(Updated 1.6.24)

Christmas and the holidays that follow, including New Years Eve, were never happy times for me growing up. I never received a partridge in a pear tree, but I did receive the bitter end of a fight between my parents and child protection services. We never lit a candle for Hanukkah, but there was a fire due to eggnog infused rum, a crockpot, and a cell phone charger. The Christmas before I turned eighteen was the worst as the last present my parents gave me was to kick me out of the house.

I like to make a few things clear first: I was a good student, I worked hard in my afterschool and over the-weekend job, and I did what I could to protect my young siblings. However, that all came to a head when I finally lost my temper with my mom and her screaming of how I was supposed to grow up to be a man and not some sissy in a dress, her words. We threw a couple of hot barbs back and forth which devolved into a hair-pulling match. I could have won the contest but decided to push her away. She took that as assault and with my siblings filming the spectacle for TikTok it was used against me right up until Christmas, which was not a merry day.

I stood on the front porch with a few items in my backpack but no phone as my parents were paying for it, so they demanded I leave it, or they screamed I would be charged with theft. It was one of those situations when sometimes you need to evacuate from the pending disaster, and so I did. I ran away from the house in a fiery sprint, in the snow and twenty-four-degree weather, wearing a simple pair of TOMS, jeans and just a sweater. I sat in the lobby of “China Palace,” one of the only restaurants open that day and cried over my order of wonton soup. The problem was I could not stay at the restaurant all day and if I did the temperature would continue to drop as the sun set.

“May I please use your phone. I left mine at home,” I asked as I pointed at the phone,
The man at the counter shook his head but an older woman behind him yelled a long string of words in Chinese and he spun the phone to me.

“How long were you sitting there?”
“About an hour.”
I sat in the front seat of a friend of mine’s car.
“I hated to call you, Wes. What did you tell your parents?”
“That I had to pick up a friend of mine who was having an emergency.”
“I don’t want anyone to think it’s an emergency. I don’t…don’t…”
“No one is going to think you’re a charity case, Ellie.”
“Thanks,” I replied as I shivered a bit.

We drove the rest of the way making idle chatter about school and our jobs. Wes not my best friend, we seldom ever spoke since I came. He would’ve been the last person I’d ever call, but his number was floating in my head as I tried to think of someone. Wes lived in a two-story house on the other side of the valley, closet to our school then I was. I had to take the bus to school and then another one to work and home if I was lucky to catch the last one. Wes was fortunate, his parents bought him a car when he was a sophomore.

The Martin home was decked out for Christmas. Clark Griswold would havre been impressed and I am sure the Western Electric Company loved them. The lights were not on their brightest setting at that moment, but later they would light up the city block.

“I can just go through the garage.”
“No, you’re going to come in through the door, like a normal guest.”
“You’re sure?”
“We’re here, right?”
I nodded.
“I’m pretty sure my sister’s got something that will fit you other than that sweater, if you want.”
“Thanks,” I replied as we climbed out of the car and walked to the door.
“Be prepared to be slammed to the floor but the smell of pine and spiced cider,” Wes advised as he opened the door, and we walked in.
“We’re back!” He shouted in the foyer. The front door stood about center to the staircase that led upstairs. The right side entered a dining room and the left into an even larger living room.
I counted five people in the living room, and all of them except a boy who looked like he was one and was too enraptured with a freshly opened toy.
Wes grabbed my free hand and then waved to the group. “Family, this is Ellie. Ellie, this is my family.”
I waved meekly and his dad nodded but Wes’ mother made a mad dash, while trying to avoid wrapping paper and present landmines to over and give me a hug. “We are so happy to have you here,” she said as she took a step back “Are you hungry or thirsty? We have orange juice, or some soda, eggnog?”
“Go for the eggnog,” Wes hinted, “or we’re going to be drinking it until February.”
“One eggnog?” His mom asked.
“Two, mom, if you please.”
The two of you sit down, be comfortable. Wes, you still have a few presents to open.”
“You didn’t wait for me you?”
His younger brother and sister, they were a sophomore and freshman in high school, looked to Wes and then back to whatever present they had. William had what looked like a Nintendo DS and Winnie had an iPad.
“Sorry I took you away from your family tradition of opening presents.”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s cool,” Wes replied as I laid my backdown down and we walked into the living room. Wes’ dad picked up a small present and handed it to Wes as his mom had brought us each a cup of eggnog. I could smell a bit of rum.
“It’s the only time I can drink.”
“Legally,” hie dad replied with a smirk.

I took everything in and really felt like I was intruding. Like I said, I was not a friend of Wes. We talked once or twice in the hallways. We gave each other a high-five at the end of a football game when our team won by the skin of our teeth. My first day of wearing a skirt at school, he ignored me. At least he didn’t antagonize me.

Wes opened the package to reveal a square box.
“A box! Just what I wanted.”
“He says that every time,” Winnie muttered under her breath.
“‘Tis tradition,” Wes responded to her as he opened the box to reveal a multi-colored mug. “‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ Thanks Mom, Dad.”
“That replaces the one I broke, doesn’t it?” Will asked.
“Nothing replaces a limited edition T.A.R.D.I.S. mug,” Wes said as he handed the mug to me.
“Whatever,” Will said as he turned to whatever game he was playing.
Wes’ mom handed him another gift, it was an envelope, and he handed it to me.
“Merry Christmas, Ellie.”
The family—this time including the one-year-old—looked at me.
“I couldn’t I…”
“It has your name on it,” Wes replied.
I looked at the envelope and, sure enough, it had my name on it; written in elegent calligraphy.
Either it had already bene there or his mother was some artist.
I opened the envelope and took out the card that was inside.
“You don’t have to read it right now, if you don’t want to, I mean…” Wes stuttered as I opened the card and another, smaller card, fell out like a Russian nesting doll.
The card simply said, ‘A Merry Christmas to you,’ which was fine. It was a simple gift. Perhaps

Wes’ mother was indeed an artist and they had prepared the card while Wes was gone to give me as the others opened gifts. I was happy to receive it. I was ecstatic to be sitting somewhere warm with people around who were not yelling at or because of me. The card was fine. However, there was the smaller card and as I went to pick it up, Wes’ hand grabbed onto it at the same time.
“Can you open this a little later?”
“Sure,” I replied as I placed it back into the larger card.
“Your next present, Wes,” his mom said as she handed over another small box.

Wes received small items, like a new watch, some socks and a cross pendant. They may have been small, but I was sure they had a high price tag. A part of me wanted them. But the other part knew I had a little bit of money and a job, so I didn’t have a green with envy attitude like his younger brother who wondered why he didn’t receive a watch while he held onto an iPod box.

At dinner, I was a bit more relaxed, but still apprehensive about that the final surprise was supposed to be. Would I be the sacrifice to ensure next year’ presents would be just as grand? The parents were too friendly towards a person they had never met before, but they kept their questions to a minimum, asking about what I was planning to do after high school. His dad asked if I was working and I nodded, but the alternation shop would be closed for the next few days.

After dinner, I sat in the living room with Wes as everyone else was busy with whatever they were engrossed in. I sighed a bit and looked at the Christmas card given to me.
“Did you want to open it now?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
“What’s inside it, a contract?”
“Kind of.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I made a…well…it’s hard to say. I made a promise. It’s not a contract like that, I-”
“A promise to what?” I asked as I lowered the envelope and searched the room for my backpack. I was getting bad vibes. Nothing in life is free. I was stupid to not see the probable wolf in sheep’s clothing of the situation.
“Ellie, I wasn’t ignoring you all this time…I just…I just didn’t know how to talk to you anymore.”
“Why?”
“Well, you look like, like that and I didn’t think that’d you want to talk to me because…you got a lot of guys who want to be with you.”
“I did?”
“Yeah,’ Wes replied with a slow nod.
“Really?”
“They stopped though, because of something I said.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them I was your boyfriend and to back off.?
“You did what?” I asked as I stood up from the couch.

“Wait, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to think of the right words to say. I know they don't sound the way I want them to, but I like you and I was afraid you’d think I was some holier than thou person. So, I wrote a note to you, in hopes that one day you’d get to read it. I had it in a Hallmark card and wanted to put it in your locker, but I chickened out and waited for each major holiday.”
“Including Halloween?”
“I still have the card I was going to give you. Are you a Garfield fan?”
I nodded a few times and then sat back down.
“Was it a coincidence that I called you?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, I have faith things will happen, eventually.”
“I’m going to wait to open this.”
“That’s fine,” Wes replied as he looked to the fireplace.
“You really like me?”
He nodded and then took a deep breath.
“I’m touched, I really am. There was a reason I had your number in my head after all.”
“I had hoped you’d call one day, or that I would get the nerve to call you, I mean. You called today and all I could think of was everything I wanted to say. But it all sounded so self-centered, so I didn’t. I just wanted to help you get out of that situation.”
“I’m still in a situation, Wes. Hotels are too expensive, the shelter won’t take me looking like this and, and the park is a bit too cold to camp out in.”
“You can stay here.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to be a burden on anyone. I don’t want to be a charity case.”
“Ellie, I’m a charity case. We are all charity cases, just sometimes not in terms of money. You can stay here for as long as you need to,” he replied as he walked to the hall.
“Wes, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say about this.”
“I know. Let me show you to your room.”
I collected the card and my backpack and followed him upstairs.

We reached a room that was on the opposite side of the upstairs from his. It was a guest room complete with the bed with multiple comforters, some side tables, and a slow-turning fan. A new robe and some pajamas were folded at the end.
“Let me know if you need anything else, Ellie.”
“Ellison, if you will, Wesley.”
“Good night, Ellison,” Wes replied as he closed the door.

For the next few days, I sleep in late without anyone barging into my room, demanding I get up and go and do something, anything, besides feeling secure and at peace. At night, it was a different story as I tossed and turned from re-occurring nightmares of my family’s past and the things my parents would do to me if they ever found me again. I was sure they would report me as a runaway, even though they threw me out, so they could engrave the thought into my head that I could ever amount to anything and to just give up.

“How did you sleep?” Wes asked as I sat down at the counter in the kitchen.
“Still having nightmares.”
“Space aliens or car accidents? Those are mine.”
“My parents, my brothers, and maybe what I’m supposed to do with my life.”
“I propose you make a resolution.”
“A resolution?” I asked as Wes handed a cup of coffee to me and moved the cream and sugar within my reach.
“Yeah, they’re supposed to be small, little, things to get us moving toward something bigger. I’d say start bigger.”
“I’m not ready to make major decisions,” I replied as I heaped teaspoons of sugar and poured an insane amount of cream into the cup.
“You’ve made a few already.”
“I have?”
“One, you got away from people who were putting you down, so you could say you’re going to have a more positive outlook. Two, you’re getting more sleep. Number three, you’ve tried new foods. Last night’s chili was from deer.”
“I liked it,” I said before I took a sip.
“See? So much easier than joining a gym and never going.”
“Or cutting down on coffee?”
“One cannot ever cut down on coffee. I used to bring a mug to school but stopped after I spilled it one day all over Mr. Travers.”
“So that’s why he was wearing an undershirt for the rest of the day?”
Wes nodded and then looked at me for a second before tapping the counter. “Do you want to go? I mean, go out…to a few stores?”
I nodded and took another sip.

I stepped outside the house with Wes wearing a new sweater. Wes stated it was from his sister, but it was too big to be hers as it was a little big on me, but I didn’t press the issue and wore it along with my jeans. We drove a little bit in silence before I glanced at Wes a couple of times.
“Can, can we go by my house?”
“You’re sure you want to do that? I mean, we’ll go, but…”
“Just to see, I’m not planning on running to the door. I just, never mind.”
“No, no, I mind. Let’s go by and see it. If you want to.”
“I do,” I replied.
“On our way.”
We drove past China Palace and what seemed like miles. I tensed up as we approached the neighborhood that days ago, I ran out of through the snow that was still on the ground. We turned the corner and drove down the block only to have Wes slow the car to a stop. We looked out the windshield and then at each other.

I climbed out of the car as Wes turned off the engine.
“Ellison, Ellison!”
I heard Wes’ voice, but it was ghostly as I ran toward the remains of my home, it had burned to the ground with only the chimney and the brick front porch remaining.
I screamed in panic as I ran closer to the ruins but stopped short of front steps.
Wes took ahold of my left hand but made no effort to pull me back.

The Hell I had been through in that house, how I had wished that something would have happened to my parents. I looked to where their bedroom was and saw only charred wood, and a metal bed frame. My brother’s room was next to my parents, and nothing remained. My room was nothing but charred remains.
“Do you want to find out what happened?” Wes asked.
I nodded, even though it involved the police, and my family had a love-to-hate relationship with the boys in blue.

The smell of a burnt life permeated throughout the car as we drove to the police station.
“Did you know?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked without anger, just sadness, in my voice.
“Would you have said something like that to me so soon after my life was turned upside down?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Wes shifted gears and then took my hand.
“I hope they got out okay. Cannot believe I’m saying that. They were so evil and controlling that I hoped one day an atomic bomb would fall and take them out, but that would have taken out my brothers.”
“Have you ever been on a plane?”
“No,” I replied as we pulled into a parking lot filled with patrol cars.
“In the case of an emergency, they’re these masks that will drop from the ceiling so you can continue to breath as all of the oxygen in the plane stops.”
“Okay.”
“Well, you have to place your own mask on first before helping others, like kids, so you can help them instead of all off you succumbing to whatever’s happening on the plane.”
“We’re not on a plane,” I scoffed as I got out of the car and stormed my way to the front door.

The nerve of Wes to try and tell me to abandon my brothers, or state I had abandoned them to die. I wiped the conversation from my mind as I approached the desk.

“What can you tell me about a fire at 4200 Anthony Street?”
“May I have you name, please?”
“Ellison Peterson.”
The lady behind the desk looked away from me and pointed to a set of chairs. “Please take a seat. We’ll have an officer come out and talk to you.”
“Thank you.”
I looked back at the chairs to see Wes standing next to them. I took a few steps and then stopped.
“You don’t have a apologize.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I replied as I sat down.
“There’s a coffee machine down the hall, do you a cup?”
“How do you know there’s a machine down the hall?”
“I had to take a, shall I say, a ‘field trip’ here a few years ago. I’ll be right back.”

I sat for what felt like a million years as Wes returned with two cups and an officer walked out of a set of double doors and asked us to follow him.

“We are still investigating what happened. Where were you on December 25th?”
“Sitting at a Chinese restaurant until I called a friend of mine, Wes, to come pick me up.’
‘And you’re Wes?” the office asked as he glanced up at us.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then where were you?”
I stayed with Wes’ family. My parents had kicked me out and told me to never come back home, so I haven’t. They said to leave my phone, so I did and just came back to see the house.”
The officer typed on a computer as I spoke.
“Did my family survive?”
“We found four bodies of a man, woman and two children.”
I gripped onto Wes’ hands.
“Brian Peterson, Emily Peterson, Randy Peterson and Roddy Peterson.”
I stared at the space between me and the officer’s desk.
“We are looking for the oldest son, Lawrence, who also lived there.”
“Ellie. Taken from the “L” in Lawrence. I never liked that name.”
“You’re Lawrence?”
“No, I never was, but that’s what they called me, up until Christmas Day.”
“And you just went by there today?”
“Yes,” I screeched, “I wanted to see if my brothers were okay, I wanted to to maybe see them outside playing in the yard. They were always my parents’ favorites, the babies who could do nothing wrong. Maybe they were spoiled. Maybe I hated my parents so much, but I always wanted to know if they were okay, and I’d give anything to see them again.”

We left the police station and I felt worse than when I had arrived. For one, to have to self-incriminate with my dead name and I made it sound like I had had set the fire. Our house had verbal fires which left psychological scorch marks all over me, but I would have never done anything like that.

“They’re not going to come after you,” Wes said as we sat in the car. “The movies make it look like they jump to some conclusion and throw everyone under the bus.”
“I should have died with them,” I whispered.
“How could you if they kicked you out of the house?”
“I should have fought to stay and then maybe the fire wouldn’t have happened.”
“Or you’d die with them.”
“I kind of feel I have.”
“You should think of it in a unique way: Ellison Peterson survived so she could reach others about what happened.”
“I don’t want to reach out to others, not about this.”
Wes nodded.
“I guess I’ve ruined the rest of the day,” I remarked as looked at my streaked face in the small mirror above the visor.
“No, we’re still good to go wherever you want.”
“Why are you being nice to me? Do not say it’s because you like me.”
“My sister asked me that too and I had to tell her the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That I’d do anything for you. Even if I had to walk the world, I'd make you fall for me. Okay, that sounds a bit possessive. It seemed like poetry in my head.”
“Thank you,” I replied as I looked out the side window and then turned back to Wes.”
“I guess I really need to get some new clothes,” I replied as I patted my leg, at the same pair of jeans I had been wearing for days.
“Will do,” Wes replied as he started the car.

I kept to myself over the next few days, except for the times the police asked me to come back and give statement after statement. Each time, the Martin family came along with me to vouch for my whereabouts for the evening. There was video footage of me crying into my soup and Wes’ cell phone showing my call from China Palace. Mr. Martin went to the extent of Will having to show he used his video game to take pictures of Wes and myself sitting on the couch.

The police stated they had everything, and it concluded the fire started late into the evening due to a break in a gas line combined with the pilot lighter to the heater. They had died in their sleep before the explosion, and I would have joined them if I had fought and barricaded myself in my room.

On December 31st, the Martin family started taking down their elaborate outdoor display. They ran through it like a machine, packing everything into a plethora of boxes and crates. No one was bitter about me not helping at first, but I decided to join in and assist by climbing a ladder and helping to take down the lights. A few hours later, the front of the house looked ordinary and without any spectacle, except for a wreath still hanging on the door.

“We’ll leave it up until the last of the snow,” Mr. Martin said.
“Again, dad?”
“Okay, Winnie, instead we could go and buy a plethora of Valentine’s decorations. Hearts, cupids, and rainbows as far as the eye can see!”
“The wreath’ll do,” Winnie replied as she rolled her eyes and followed her brother and dad back into the house. Wes picked up the ladder and walked to the garage.
“How are you feeling, Ellison?”
“Still a little…shocked, Survivor’s guilt.”
“Nothing to feel guilty about. I believe there is a reason for everything, there’s a greater picture out there.”
“A picture of what?” I asked as Wes tapped a button and the garage door started to close. He stepped out in front of me.
“Did you open the note?”
“The little one?”
“Yes.”
“Not yet.”
“Before you do, I’ll let you know writing it was my huge resolution. I don’t like to think small. I want to see everything grand, but sometimes it’s not perfect and maybe it doesn’t work out in the end, but I can at least say I tried. Unlike the time I tried to join a gym last year. I quit after three days.”
“You tried to give up coffee too?”
“Failed three minutes after midnight last January.”
We stood in silence for a few seconds until I took his hands.
“Thanks, Wes, for helping me during this.”
“I’m always going to help you. We’re all going to help you.”
“We’re all?”
“See that window, right above the garage door?”
“The one I’ve been staying in?” I asked as Wes pointed to it.
“It’s your room. You don’t need to leave, and you don’t have to live on the streets. You have a family here that wants you.”
“Thank you. So, what did you write in the note?”
‘It was a resolution to myself, an explanation of all the things I wanted to do for you, but I wrote it a little bit pompous.”
“How pompous?”
“Like I assumed you’d like the quiet life and to have someone adoring you. I thought if I gave it to you, then you’d cut me down a few sizes.”
“I might have, but only because I think you were faking.”
“No, I have a few poems about you to back up my feelings.”
“You said you don’t believe in coincidences?” I asked as I moved closer to him.
“Never have, everything happens for a reason, good and bad.”
“And the bad can lead to good?”
“It can lead to something greater than we’ll ever know. But I’ll keep dreaming for it.”
“And what is your dream?”
“Like the note, that I hope you’ll read, says: You.”