My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(8)

“Chex mix?”

“Cashews,” she said. “And probably other tree nuts.”

“Ah,” Noel said.

Mags was already dragging him away from the wall. “Do you have something with you?”

“Benadryl,” he said. “In my car. But it makes me sleepy. I’m probably fine.”

“Where are your keys?”

“In my pocket,” he said, pointing at her, at his jacket. His tongue sounded thick.

Mags found the keys and kept pulling him. His car was parked on the street, and the Benadryl was in the glove compartment. Mags watched Noel take it, then stood with her arms folded, waiting for whatever came next.

“Can you breathe?” she asked.

“I can breathe.”

“What usually happens?”

He grinned. “This has never happened before.”

“You know what I mean.”

“My mouth tingles. My tongue and lips swell up. I get hives. Do you want to check me for hives?” Wolfish.

“Then what?” she asked.

“Then nothing,” he said. “Then I take Benadryl. I have an EpiPen, but I’ve never had to use it.”

“I’m going to check you for hives,” she said.

He grinned again and held out his arms. She looked at them. She lifted up his striped T-shirt.… He was pale. And covered in goose bumps. And there were freckles she’d never known about on his chest.

“I don’t think you have hives,” she said.

“I can feel the Benadryl working already.” He dropped his arms and put them around her.

“Don’t kiss me again,” Mags said.

“Immediately,” Noel said. “I won’t kiss you again immediately.”

She leaned into him, her temple on his chin, and closed her eyes.

“I knew you’d save my life,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have had to save it if I didn’t almost kill you.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit. It’s the tree nuts who are trying to kill me.”

She nodded.

They were both quiet for a few minutes.

“Noel?”

“Yeah?”

She had to ask him this—she had to make herself ask it: “Are you just being melodramatic?”

“Mags, I promise. I wouldn’t fake an allergic response.”

“No,” she said. “With the kiss.”

“There was more than one kiss.…”

“With all of them,” she said. “Were you just—embellishing?”

Mags braced for him to say something silly.

“No,” Noel said. Then, “Were you just humoring me?

“God. No,” she said. “Did it feel like I was humoring you?”

Noel shook his head, rubbing his chin into her temple.

“What are we doing?” Mags asked.

“I don’t know.…” he said eventually. “I know things have to change, but … I can’t lose you. I don’t think I get another one like you.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Noel.”

“You are,” he said, squeezing her. “And it’s okay. Just … I need you to take me with you.”

Mags didn’t know what to say to that.

It was cold. Noel was shivering. She should give him his jacket.

“Mags?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you need?”

Mags swallowed.

In the three years she and Noel had been friends, she’d spent a lot of time pretending she didn’t need anything more than what he was already giving her. She’d told herself there was a difference between wanting something and needing it.…

“I need you to be my person,” Mags said. “I need to see you. And hear you. I need you to stay alive. And I need you to stop kissing other people just because they’re standing next to you when the ball drops.”

Noel laughed.

“I also need you not to laugh at me,” she said.

He pulled his face back and looked at her. “No, you don’t.”

She kissed his chin without opening her mouth.

“You can have all those things,” he said carefully. “You can have me, Mags, if you want me.”

“I’ve always wanted you,” she said, mortified by the extent to which it was true.

Noel leaned in to kiss her, and she dropped her forehead against his lips.

They were quiet.

And it was cold.

“Happy anniversary, Mags.”

“Happy New Year, Noel.”





Someone is in the garden.

“Daniel,” Miranda says. “It’s Santa Claus. He’s looking in the window.”

“No, it’s not,” Daniel says. He doesn’t look. “We’ve already had the presents. Besides. No such thing as Santa.”

They are together under the tree, the celebrated Honeywell Christmas tree. They are both eleven years old. There’s just enough space up against the trunk to sit cross-legged. Daniel is running the train set around the tree forwards, then backwards, then forwards again. Miranda is admiring her best present, a pair of gold-handled scissors shaped like a crane. The beak is the blade. Snip, snip, she slices brittle needles one by one off the branch above her. A smell of pine. A small green needle rain.