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Nick was halfway through his list of Christmas cards when Pandora decided to cough up Joni Mitchell's "River". Because the universe was fond of emotional fuckery.
It's coming on Christmas,
they're cutting down trees,
they're putting up reindeer,
And singing songs of joy and peace.
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
He held it together until the sixth line, when he had to put his pen down and breathe. It was coming on Christmas, and he was increasingly battered by memories of a certain tall bastard with a voice like a washboard and a smile like a lifeboat. He feared the weeks to come.
Only one year ago they'd been creating new holiday traditions, clinging to each other with joy and declarations. It was naive to expect they'd be forever when they had only just got started. It was even more naive to think that the difficulty James had letting Nick in in the first place had simply melted away. But Nick had never in a million years thought James would just…go. With barely any explanation, and barely any warning. Not even a year later, and he'd be gone.
I made my baby cry.
And he had.
Nick wasn't ashamed to admit it.
As the song spooled out, Nick pictured it from James's perspective, but the James in his mind was far more self-aware than the real James had ever been. Only a fictional James would understand what he'd done. Only a fictional James would feel remorse. The real James had frozen up and declared that he was both leaving the police force and leaving Nick, all in the same week. All in the same breath. He reported that he needed some space to find out what he was doing with his life, and there was no way to do that and maintain a relationship. He needed some fresh air. And Nick had no choice but to grant it.
Most relationships end by fiat, but this one came as more of a shock than most.
I'm so hard to handle,
I'm selfish and I'm sad.
Now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had.
Never mind what the loss would do to Nick's life.
I made my baby say goodbye.
Indeed.
The song ended, and Nick paused the stream before a happier one started. He didn't want to be uplifted. He wanted to wallow. Three more cards to write, and Nick would deploy his unChristmas campaign. There were going to be no celebrations this year. No elephants. No Magi, no falafel, no palm trees. In fact, when he'd finished composing heartfelt greetings for his friends Nick was going to drink an entire bottle of wine and see where the night took him, with the hope that the destination was sweet drunken oblivion. He needed to feel less like a coward for skipping town. He needed to worry less about missing his friends. He needed to lose track of the emptiness in his flat, and how he was once promised never to have a lonely holiday again. He wanted to feel capable of getting over the breakup without a change of venue, but he clearly wasn't. All the bookmarked job listings for libraries in France proved the lie in that.
I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
Nick needed to skate away, too.
********* 7th DECEMBER *********
The song haunted him for the next week.
He caught himself humming it while fixing metadata in an archive. He caught himself humming it while researching French librarian credentialing. And he caught himself humming it as he shuffled from shop to shop, looking for gifts for friends and wondering why he didn't just buy everything online. There was still time for shipping, after all. Eighteen days until Christmas. Plenty of time to be haunted.
He thought he'd been doing well, but apparently all it took was one glass of wine and a well-placed song and he was thrown right back in it. The thought of James lingered at the edge of his consciousness like a shade, a Ghost of Christmas Past there to remind him how happy they'd been.
********* 17th DECEMBER *********
The Ghost was still hanging out when Nick went on his first date since the break-up.
The guy was nice enough, Nick supposed; he'd said yes for a reason. He was little more classically handsome than Nick was used to, a little more chiseled, but Nick couldn't help wishing Bryan had spent a little less time choosing his outfit and more time finding a hobby. He said all the right things and knew a little about a lot, but Nick couldn't help thinking all that knowledge was cultivated, as if he'd taken a course on pulling and had been told that simply being able to converse was enough to render one interesting. The fact is, Nick would have liked him better if he were interested instead of interesting. Interested in anything. At all. James had a curious mind, and it made him a multifaceted jewel. This guy was pyrite.
Eventually, Nick found himself biting his tongue to keep from bringing up James one too many times, so he admitted to himself that maybe he just wasn't ready to start dating again. Things would be easier in France. He went home alone.
********* 19th DECEMBER *********
When he was leaving the bookstore, Laura was going in.
"Oh, hello there," she said, managing not to look too pitying.
After the usual bout of politeness—awkward, shifting politeness—she broke through to the topic they were circling round. "Have you spoken to him?"
"I…no. I have not."
"He's in Spain now."
Nick blinked. "Why?"
"Walkabout, I think. Or so Robbie says. I don't know what that means."
"Well. Bye, I guess." Nick waved goodbye to the shade of James, as if that might dismiss it.
"He didn't say much of a goodbye to either of us, if it makes you feel better. Which it likely doesn't."
"It doesn't."
"Anyway, I just thought you should know. He hasn't been himself."
"He didn't want to share any of that with me, so."
"It's not an excuse. But maybe it's an explanation."
"Not a very good one."
"With this news of his father, it's not a surprise."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The Alzheimer's."
Nick's brain stuttered. "Huh?"
It was Laura's turn to be surprised. "His father. Early-onset Alzheimer's. Took a turn at the end of the summer. I'd thought that was the real reason he left."
"I…" A million tiny things all came into focus. As did a point of rage, red and blind and searing, deep in the centre of his chest. It began burning a hole behind his solar plexus. "I see."
"Oh god." She stared into his face as if trying to read every microexpression. "Nick, I'm so sorry."
"I'm not the one who deserves apologies. He's not my father."
"James never told you."
"I'm sure he had his reasons."
"Can't have been very good ones," she snapped. She looked, all of a sudden, furious. More furious than Nick was, at any rate: his pinpoint of rage hadn't blossomed into flame yet. Yet. "God, what a shit."
"I'm inclined to agree."
"When he gets back, I'll…" She shook off the overt signs of anger, but he could still sense it. Anger, and indignation, and an edge of sadness. "Anyway, I should let you go. Nothing like dropping a bombshell and running."
"I'm pretty sure that's how one drops bombshells, actually."
"True. But running isn't exactly fair." There was the warm twinkle in her eye, and her tight-lipped, endearing smile. He'd missed them both. James took a lot with him, when he left.
What an arsehole.
"Listen, we should have lunch sometime," she added. Nick smiled and agreed, knowing they wouldn't, and in his mind he was already halfway home, where he could figure out precisely what he felt. With a squeeze of his arm and a few automatic goodbyes she was gone, leaving behind confusion and sadness and that bright-hot coal of anger.
He let it propel him through the rest of his shopping as if it were the heart of a steam engine, and before he reached home he had resolved himself on several points.
One: if James hadn't told him about his dad, then he mustn't have thought Nick either worth telling or worthy of telling.
Two: in either case James clearly didn't value their relationship the way Nick did.
Three: Nick felt very, very, angry. Angry and betrayed.
Four: This was going to be a fuck of a holiday. Good thing he hadn't really been fond of Christmas. Not before James.
Five: France was looking better and better.
********* 21st DECEMBER *********
He didn't realise how bad the month could get.
"No, Mum, don't tell Dad it's me. No—listen, I just wanted to check in. Say hello. No, I'm still not coming for Christmas. Not if he— That's completely unfair. He knows I'm not just 'doing this to be dramatic'. No, I don't— No, we broke up. Yes. Yes. No. Three months ago, Mum, not because of the holidays. What do you mean, 'you all'? We all? Who, gay people? No, I'm not going to just— I thought we agreed not to discuss— Fine. Fine. You know what, I'm gonna go. I don't need to listen to this. I thought you guys were getting better, but apparently not. ...I don't need to 'get better', Mum, nothing's wrong with me. You know what, I regret this. Entirely. I'm going. Right, yeah, okay. Sure. Merry Christmas to you too."
It wasn't going to be merry. Hell, it wasn't going to be at all, unless he caved and accepted the invitation to Ian and Mel's Orphan Christmas. But the way the fire in his chest was building, he would rather stew at home than be surrounded by the people was leaving behind.
********* 25th DECEMBER *********
He didn't get a lot of post. But when he finally bothered to check the mailbox on the day, there was a Christmas card in with the three-day backlog of leaflets and bills. The return address didn't look familiar, and then he saw the names on the card itself. He wondered how they'd got his address until he remembered where they worked, then he didn't wonder anymore.
A peaceful snowscape, Laura's handwriting, and (thankfully) no glitter.
Nick,
Hope you have a very Happy Christmas.
Thinking of you,
Laura and Robbie
Robbie had signed his own name, which was touching. But underneath, in a postscript which Nick guessed Robbie hadn't seen, Laura had added more:
James is dear to me, and you were so good for him, but you deserve to be with someone who will accept help as well as give it. Don't lose yourself. Whatever happens between you when comes back, promise me you'll remember that.
Sorry again for the bad news.
-L
Nick blinked. He went to the kitchen for another glass of wine, set a bath running, and mulled over life advice delivered via Christmas card from an unexpected quarter.
You deserve to be with someone who will accept help as well as give it.
If that wasn't a thesis statement for their entire relationship, Nick wasn't sure what was.
If it was a question of what Nick deserved, it probably wasn't this.
He drank his wine and listened to the song again. But this time when he listened to the lyrics, instead of mourning, he felt a quiet sense of pity. James was—as ever—determined to make everything harder on himself. Nick had done his best, but he couldn't make James take the hand he offered. If James wanted to run, there wasn't a damn thing Nick could do about it.
Or should do about it. Their relationship hadn't, as it turned out, been reciprocal, which means it had also been untenable. It had only been a matter of time until it broke. Best to let it go.
Best to let him go.
Nick still loved him, but James's leaving was not about him, and if he returned, he wouldn't be coming back for him. Nursing the hurt accomplished nothing.
Running isn't exactly fair, Laura had said in the bookstore. James had run to Spain, but Nick didn't need to run to France to be happy again. Whether she had meant to or not, she had challenged him to grieve without running. To find a way.
After all, he had a complete life here to engage with, if only he embraced it. Friends, job, home. He would have to release his hold on grief to do that, though. And the people he'd be embracing would be there to embrace him back.
It was time to start healing. Form new connections.
Find a new zero.
The coal of anger banked down, and down, and down, until with an unceremonious flash of nothing, it extinguished.
The Chieftains were on, he had a glass of excellent wine, and the bath was filling with the warm scent of cloves. For the first time in months, Nick felt peace. He was as steady as sea level, as solid as glassine lake, as smooth as ice at the horizon, a single line where water met sky. He felt serenity in every drop. He didn't have to run away to get over this. He would heal just fine right where he was. Secure and whole.
His Christmas wish had been a river to skate away on. But Laura had just given him something even better:
A reason to stay.