Christmas at Thistlecombe Cottage

Chapter 3

It wasn't the warm sunshine seeping through the windows that woke Maya up. Instead, it was a pounding in her temples, an agitated stomach, and burning in the back of her throat that had her sitting up on the couch and instinctively running into the bedroom past the bed and to the bathroom.

A moment of feral noises later, and having unloaded nearly everything she had eaten and drank the night before, Maya returned to her couch, exhausted from the ordeal and still a little out of it. It didn't take long for her to fall back asleep.

When she woke up again, it was much later in the day, and the cottage was empty. She still felt the remnants of the terrible headache from earlier, and her stomach grumbled from hunger.

On the table next to the couch were a croissant, an aspirin, and a glass of water. Either Eudora had dropped by to check in on them and had found her in such a sorry state that she'd taken it upon herself to give Maya something that would make her feel better, or it had been Asher. Maya refused to believe the latter was possible even as glimpses from the previous night came back to her: Asher listening to her whine, cry, and whine again. Asher not flinching when she belched. Asher putting a pillow under her head and tucking her in.

Biting into the croissant and taking the aspirin, she felt under the blankets for her phone and found it turned off, having run out of battery. She quickly got up to charge it. What if Nate had been trying to contact her? Just the night before, in her drunken stupor, she had come across an article called "Using Ex's Remorse to Your Advantage." Ex's remorse, according to the article, was when an ex suddenly regretted breaking up with their significant other and instinctively decided they wanted to get back together. It was a common occurrence around the holiday season, when people were more inclined to be nostalgic of good times in the past and longed to be with someone.

"A sense of urgency is key to leveraging such instantaneous tendencies," the article said. "So be vigilant, ready to immediately respond to a call, text, or to meet up at a moment's notice." The article ended with one last, somewhat ominous piece of advice: "There is a very small window of opportunity for ex's remorse, and once you miss the window, it'll be closed to you forever."

The line came back to haunt her, and she chewed on her fingernails as she waited for her phone to charge. When it finally had enough power, she turned it on to the sound of notifications upon notifications, mostly from friends and her parents, but none from Nate.

So much for ex's remorse. Maya fell back on the couch, ready to curl up under the blankets to wallow in misery, but the date and time on her phone had her sitting up again. It was already three in the afternoon on the day of Christmas Eve, and here she wassuffering through a massive hangover, still in her pajamas on the couch while waiting for a message from her ex that would probably never arrive. She couldn't think of a more pitiful way to spend the holidays, and it made her want to hide under the covers so she could hunker down for yet another night spent alone. What else was there to do for a single girl in a romantic Christmas village amidst loving couples?

Self-pity wasn't one of her favorite activities, but for the first time in a long time she couldn't help but feel sorry for herself. Maya had always planned her life thoroughly to avoid bouts of self-pity. Sure, she had gone through many trials, many misfortunes, and many heartbreaks, but she'd always had a plan B, a way to get up, dust herself off, and get over things quickly so she wouldn't end up feeling sorry for herself. But the events of the last few days had caught her completely off guard, and she hadn't been able to prepare a backup plan. Who planned for heartbreak anyway? Maya certainly never had. She should've known better. One couldn't fall for someone and not have a safety net. She didn't know how she'd missed it; it was the most logical, practical thing to do. So for the first time ever, she had no plan B—only this couch in this cottage and self-pity.