𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄 | 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

🌹 A Midnight Blue Christmas

Author's Note: I wrote this short story about three years ago for a Christmas Short Story Anthology I was asked to be apart of. But later on, when that book was deleted, I was worried I had lost this story forever because I had never made a copy. Thankfully, I recently re-discovered this story hidden in my sent emails LOL. I wrote this piece around the time I lost my grandmother close to the holidays at the end of 2016. Christmas was her favorite holiday so it's very hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit without feeling lingering grief over that loss, even years later... I hope that y'all enjoy this long-lost short story <3

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Cold air kisses my skin, leaving me feeling hollow within as I trudge through the quickly-falling snow. The whole city was blanketed with the white fluff and it felt like a dream walking through the park. It was hard to remember there was a time when Christmas didn't make me sad. I'd always loved it as a child, looking forward to wintery days full of hot cocoa, decorations, cheerful music, and gingerbread cookies. The only time of year I'd always said where people were kind-hearted to one another. And then...she left.

 
A sigh escaped my mouth as I pulled my coat tighter around myself, trying to conserve body heat in this frigid winter air. She had been the only one, at times, that I felt understood me in this world. I couldn't even count how many wonderful Christmases we'd shared - curled up in front of the television set with blankets, eating cookies, sharing stories and laughter abounding. Life was so much simpler then, I didn't have to pretend around her. Around her, I was just...me. I guess I took that for granted, in a way.

Took for granted how it felt to be so loved, so understood, so cared for. I thought it would last forever... Tears pricked my brown eyes and I sucked in a sharp breath of freezing air, pushing a lock of dark hair behind my ear as my boots sunk deeper and deeper down into the snow with every step I took. This shouldn't be a time for tears, I reminded myself admonishingly, you should be happy. Like everyone else. But how could I be? Everything around me reminded me of her - her laugh, her smile, the way her arms felt around me, so secure and warm - like nothing on this earth could harm me.

As I kept up a steady pace in the snow, I could hear the city start to come alive around me - the faint jingle of bells on a glass door of a shop, the barking of a dog, people chattering happily to one another on the sidewalk, and lastly, the sound of a Christmas song that still haunted me with memories that left me with an overwhelming sense of bittersweet sorrow.

"And when those blue snowflakes start falling, that's when those blue memories start calling," Elvis sang out from a small shop down the street, making my throat ache with unshed tears, "You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white but I'll have a blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas..."

I hurried past the store, resisting the urge to cover my ears as I quickly made my way down the sidewalk and away from the melancholy music. People surged past me on either side, on their own destinations for the day - most of them, I assumed, shopping for presents for their loved ones. There were so many things I saw around me I would have loved to buy for her. Shoving my hands in my pockets to keep them warm, I turned the corner onto Fifth street. The large stones all lined up loomed before me in the distance and although the familiar ache began in my chest at seeing them, it also brought me a sense of peace - knowing we would be reunited soon. Snow was falling faster by now, tiny white flakes sticking in my dark swath of hair that cascaded down my back as I crossed the street.

I weaved around the stones, careful to step around them as I trudged on. Nearly there. The thorns on the single red rose I held in my hand cut deeply, leaving small droplets of crimson to trail down my fingers. But I barely felt it as I pushed myself onward and finally, finally I had arrived. Coming up short, my breath exhaled out of my mouth in a cloud of hot air visibly mixing with the cooler temperature outside. Tears pricked my eyes as my gaze scanned the letters written for all to see.

I let out a choked humorless laugh at that moment before mumbling to myself distractedly, "Really sinks in when you see it written in stone."

I rolled the stem of the flower between my fingers absentmindedly, all the while gathering more cuts that again, I didn't really feel. It seems that my skin had become as numb as my heart these days. Tears had already begun to roll down my cheeks but I blinked the rest away before clearing my throat.

"It's been two years now, you know. Doesn't really feel that way," I spoke aloud, shaking my head in disbelief, "Feels like, um...feels like yesterday. That you were here... With me..."

Taking a shaking breath, I wiped the quickly falling tears away with my fingertips, "Ah, you would've loved the Christmas lights they've put up in town this year, it's so pretty. They're all hanging overhead, over the streets. I know you would've liked that."

The silence was deafening around me, I could imagine the stares I was getting from the passersby but for once in my life, I didn't care if people stared at me or not. I wasn't there for them, I was there for her.

"I'll be getting my driver's license next year. I know you-you were excited about that. And, um..." I paused a moment, gathering a breath before continuing, "My life's just really good right now. I'm in a good place for the first time in a long time....but I still miss you. I'll always miss you. Forever, I'll always-"

I choked off then, a hiccuping sob bubbling up from my throat even though I had tried so hard not to break down. Tears trekked down my face and this time, I didn't bother to brush them away. Snowflakes fell quietly, embedding themselves in my hair, on my coat, even on the stones all around me. But all I could feel was my own heart breaking in my chest. Would I ever love Christmas again? Could I ever begin to believe in the true meaning of it once more?

All of a sudden, I felt one of the small flakes land on the tiny cuts on my hand. I hissed at the sensation, clutching my hand and bringing it palm upward to see it more clearly. Lying there nestled it in the wounds was a single infinitesimal snowflake. It was so tiny, it was barely even visible. I probably wouldn't have noticed it had it not cooled down the burn of my cut, making the stinging that had been there previously ebb away. Maybe you'd say I was crazy or childish even for the thought that came to me next. Maybe you'd say it was impossible to begin to believe in something from just gazing at a little snowflake in your palm.

But as the cool winter air kissed the skin of my cut, subsiding the pain...I began to hope. No, I began to believe. Believe that one day, the pain in my heart would disappear. Maybe not forever, maybe not entirely. But that one day, it would disappear and my heart could be at peace.

After all, peace, hope, the belief in a brighter future for the coming year...wasn't that what Christmas was all about? And as I glanced up, my dark brown eyes meeting that of the gray, marble headstone belonging to my grandmother, I knew...I knew I'd found the meaning of Christmas once more.

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