Page 51 of Surely Christmas

December peers at me, questioning and distant. “You lost your temper? I thought you handled my mother very gracefully.”

“Not tonight.” I bite into the sugary dough, hoping it’ll take the edge off. “Before. When I punched the door.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

It burns.

She says, “I didn’t know you sent an apology or money. They never mentioned it.”

“I felt horrible, and I wanted to take accountability. Somehow.” When I get the nerve to look up, silent tears trace down December’s cheeks. My stomach turns over, and I move from where I’m sitting across from her to her side. “Hey…” I whisper, scooping her up in my embrace. “Please don’t cry.”

“I just…” She sniffles, turning against me and wrapping her arms around my waist. “You’re allowed to have one teeny-tiny flaw that I don’t even think of as a flaw. You’re allowed to be human. That’s one of my favorite things about being with you. With you, I feel like I’m also allowed to be human.”

I don’t know that my soul is strong enough to unpack the devastation in that line right now, so I just say, “Surely the involuntary assault of an inanimate object counts as a flaw.”

“Every time afterward before it was fixed, I’d compare the size of my hand to your fistprint and say wow, big with both awe and adoration.”

I’m not at all a fan of December’s parents, but I think I understand why they’re not complete idiots to be worried about this woman. Still, the assumption that I could ever hurt her stings. I know I’m not good enough for her, and I know I’m too selfish to let that stop me when she’s right here, wanting me with her every breath.

What I don’t know is whether or not being better than what I am is possible.

My base level personality isn’t exactly something I know how to overhaul, and I don’t even know where I’d begin to control my temper any better than I already do.

Feeling a bit hopeless, I squeeze her tighter and let my head rest against her soft hair.

I love her.

I’ll do anything I need to, go to therapy twice a week if that’s what it takes.

I just doubt it’ll help, because it’s not like my anger is prolific.

Some things just make me snap. Some things just build an energy inside me that I need to get out. It’s not like I lose my mind all the time. And it’s not even like I can’t control how the energy exits. Heaven knows August’s pissed me off an unbelievable number of times in my life. Even as a kid, though, I knew in my soul that she was my baby sister, and it was my job—perhaps primarily—not to put my hand through her skull when she was being an unbelievable brat. Heck, I never so much as broke anything of hers even when she might’ve deserved it.

This thing with December just…it ruined me. It broke something inside my chest.

Going from being so full of joy that she’d finally be coming home to seeing horror in her eyes when she looked at me took me from the highest I’d ever been to the lowest I can remember. It dropped me from the exosphere into the Mariana Trench, and in the transition I hit that ocean water like concrete.