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On a normal day, Wednesday Addams was awake at the crack of dawn. Sleeping for a maximum of four hours each night, she rose with the sun and was showered, dressed, and already had one cup of coffee before Enid’s first alarm went off. This morning, however, had a slow start. Wednesday didn’t want to get out of bed. It was the last day of school before Christmas break. She dreaded what awaited her downstairs.
She knew the entire school would be decorated from floor to ceiling with bright colors, jingle bells, Santa hats, and artificial Christmas wreaths. Four days ago, Enid and the rest of the holiday cheer squad put up a six-foot tree in the quad. Wednesday’s poor eyes were assaulted by color every time she left the sanctuary of her room. Thankfully Enid took pity on her and toned down the colors on her side of the room to make up for it.
One more day and then I will be home, Wednesday promised herself. She pulled the black covers over her face. She didn’t bother trying to talk herself into getting out of bed and starting the day. Every second spent in the dark was to be savored.
But Enid had other ideas.
“Gooood morning Wednesday!” Enid sang. “Rise and shine and smell the Christmas cheer!”
Wednesday groaned. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” she asked.
“I couldn’t sleep. I’m too excited about the Christmas party tonight!”
She knew she’d regret it, but she did it anyway. Wednesday removed the covers from her face. “I’m assuming I’ll be dragged to this party against my will.”
“You got it!” Enid scrolled through her phone. Her perfectly manicured pink nail tapped on the screen. To Wednesday’s horror, the worst song she’d ever heard began to play.
Enid turned the volume up full blast and set her phone down. “Bells, bows, gifts, trees,” she sang along as she danced.
“Enid,” Wednesday groaned, “it’s too early for your shenanigans.” She hid back under her covers and pressed her hands against her ears.
This was going to be a long day.
***
Thankfully, the day passed by quickly. Wednesday thanked whatever higher power was out there that guaranteed she wouldn’t have to suffer for longer than she had to. The classrooms weren’t quite as festive and were considerably more tolerable. Whenever she had to pass the six-foot tree in the quad, she kept her head down and tried not to stare at the sparkling lights or the shining decorations. Her skin broke out into hives, but that wasn’t more than a little bit of cortisone could fix.
When the time came for the annual Nightshades Christmas party, Wednesday was sure she was going to break out into full body hives. The normally dark and dreary Nightshades library was decked out in full Christmas decor. It was an even bigger eye sore than the quad. Enid told her she only had to be there for an hour, but an hour seemed too much.
The party was in full swing when Wednesday forced herself down the stairs. Everyone was there, including Eugene. She made a beeline (no pun intended) to him.
“At least one tolerable person is here,” she said.
“Hey Wednesday, glad you could make it!” he said. He passed her a cup filled with bright red liquid. “This is a Yoko specialty.”
“Is it red because there’s blood in it?”
He shrugged. “If there is, I hope it’s clean.”
“It most likely is. I wouldn’t be that lucky.” She tipped her head back and chugged the liquid. It was just fruit punch with a hint of vodka. “Alcohol. How disappointing.” She scanned the room looking for a good spot to hide.
“Addams,” Bianca said as she approached them with Divina and Kent flanking her. “I’m surprised you came.”
“Enid’s tactics are downright evil,” Wednesday said. “I couldn’t be prouder.”
“Hey Wednesday, I got a joke for you,” Kent said. His words were already starting to slur, and it was only twenty minutes into the party. Wednesday didn’t think there was that much alcohol in the punch. “What do you call a cat in the desert? Sandy Claws!”
Kent and Eugene were the only ones who laughed. Bianca rolled her eyes and Divina looked at him with disappointment, probably asking herself how they were related. “Kent, you idiot!” Divina said.
“What do you call a dog that works for Santa?” Eugene asked.
“What?”
“Santa Paws!”
Kent and Eugene cackled and launched into a competition to see who could tell the worst joke. With everyone distracted, Wednesday took the opportunity to walk away. She found a dark spot to hide in and pulled a book off the shelf. She didn’t care what it was about, just that it was something to read to kill the rest of the time she was obligated to be there. The deal was that she would attend the party. That didn’t mean she had to participate.
She glanced around the room. Bianca and Divina were making fun of Kent and Eugene’s bad jokes; Enid and Ajax were standing next to the refreshments table having a conversation; and Yoko was off to the side mixing more drinks. Wednesday noticed Xavier was missing and immediately felt jealous. How did he manage to get out of attending this tedious party? He was probably in his shed right now packing away his art supplies, so he’d be ready for his father’s personal driver to pick him up in the morning. She sighed. It must be nice to not have a pushy and at times overbearing roommate – not that she would trade Enid for a different roommate. For all her pushy and overbearing quirks, Enid was still her best friend who admittedly didn’t have to try very hard anymore to get Wednesday to go along with her schemes.
Her mind started to take a sentimental turn. She beat those thoughts down with an imaginary mallet and buried her nose in her book. She read twenty pages before she heard someone sit down next to her. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see it was Xavier.
“I thought you would be in your shed tonight,” she said.
“I was,” he said casually. “I had to finish up something first before I could join the party.”
“Technically you still haven’t joined the party. The party is over there.” She pointed at their friends dancing in the middle of the library to some overplayed Christmas song.
“But you’re over here.”
“I’m aware.”
“And I’d rather spend time with you.”
She closed her book and set it aside. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re more fun to be around.”
“Don’t you want to hang out with Kent and Ajax before the break? Or perhaps spend time with Bianca? Enid told me you two were on your way to getting back together,” she said, hating herself for how bitter and jealous she sounded. It was of no concern of hers whether or not Xavier and Bianca rekindled their relationship. Not after Wednesday made it perfectly clear she would rather spend the rest of her life in solitude. She was just concerned that maybe Bianca wasn’t the right person for Xavier. That’s all.
“I played a few games with Kent and Ajax last night,” he said. “And me and Bianca? That ship has sailed. We are never getting back together. I don’t know where Enid got that idea from.”
Wednesday released the tension in her body that she didn’t know she had been holding. “According to Enid, she heard Bianca flirting with you in the library after class a week ago.”
“Bianca is bored and has nothing better to do. She’s not being serious. Even if she was, I’m over her and the relationship. I've had my eye on someone else for a while now,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “Why? Are you jealous?”
“Of course not,” she said, the words sounding a little harsher than she wanted them to. If Bianca was no longer in the running, she wondered who this other person could be. She filed this information away before she could work herself up and promised to investigate later after chopping a few heads off of Enid’s stuffed animals. “I was merely concerned that Bianca might come over here and make a scene because you were with me and not her. I’m not opposed to murder, but we have a fencing competition coming up and she’s the only competent person on the team other than me.”
Xavier chucked and raked his hand through his hair. Wednesday tried not to stare at his long, slender fingers as they ran through his dark hair. His hand settled back into his lap. He flexed his hand, and if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he did it on purpose.
“How long is your sentence?” he asked, nodding towards the party.
Wednesday checked her watch. “Ten minutes,” she said. Thank Lucifer.
“I don’t think Enid will notice if you leave a little early,” he said. He placed his hand against the wall and used it as leverage to stand up. He held out his other hand to help her up. “Can I walk you back to your dorm?”
She stared at his hand for a few seconds like it might burst into flames. Finally, she took his hand. “I suppose you could,” she said. “It beats having to spend another second listening to Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.”
He smiled as they snuck out of the party and into the crisp winter air. It had started to snow during the party. Little snowflakes fell from the sky and settled on their hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she stole glances at him. She liked looking at the contours of his face and the outline of his jaw. He was all bone, and his complexion was slightly darker than that of a corpse. If his career as an artist didn’t work out, maybe he could give modeling a try. She stumbled and almost lost her footing when that intrusive thought jumped into her mind.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I stepped on a patch of ice,” she lied. Where the hell did that come from? Sure, he was attractive. Wednesday had eyes and wasn’t too proud to admit that she liked the way he looked, but when did she give her mind permission to wander that far into insanity? She was glad tomorrow she would be going home. A little electroshock therapy would get her mind back on track.
They made it to Ophelia Hall sooner than she would have liked. She enjoyed the comfortable silence between them. One of the (many) things she appreciated about Xavier was that they could spend time together without having to spend it together. They could go hours ignoring each other while they did their own hobbies in the same room. She couldn’t do that with anyone else. Even Eugene after a while had to fill the silence. Wednesday doubted the word silence was in Enid’s vocabulary. But not Xavier. Xavier understood when to be quiet and when it was okay to talk. It was like he had access to Wednesday’s personal thoughts and that’s how he knew how to read her. It was unsettling to be so understood yet comforting at the same time.
“So, are you going to let me know if your new torture device works?” he asked. A few days ago, she told him about her plans for Pugsley. It involved him, an iron claw, and a straitjacket.
“Of course. I never miss a chance to show off my work,” she said. “If I can figure out how, I’ll send you a video.”
Xavier smiled. “I'm looking forward to it.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to her. “This is why I was late to the party. I was finishing this up for you.”
She raised a questioning brow. “I did not know we were exchanging gifts,” she said.
“It’s nothing really,” he said. “The idea came to me during lunch today and I just had to put it on paper. I thought you might like it.”
Curiously, she unfolded the paper and felt the air rush out of her lungs. It was her. He had drawn her. She was sitting on the floor in the back of Nevermore’s public library. She had a book perched in her lap and she was chewing on the tip of her pen cap, a habit she didn’t like for anyone to know she had. There was nothing particularly mind-blowing about the drawing, Xavier certainly had better, but it was special to Wednesday. It was her when her guard was down. She wasn’t wearing her usual deadpan expression, her eyes weren’t cold, and she wasn’t glaring daggers for once. Her expression was soft It was just her completely enthralled in whatever she was reading. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Take Kent or Ajax for example; they would have looked at her and thought it was just Wednesday reading up on poisons and hexes. But to Xavier, this was Wednesday at her most vulnerable. It was who she was underneath all her darkness and sass.
“The suspense is killing me,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Were you watching me today while I was in the library?” she asked.
He didn’t bother to look embarrassed at being caught. “I like watching you concentrate. You scrunch your nose and nibble on your pen cap. It’s cute.”
“Don’t ever call me cute.”
“Oh yeah?” He took a step closer to her. “What are you going to do about it if I say it again?”
She stared up at him with wide eyes. From this close, she could see the tiny beauty mark on his left cheek and smell the paint thinner that always followed him around. His green eyes dancing playfully as he watched her, expecting a snarky threat of violence. Unfortunately, her brain felt like it was operating with one braincell and she couldn’t think of anything exceptionally violent.
She had to say something, so she said, “I’ll cut off your hands and keep them in a jar on my bedside table.”
Xavier tsked. “Weak sauce, Addams. You can do better than that.”
She really couldn’t. All she could think about was the bats flying erratically inside her stomach. “Don’t you have something better to do?”
“I can’t think of anything I would rather do than stand here with you.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stand around with the person you said you have your eye on?” The words slipped out like word vomit. As soon as she said them, she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. She wished the world would suddenly end and put her out of her misery. She didn’t know what came over her. Normally she had perfect control over herself and words, but whatever control she had was completely forgotten the second Xavier stepped closer to her into her personal space.
Xavier smirked, clearly feeling good about himself knowing that Wednesday Addams was jealous. “Who said that person isn’t you?”
Suddenly, she no longer wanted to hang herself. “Excuse me?”
“God, Wednesday, are you really that oblivious?” Smiling, he ran his fingers through his hair and licked his lips. Her eyes followed his tongue as it dragged across his lips and darted back inside his mouth. “It’s so obvious that I like you. I flirt with you all the time.”
“That was you flirting?”
“Yeah, and apparently I’m not very good at it if you didn’t catch on,” he said. Suddenly all the humor drained from his face. “Now that you know how I feel, how do you feel?”
She glanced away from him and stared at the lamppost across from them, watching the snowflakes drift down from the sky. She had never considered being in a romantic relationship. It always seemed too much like a chore. You had to pay attention to your significant other and be considerate of their feelings. It was a lot of work and not to mention all the trust involved. She never trusted anyone outside of her family, until she came to Nevermore and started making friends. They had earned her trust and so had Xavier. He had proven that she could trust him with her life, while also proving that he could be low maintenance. As long as she acknowledged his existence from time to time, he was content with how their friendship was.
Because he didn’t pressure her to hang out and respond to his texts, she found herself more willing to seek him out and crave his companionship. She wanted to tell him little things about her day like her new torture device and the new discovery she made during her ongoing stalker investigation. She came to him most of the time. Their friendship was effortless and came naturally to them. She even toned down her harsh comments and instead became more aware of how her words might hurt him. That was what surprised her the most. She didn’t want to hurt him.
“I suppose you wouldn't be the worst person to be in a relationship with,” she said at last.
The worry on Xavier’s face faded and was replaced with relief, and then joy. “So does that mean you want to be in one? With me?”
She took a step closer to him. The tips of their shoes were now touching. She craned her neck up to look at him. “Now who is the oblivious one?”
She stood on her tip toes and kissed him. It barely took a second before he was kissing her back. Placing his hands on either side of her face, he kissed her softly like she might break and fall to pieces. Her hands found their way to his hair and wrapped themselves in the long strands. The kiss was sweet. She didn’t ordinarily like sweet, but as she was quickly finding out, she liked anything that had to do with Xavier. They kissed under the moonlight as the snow came down harder and their bodies began to shiver.
Xavier was the first to pull away. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, winking at her.
“If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“Promise?”
Her cheeks blushed a deep crimson red. “Goodbye Xavier.”
“Night Wednesday. Pleasant nightmares!”
She turned around and stepped into the warmth of Ophelia Hall, no longer regretting getting out of bed that morning.