All I Want for Christmas Is You (Short Story) by Molly O'Keefe Page B

twenty. It was a shrine to hockey.
    And to her.
    He still had the same single bed, the old wooden bed frame with the faded and torn No Fear stickers, from a brief and ill-fated skateboarding phase. The Star Wars sheets were gone. The poster of Bobby Clarke had been replaced by Mario Lemieux. Gretzky was still next to his desk, but Eric Lindros hung on the wall beside the door. The Junior National teams he’d been a part of were immortalized in photos over his dresser.
    But on the rest of the walls, it was her. Or them. Pictures from high-school formals. Snapshots from summers at the lake. Awards nights and medal ceremonies, when she’d been so proud of him, she was red-faced with it in all the photos.
    Standing in this room was like standing inside Billy’s brain. His heart.
    Billy wasn’t stupid; anyone who thought that didn’t know the mistake they were making. But he was simple in a way most people could never be. In a way the rest of the world wished it could be.
    Billy was hockey. And her.
    Before she even realized it she had her thumbnail in her mouth, worrying the little bit that was left near the cuticle. Her stomach cramped. That had been getting worse all day, the stomach stuff.
    “Hey,” a soft slurred voice said from behind her.
    Maddy waited a second, pulling the ends and edges of herself together. Knitting and tying and scrambling to hide those parts of her that were weak in the face of Denise, Billy’s younger sister, her best friend from grade school. She’d spent the last few years boarding up every entrance; every window or secret opening that Denise could find her way through. Because the truth about Denise’s friendship these days was that she would bleed you dry and not even care. Not if there was a drink, or a hit, in it for her.
    And Denise didn’t want help.
    Trying to help Denise was as useless as fighting Janice.
    “Hey, Denise.” Keeping her smile friendly, but not too friendly, she turned.
    High, maybe. Definitely drunk. Her old friend leaned against the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping her standing in a world gone sideways. She wore her winter coat and a scarf around her neck. Maddy was glad that at least she seemed warm enough.
    Denise smiled, unfocused and dazed but still pretty in that way she’d always been. Petite and fragile, a little girl lost in a scary world. Every time Maddy looked at Denise, she looked for the girl she remembered, the girl from the sleepovers and the second-grade spelling bee and the summers down by the lake. But that girl was getting harder and harder to find behind the glassy eyes and bad decisions.
    Denise , she thought, where have you gone?
    Denise took another step into the room and Maddy didn’t know if it was because she was scared to let go of the doorframe or because Maddy’s smile had turned into a stern “don’t come any closer” frown, but Denise stopped just inside the doorway, and leaned back sideways against Lindros.
    “Merry Christmas, Maddy.”
    “You too, Denise.”
    “You look so nice.”
    “Thanks. We’re … having dinner at my parents’ house.” She ran a hand down the side of her purple dress. It was a little bigger than it had been a month ago, when she bought it; she’d lost weight recently. Stress. Fingernails didn’t have a lot of calories in them.
    “Right. To tell them about getting married. Billy told me.”
    That surprised Maddy. Billy didn’t tell Denise much these days. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. Would sell a person’s secrets for a beer or a joint.
    She leaned in conspiratorially, but nearly fell over. Maddy lifted a hand to catch her, just as Denise braced herself, hand splayed across Lindros’s mouth. “Billy’s nervous,” Denise said.
    “I know,” she smiled, even though she wanted to get back to work on that thumbnail.
    “You’re going to be fine,” Denise said. “The two of you … you’re like meant to be. You always were.”
    Maddy knew it was