The light kicks on and Caleb laughs hysterically. “I am so sorry!”
“You’d better be sorry,” I say. “That wasn’t romantic at all!”
“You can shock me back,” he says. “That’s romantic, right?”
Still on my back, I rub my feet back and forth hard against the trampoline, and then I reach over to his earlobe. Pzzt!
“Ah!” He grabs his ear, laughing. “That actually hurt!”
He pushes himself to his feet and then shuffles his socks across the surface of the trampoline in one big circle. I stand up and mirror his movements as we stare at each other.
“What, are we doing battle here?” I ask. “Bring it.”
“You bet we are.” He points a finger in front of him and lunges for me.
I duck to the side and zap his shoulder. “Twice! I got you twice.”
“All right, no more Mr. Nice Guy.”
I skip-jog to the other side of the trampoline, but he’s right behind me, his fingers reaching out. Watching his feet closely, I do a small hop to land just as he steps, fully knocking him off balance. He falls forward and I shock the back of his neck.
I throw my hands in the air. “Denied!”
Laid out, he looks up at me with an evil sneer. I glance around but there’s no escape on a trampoline. He does a quick hop to his knees and then his feet and tackles me. We bounce once and he twists so that I drop on top of him. The breath rushes out of me. His hands clasp behind my back, holding me tight. I raise my head enough to see his eyes, blow my hair out of his face, and we both laugh. Slowly, the laughing stops, our chests and stomachs breathing hard against each other.
He touches my cheek with his hand and guides me toward him. His lips are so soft against mine, sweetened with peppermint. I lean farther in and get lost kissing him. I slide off him to the mat and then he rolls himself on top of me. I wrap my arms around him and we kiss with more intensity. We pull back to catch our breaths and look into each other’s eyes.
There are so many things prickling in the back of my mind, threatening to take me out of this moment. But instead of worrying about anything, I close my eyes, lean forward, and allow myself to believe in us.
The drive back to the lot is mostly quiet. I find myself nearly hypnotized by Caleb’s keychain, swaying with our picture on Santa’s lap. If only this week would never end.
When he pulls into the lot and parks, he takes my hand. I look to the trailer, and a curtain in Mom and Dad’s room swings shut.
Caleb holds my hand tighter. “Thank you, Sierra.”
“For what?”
He smiles. “For bouncing on the trampoline with me.”
“Oh, my pleasure,” I say.
“And for making these past few weeks the best I’ve ever had.”
He leans over to kiss me, and once again I lose myself in his kiss. I trace my lips from his jaw to his ear and whisper, “Mine too.”
Pressing our cheeks together, listening to each other breathe, we don’t move. After next week, it will never be like this again. I want to hold this moment and imprint it on my heart so it never fades.
When I finally get out of the truck, I watch the taillights of his truck until they have long disappeared.
Dad walks up behind me. “That has to be the end, Sierra. I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”
I spin toward him.
He shakes his head. “It’s not the thing with his sister. Not just that. It’s everything.”
The warm and beautiful feeling I’ve experienced all evening bleeds out of me, replaced by a heavy dread. “I thought you were letting it go.”
“We’re leaving soon,” he says, “you know that. And you must know that you’ve been growing way too attached.”
I can’t find my voice or even the words to shout at him. Things were finally going right and he has to ruin that? No. I will not let him do this.
“What does Mom say?” I ask.
He turns slightly toward the trailer. “She doesn’t want you to get hurt, either.” When I don’t respond, he turns the rest of the way and begins to walk back to the cramped trailer that used to feel like home.
I turn toward the Christmas trees. Behind me, I can hear Dad’s boots shuffle up the metal steps and the door closing behind him. I can’t go in there. Not yet. So I walk into the trees, the needles scratching against my sleeves and pants. I sit down in the cool dirt where the outside lights can’t reach me.
I try to imagine myself back home, where these trees around me once grew, looking up at these same stars.
Back in the trailer, I barely sleep all night. When I first pulled open my curtains, the sun still hadn’t risen. I lay on my bed, looking out, watching the stars slowly begin to fade. The more they disappeared, the more lost I felt.
I decide to reach out to Rachel. We haven’t spoken since I missed her performance, but she knows me better than anyone, and I just need to tell her how I feel. I send her an apology text. I tell her I miss her. I tell her she would love Caleb but that my parents think I’m getting too close to him.
Eventually, she responds: Can I help?
I let out a deep breath and close my eyes, just so grateful to have Rachel in my life.
I tell her: I need a Christmas miracle.
In the long pause that follows, I watch the sun start to rise.
She answers: Give me two days.
Caleb shows up the next day with a big grin, carrying a package wrapped in Sunday comics and way too much tape. Behind him I can see Mom watching us. While visibly not thrilled, she stays with her customer.
“What’s that?” I ask, swallowing my fear of Dad returning from his lunch run. “I mean, besides an invitation to teach you how to wrap.”
He hands it to me. “There’s only one way to find out.”
The gift is somewhat floppy, and when I tear into the package I see why. It’s that silly knitted Christmas tree hat he wore the other day. “No, I think this belongs to you.”
“I know, but I saw how envious you were,” he says, unable to hide his smile. “I figured, your winters get much colder than ours.”
I bet he doesn’t think I’ll wear it, which is why I put it on immediately.
He pulls the sides down over my ears, and then leaves his hands there as he bends forward to kiss me. I let the kiss happen, but I keep my lips tight. When he doesn’t pull back, I have to.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t do that here.”
A throat clears behind him and I look over his shoulder.
“I need you to get back to work, Sierra,” Mom says.
Caleb, clearly embarrassed, looks out at the trees. “Am I about to get outhouse duty?”
Nobody laughs.
He looks at me. “What’s going on?”
I look down and see Mom’s shoes move closer.
“Caleb,” she says, “Sierra has told us wonderful things about you.”
I look up at her, my eyes begging her to be gentle.
“And I know how she feels about you,” Mom says. She looks at me but doesn’t even attempt to smile. “But we’re leaving in a week and, more than likely, we won’t be back next year.”
I don’t take my eyes away from hers, but I can see Caleb turn to me, and my heart breaks. That was for me to tell him if necessary, and because nothing is certain it was not necessary yet.
“Her father and I aren’t comfortable seeing this relationship progress without everyone knowing where we stand.” She looks at me. “Your dad will be back in a minute. Let’s wrap this up.”
She leaves and I’m left alone with Caleb, his face a mix of betrayal and surrender.
“Is your dad not supposed to see me?” he asks.
“He thinks we’re getting too serious,” I say. “You don’t have to be afraid, he’s just feeling overprotec
tive.”
“Overprotective because you’re not coming back?”
“That’s still not for sure,” I say. I can’t look him in the eyes anymore. “I should have told you.”
“Well, now’s your chance,” he says. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
A tear falls from my cheek. I didn’t even know I was crying, but I don’t care if I am. “Andrew talked to him,” I say, “but it’s okay.”
His voice is rigid. “How is that okay?”
“Because then I talked to them and I told them—”
“Told them what? Because we’re talking right now and everything is definitely not okay.”
I look at him and wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Caleb . . .”
“This is not going to change, Sierra. Not in whatever time your family has left. So why are you bothering with me?”
I reach for his hand. “Caleb . . .”
He steps back, forcing distance between us.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“I said you were worth it, Sierra, and you are. But I don’t know if the rest of this is. And I know I’m not.”
“Yes,” I say, “Caleb, you—”
He turns and leaves the Bigtop, then walks straight to his truck and drives away.
The next day, Dad returns from the post office and drops a thick express envelope next to me at the register. Twenty-four hours have passed without Dad and me speaking. We’ve never been like this, but I can’t forgive him. At the top of the envelope is a red heart drawn around Elizabeth Campbell in the return address. After getting through two more customers I tear open the package.
Inside are a letter-size envelope and a glittery red box the size of a hockey puck. I take the top off the box, remove a square of cotton, and there’s the inch-thick cutting from my first tree. Around the edge it retains a thin layer of rough bark. In the center is the Christmas tree I painted on it when I was eleven years old. Two days ago, looking at this would have made me nervous about how Caleb would react if I gave it to him. Now, I don’t feel anything.
A customer steps up to the counter and I put the lid back on the box. When she leaves, I open the letter. While Elizabeth sent me the tree cutting, the note is in Rachel’s handwriting: I hope this helps with that Christmas miracle you asked for.
Along with the note are two tickets to the winter formal. Snow Globe of Love is written in fancy red script across the top. On the left side is a couple dancing within a snow globe as silver glitter falls around them.
I close my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
On my lunch break I go to the trailer and hide the red box beneath a pillow on my bed. I remove the picture of Caleb and me tucked against the window seam and slip the tickets between the photo and the cardboard backing.
Before I lose my courage, I find Dad and ask him to take another walk with me. I’ve been stewing about this long enough. I help him strap a tree to a customer’s car and then we walk away from the lot together.
“I need you to reconsider this,” I tell him. “You say it’s not all about Caleb’s past, and I believe you.”
“Good, because—”
I interrupt him. “You said it’s also because we have less than a week left and I’m falling for him. And you’re right, I am,” I say. “I know that makes you uncomfortable for a million reasons, but I also know you wouldn’t say anything about it if you couldn’t use his past as an excuse.”
“I don’t know, maybe, but I still—”
“And while that makes me so mad because it’s not fair to Caleb, you’re forgetting about the one person who should be the most important part of this for you.”
“Sierra, you’re all I’m thinking about here,” he says. “Yes, it’s hard watching my baby girl fall in love. And yes, it’s hard to block out his past. But more than anything, honey, I can’t stand by and watch you get your heart broken.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision?” I say.
“Yes, if you can take everything into account.” He stops walking and looks out to the street. “Your mother and I haven’t said this to each other yet, but we both know it. It’s almost certain we’re not coming back next year.”
I touch his arm. “I am so sorry, Dad.”
Still facing the street, he puts an arm around me, and I lean my head against his chest. “Me too,” he says.
“So you’re mostly worried about how I’m going to feel leaving,” I say.
He looks down at me, and I know I am the most important part of this to him. “You can’t understand how hard that will be,” he says.
“Then tell me,” I say. “Because you know. What did you feel when you first met Mom and then had to leave?”
“It was awful,” he says. “A couple of times I thought we weren’t going to make it. We even took a break and dated other people for a while. That damn near killed me.”
My next question is what I’ve been building to. “And was it worth it?”
He smiles at me and then turns to look back at our lot. “Of course it was.”
“Well then,” I say.
“Sierra, your mom and I had both been in serious relationships before. This is your first time being in love.”
“I never said I was in love!”
He laughs. “You don’t have to say it.”
We both look out at the cars, and I pull his arm tighter around me.
He looks down at me and sighs. “Your heart is going to break in a few days,” he says. “It will. But I won’t make it hurt more by taking away the next few days with him.”
I hug both of my arms around him and tell him that I love him.
“I know,” he whispers back. “And you know that your mom and I will be here to help put your heart back together.”
With his arm around my shoulder, and my arm hugging his side, we walk back to the lot.
“I need you to consider one thing,” he says. “Think about how this season will end for the two of you. Because it will. So don’t ignore it.”
When he joins Mom in the Bigtop, I run to the trailer and call Caleb.
“Get over here and buy a tree,” I say. “I know you have deliveries to make.”
It’s dark by the time I see Caleb pull into the parking area. Luis and I carry a big, heavy tree toward his truck.
“I hope this fits wherever you’re going,” Luis says.
Caleb hops out and runs back to lower the tailgate. “That one might be out of my price range,” he says, “even with a discount.”
“No,” I say, “because it’s free.”
“It’s a gift from her parents,” Luis says. “They’re taking a nap at the moment, so—”
“I’m right here, Luis,” I say. “I can tell him.”
Luis blushes and then heads back to the lot, where a customer waits to have her tree netted. Caleb, meanwhile, looks confused.
“My dad and I had a talk,” I say.
“And?”
“And they trust me,” I tell him. “They also love what you do with their trees, so they want to donate this one to the cause.”
He looks toward the trailer and a faint smile appears. “I guess when we get back you can let them know whether their donation fit.”
After we deliver the tree, which barely fits—and the five-year-old freaks with excitement—Caleb drives us to Cardinals Peak. He parks in front of the metal gate and unlocks his door.
“Wait here and I’ll open it up,” he says. “We can drive to the top and, if you don’t mind, I’d love to finally see your trees.”
“Then turn off the engine,” I say. “We’re hiking up.”
He leans forward to look up the hill.
“What, are you afraid of a little night hike?” I tease. “I’m sure you have a flashlight, right? Please don’t tell me you drive a truck but d
on’t have a flashlight!”
“Yes,” he says, “in fact, I do have one of those.”
“Perfect.”
He backs his truck onto a grass-and-dirt patch on the side of the street and grabs a flashlight from the glove box. “There’s only one,” he says. “I hope you’re okay standing close.”
“Oh, if we must,” I say.
He hops out of the truck, walks over to my side, and opens the door. We both zip up our jackets while looking at the tall silhouette of Cardinals Peak.
“I love coming out here,” I say. “Every time I hike up this hill, I think . . . I get this feeling like . . . that my trees are a deep personal metaphor.”
“Wow,” Caleb says. “That might be the most profound thing I’ve heard you say yet.”
“Oh, shut it,” I say. “Give me that flashlight.”
He hands me the light but keeps on going. “Seriously. Do you mind if I use that at school? My English teacher will love it.”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “Hey, I was raised on a Christmas tree farm. I’m allowed to get sentimental about it even if I can’t express myself.”
I love how Caleb and I can tease each other and it feels like no big deal. The hard things are still there—we can’t avoid a day on the calendar—but we have found a way to appreciate each other right now.
It’s colder tonight than when Heather and I came here on Thanksgiving. Caleb and I don’t say much on the way up; we simply enjoy the coolness in the air and the warmth of our touch. Before the final turn of the hill, I lead him off the road with the flashlight and into knee-high brush. Without complaint, he follows me out several yards.
The crescent moon casts deep shadows on this side of the hill. Where the brush clears, I slowly move the flashlight across my trees, capturing one or two at a time within the narrow beam.
Caleb steps beside me and puts an arm around my shoulders, gently bringing our bodies together. When I look at him, he’s looking out at the trees. He lets go of me and walks into my little farm, looking so happy as he glances between them and me.
“They’re beautiful,” he says. He leans close and breathes in one of the trees. “Just like Christmas.”