rather pointedly, rolling her eyes to the high glass ceiling and back. "That ship sailed when I found out that you two never actually dated. When I realized that the way he was looking at you wasn't because you were a long-lost love, but because you were a current one." She raised an eyebrow, but a teasing grin swept over her pink pout. "I'm always up for a challenge, but I'm not stupid."

It was only when she fell silent that I realized I was blushing. I didn't know why. I didn't know which part of what she said triggered that response. But there I was, walking through a mall in the middle of god-knows-where, arm-in-arm with my would-be nemesis, blushing like a fool in love.

"He still looks at you like that now, by the way."

Then, it was my turn to roll my eyes. "No, he doesn't. We're just friends."

Holly stopped in her tracks, causing me to swing back to her like leather on a whip.

"That wasn't true then, and it isn't true now."

Once again, I could hear the pounding of my heart. But that time, it wasn't triggered by anxiety or dread. That time, it was because hope was seeping through.

An unfiltered gasp poured from her mouth. "This is why you're having so much trouble thinking of a gift, isn't it?" she guessed. She clicked her fingers before jabbing them in my direction. "You can't decide what you want it to say."

She unlooped our arms, folding hers beneath her chest instead. Appraising me like a stone she was searching for monetary value. I was under inspection, and while speaking incessantly was never usually an issue for me, I suddenly couldn't think of anything to say.

I wanted to deny it. Denial was what I always did best, especially when it came to James. But I hesitated for too long. My mouth floundered between words too much. And while silence only fell over us for a second or two, it seemed to be all the confirmation she needed.

"Knew it," she muttered—again, more to herself than to me. She took my arm, dragging me across the crowded mall and back in the direction we came. "You two are just as bad as each other," I thought I heard her say, though I couldn't really hear much over the carollers singing Joy to the World across the other side of the square.

Just as I gathered myself enough to realize that I had no idea where she was taking me, Holly pulled me into yet another store. I didn't get time to analyze it beyond the dark, sultry décor, but a sophisticated musk enveloped us immediately, luring us into a fantasy of diamonds and champagne.

"Why don't you get him two presents?" she suggested. "One for each scenario?"

"Each scenario?" I repeated, still trying to locate my tongue.

"Right. One for if he says that he wants to be just friends, and one for if he says that he wants, you know ..." She turned just enough to throw a kittenish wink over her shoulder, leading me through the aisles of satin and lace. "More."

It was only after I caught sight of her impish expression that my surroundings came into focus. That I realized exactly what kind of store Holly had led me into.

My nerves exploded.

"No," I shot instantly. I reclaimed my arm from her grip, my whole face no doubt as red as the stack of thongs to my right. But my protest was so weak because my insides were screaming yes.

She totally disregarded my objection, only meeting it with a grin before calling for a sales assistant.

"Holly," I tried again, edging closer to her so that she could hear my frantic whispering. "Even if I did go through with this—which I'm not going to, obviously—but if I did," I widened my eyes pointedly, "how would I know which ... present to actually give him?"

She sighed dramatically, sounding a lot like a teacher explaining numeracy to a five-year-old. "Because you're going to talk to him, Madison. You're going to tell him how you feel."

My jaw might have fallen to the floor, taking with it every shred of the little confidence I had left. It was like she didn't know me at all. Madison Watson didn't talk about her feelings. Madison Watson pushed them down, down, down into the depths of her subconscious until they eventually erupted like a backlogged faucet.

"No." I shook my head. "I can't do that."

Holly shot me the sternest look she had all day. Sterner, even, than when I'd revealed the truth about my stupid assignment. "Yes, you can. Because you're a woman. A strong, independent woman who deserves a concrete answer to a valid question." The tension plaguing her jaw lifted, another grin tugging at the corners of her purple mouth. "One that I can't give you."

Not for the first time that day, the disagreement on my tongue dissipated like smoke.

I knew those words. They were ones I'd once uttered to her.

That's how I knew for sure that she was right.

Did Holly's reaction to Madi's confession surprise you?

Do you think her idea for James' gift (or gifts😏) is a good one?

Festive question of the chapter (I've been dying to ask you this one)—if you had to buy the characters a present for Secret Santa, what would you get them? I'm intrigued!

- Danielle