The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

Chapter Twenty-Four

Diana’s horrified face warned me about what she was going to say before she actually vocalized it. “Get inside before anyone sees you,” she practically hissed.

I made sure she watched me roll my eyes as I brushed past her into her apartment. Yeah, I knew I had about an inch of my natural hair color peeking out from my roots, but I didn’t really care. The only reason why I hadn’t dyed it back to its normal reddish brown was because I’d texted her for the first time since Thanksgiving to ask what box of dye at the pharmacy she recommended, and gotten:

You’re already on my last nerve. Buy it and I’ll kill you.

Which was why I found myself driving an hour to go visit her on her day off a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, putting up with the sneer on her face as her gaze roamed over my hair again. I swear she might have even shuddered a little.

Her repulsion wasn’t enough to keep me from kissing her on the cheek and giving her butt a slap in ‘hello.’ It had been way too long since we’d last seen each other. She’d pretended to be mad long enough.

She gave me a parting smack in return as her eyes wandered over me briefly. “Besides your hair, you look really good.”

I felt really good. “I’ve been ru

Diana eyeballed me again. “You should probably buy new clothes soon.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged and looked her over, not so subconsciously looking for finger-shaped bruises on any of her exposed skin. I didn’t find any, but I did notice the bags under her eyes. “You look tired.”

The fact she didn’t flip me off when that would have been her normal reaction didn’t hit me until much later. “I am tired. I’m glad you noticed.” She knew better than to wait for me to apologize. “I’ve been working doubles, I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m turning into you.”

“A successful, hardworking woman. I think I’m going to shed a tear.”

“Oh, fuck off. Go into the kitchen and take your shirt off,” she cracked up. I didn’t even get a chance to make a joke about her wanting me to strip before she stopped me with a hand. “This isn’t Striptease. I’m not giving you a dollar or taking you out to di

“Fair enough,” I muttered and made my way into the kitchen where I peeled my T-shirt over my head.

“So… how have you been?” she asked slow and purposely awkward.

I used the same dull tone. “I’m fine. And you?”

“Good,” my robot-voiced best friend replied.

Our eyes met and we both smiled. She shoved at my shoulder and I tried to pinch her stomach. “Are we fine now?” I asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, we’re fine. Now tell me everything I’ve missed.”

We spent the next hour talking. I told her about Thanksgiving and going to Aiden’s game. Twenty of those minutes consisted of us going over the day of my little brother’s game, how Susie had showed up, what Aiden had said to her husband, and then explaining the hatred on the big guy’s face as he’d stared at my sister. I told her about him helping me with the Christmas tree and lights. How he got into a fight with Christian, whom she remembered clearly from that night at the bar because she’d threatened to kick his ass after I told her what had happened.

By the end of it, she had me under a helmet that looked like something out of the NASA space program, and she looked dazed.

“Jesus,” she said twice.

“I thought I was over this stage in my life.”

“No shit. It’s like something out of those novelas my mom watches.”

“The same ones we used to watch with her,” I pointed out. It was how I’d learned Spanish.

Diana laughed from the spot she’d taken in front of me, sitting with her legs crossed. “We would run home after school and watch them, didn’t we?” She made a wistful noise. “It seems like forever ago, huh?”

It really did. I nodded. They were some of my fondest memories before I’d been moved across town and never experienced them again. While living with my mom had left me with a handful of good memories and a dozen terrible ones, it had still been everything I’d known.

Di seemed to brush off whatever distant memory she was thinking of and asked, “What are you go

“With what?”

“With your husband. Who else?”

She could have been talking about my sister. Smart-ass. “Nothing.”

Diana gave me this expression that said, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ “Don’t ‘nothing’ me. You’re still goo-goo with him. I can see it.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t goo-goo over anybody, but she did her hand thing again, stopping me.

“You’re really go

All I could do was let out a restrained grunt.

“You’re go

I wanted to mess with my glasses, but I kept my hand lowered. “We made a deal, Di. This was supposed to be business. It isn’t his fault I’m an idiot.”

“Why are you an idiot? Because you want someone to love you?”

“Because he doesn’t love anything. He doesn’t want to. How awkward would it be if I did or said anything? I’m not going to back out on our deal now. He cares about me, but that’s all.”

If there was anyone in the world who knew me almost as well as I knew myself, it was her. And what she said next confirmed that. “Va

What was the worse that would happen?

I’d lose my friend.

Diana reached forward and tugged at the hem of my jeans. “Do whatever you want. I only want you to be happy. You deserve it.”

I scrunched up my nose, not willing to talk about Aiden any longer, every time I did, especially when it was with the L-word in the subject, it made my entire body hurt. I’d loved enough people in my life who didn’t love me back and didn’t bother hiding it. So I guess Diana was right—there was only so much risk I was willing to take.

That was depressing.

Clearing my throat, I pointed at the Christmas tree behind her, ready to talk about something else. I couldn’t believe the holidays were less than a week away now. When I’d worked for Aiden, time had gone by fast, but since I’d quit, it went by even faster than before. “When are you leaving for your parents?”

“I’m leaving Christmas Eve. I have to be back at work on the twenty-sixth,” she explained. “Are you staying here?”

Where else would I go?

“I’m takin’ off,” Zac said from my doorway a few days later.

Spi

“Aww, you don’t have to.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed at his shoulders when I was right in front of him. “I want to give you your Christmas present.”

“In that case, lead the way, darlin’,” he said even as he took a step back and let me walk ahead.

The Christmas tree lights were turned off when we got downstairs, and I pushed the gifts underneath it aside to find Zac’s. Picking the two perfectly wrapped boxes out from the corner where I’d stashed them, I handed them over. “Merry Christmas.”

“Can I open them now?” he asked like a little boy.

“Go for it.”

Zac ripped the paper off each box and opened them with a grin on his face. Inside were sleep pants and slippers. What do you get a man who had everything? Things he really liked, even if he had a dozen other of the same stuff.

“Va

“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping into his embrace.

He squeezed me and rocked me from side to side. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

He took a step back and put his things into his bag before shoving half his arm in and yanking out what looked like a card. “For you, my girl.”

I took the card from him with a big smile on my face, touched that he’d gotten me one. I tore it open and pulled the card out, opening it to find a gift card inside for one of the local sporting goods stores. But it was the horrible scrawl inside that really caught my eye.

To my closest friend,

Merry Christmas, Va