SWNOVELS Elf Against the Wall: Chapter 48
“Oh, Evie, you were supposed to be watching them.” My mother cut through the white noise in my head to scold me about letting one of my little cousins smear whipped cream all over himself.
“He’s six. He should know how to eat with a fork,” I said, duly wiping off his hands.
I was frozen in my chair.
“Where’d Hot Stuff run off to?” Granny Doyle asked, coming by with a bottle of eggnog-flavored vodka.
“You need to cut her off.” My dad was arguing with my mom near the Christmas tree. “She already wrecked one car.”
“He has to work,” I said, my voice sounding far away, “but he’ll by later.”
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Except it was turning into a horrible repeat of last Christmas, when the man of my dreams had left me flopping around on the back of a sleigh.
Sawyer was right. I had never ever in my life picked a nice, normal man. They were all complete life-ruining assholes. Why couldn’t Anderson just show up?
“You ready for your big moment?” Ian’s face was concerned.
Snowball stamped her tiny feet next to me.
I grabbed the bottle of vodka, twisted the top off, and took a huge swallow. Then another.
“I don’t need a man to save Christmas.” I wiped the back of my arm over my mouth. “God, that stuff is nasty.”
Sawyer sniffed it. “I think it smells even worse than last year.”
I took another big swallow for fortification. The alcohol was working.
I didn’t need Anderson.
I had this.
The toasts were starting.
I downed glass after glass of champagne as the Murphys all told each other how awesome they were, my dad professed his love to my mother, one cousin even announced they were adopting a puppy, and Aunt Amy made a mildly passive-aggressive toast about her daughter-in-law. Then…
“I have a toast!” I stood up, swaying drunkenly.
“Maybe we should move this to tomorrow.” Sawyer tried to tug the hem of my shirt. “Or just send it in the group chat and be done with it.”
“No. I’m making my announcement.” I stumbled toward the TV and pressed the remote.
I pressed it again.
“Damn remote.” I banged it on my hand while my family looked on in confusion. “How do I turn this on?”
“Evie, sit down.”
I ducked around my mom. Snowball yapped at her when she tried to approach me.
“This is your mother’s fault, Mel. She gave Evie a whole bottle of vodka,” Dad hissed.
The TV flared to life.
Finally.
I hoisted my glass and turned the volume up as high as it could go.
“In this holiday season of giving, I want to acknowledge one man here who has made this last year one to remember.”
“Is it Anderson?”
“No, he left.”
“What?” My cousins asked.
“If I’d known he wasn’t going to be here, I wouldn’t have come. I’d have stayed at the retirement home.” My great-aunt thumped her walker on the ground.
“I thought I was going to see a shirtless man.”
“I have something better than a shirtless man.” I made a grand gesture to the TV.
“A naked one?” my aunt asked hopefully.
“No. I’m making a presentation here.”
“Hurry up, Evie! The game is about to start!” my uncle bellowed.
Several of my cousins pulled out their phones, and a couple called outside to family members who’d wandered off and were going to miss the drama.
“Braeden.” I pointed at him. “This time last year, you stood here in front of everyone and lied.”
“Evie, that is enough!” There were two splotches of red on my mom’s cheeks.
“You told me you loved me. You told me we were going to be together forever.” My voice cracked. But instead of Braeden, I was thinking of Anderson. “You made me imagine a future with you, but the entire time, you were just using me. Exhibit A.”
“Those better not be your—”
“Damn, those are nice tits!” Granny Doyle toasted me.
My family erupted in a fit of giggles.
“Wait. No—” I didn’t have Anderson’s flair for the dramatic or his timing. “I need to start it over at the beginning. You have to see it from the start.”
My family did hear the audio recording loud and clear of Braeden telling me all about how he wanted to start an affair with me if I’d just get with Preston.
“You.” Felicity turned on him.
“She’s lying. This is a deep fake. That’s not me,” my ex insisted. “Evie, are you trying to ruin Christmas?”
“She’s trying to break up my daughter’s marriage!” Aunt Lisa screeched.
“Exactly.” Braeden was emphatic.
“He’s been lying!” I yelled. “He was lying last year.”
“Evie, get out of the way. I can’t see the screen,” my cousins complained.
“Lies! It’s all lies!” Braeden thundered.
“Oh my god, you were sleeping with my fiancé?” Felicity screeched. “Those text messages are from three days ago.” Felicity pointed at the screenshots. “It was Evie’s underwear I found in the back of the closet, wasn’t it? You’re having an affair, Braeden.”
“Can’t you fucking read?” Sawyer yelled at her. “Those text messages aren’t Evie’s. They’re Aunt Bianca’s.”
My aunt burst into tears. “I was being neglected. I knew it was wrong. I was going to break up with him.”
“That’s not what you said the other night.” Sawyer underlined the text message with her palm.
“Really?” Granny Doyle put on her reading glasses, peering at the screen. “Can’t you pause it, Evie?”
“Yeah, I can’t see that,” my family complained.
“Are there subtitles?” someone asked.
“I’m trying.” I mashed the buttons on the remote.
“You ruined my marriage, Evie!” Aunt Bianca screeched.
My cousins, her children, were in shock.
Uncle Jaime sat down heavily in a chair. “My family… I thought we were in love.”
“Family? Your mother is a monster!” Aunt Bianca raged at him as her daughter hugged her dad protectively and her son burst into tears. “And you just let her railroad me. I had to do what I needed to do for my mental health.”
The video finally looped over.
“You see?” I shouted, pointing. “This is from last year. Braeden admits he was lying. I didn’t try to steal him.”
“You admit you were sleeping with my fiancé? All of you are cheaters. You, Braeden, and Bianca—need to get the hell out.” Felicity pointed at the door.
“I am the victim.” I beat my chest.
“You are a home-wrecker.”
“Let’s watch it again.” I made an exaggerated gesture to the screen. “Then you will see,” I enunciated, “that I did not know he was with you.”
“Turn that off. I do not want to see your sex tape.”
“It’s a sext, mom, not a sex tape. Why are you mad at me, Felicity? I saved you from marrying a cheater.”
Felicity scoffed. “You should have told me sooner instead of trying for some big dramatic moment. How long did you know about this?”
“Since last year when none of you believed me.”
Uncle Jaime was completely hysterical while Aunt Bianca continued to list out Grandma Shirley grievances.
“She said my gravy didn’t have enough cream, and you just hid in the pantry.”
“You had an affair with our cousin’s boyfriend, Mom,” her daughter argued. “And I could forgive it if it was Anderson. I mean, no offense…” She turned to her boyfriend. “But I’d sleep with him if I had a chance.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t blame you.” He handed Uncle Jaime a wet towel for his face.
“It was a cry for help!” Aunt Bianca wailed.
“Throw her out,” several cousins chanted.
“You are so selfish, Evie,” Felicity berated me.
“So selfish.” Aunt Bianca crossed her arms. “What about the girl code?”
“What about my apology? I am not a home-wrecker!”
“You wrecked my home.” My cousin scowled at me.
“This isn’t how this is supposed to go!” I wailed.
“Of course not, Evie.” My mother pulled the plug on the TV as it looped to my tit shot again. “It never does. You could have just informed us like a mature adult instead of manufacturing this big, dramatic moment.”
“I appreciate the drama.” Granny Doyle raised a hand while Nat and Lauren nodded.
“Baby,” Braeden whined to Felicity. “You can’t believe these falsehoods.”
“I’m not stupid, Braeden.” Felicity took the ring off her finger. “I’m keeping the diamond and all the wedding gifts. You can come by the day after Christmas to pick up your shit from the side of the road.”
“You better give me that ring back!”
Felicity’s dad and my uncles were rolling up their sleeves. One of my cousins passed out hockey sticks.
“Shit!” I said as Snowball charged at Braeden, who yelled, racing first to the door then to a window, struggling to escape.
“I knew I never liked Bianca,” Grandma Shirley was saying shrilly to her crying son. “I told you not to marry her. Just like I told you not to adopt, Brian.”
“But Evie has a nice rack!” My twelve-year-old boy cousins devolved into a fit of giggles while my aunt whacked at them with a newspaper.
“Evie, clean up this mess you made,” my mother snapped at me. “Honestly, every single year, there’s something with you. Will I never have a nice Christmas?”
“The game is starting!” Sean bellowed.
I stood there, stunned, in the middle of the living room as my family slowly cleared out.
“Do I still have to move out?” I asked my dad hysterically.
“Yes, Evie. We set a boundary. You clearly”—he gestured to the arguing Murphys—“need to grow up. This was excessively immature. I’d blame Anderson, but honestly, I have a feeling that even he got tired of your nonsense just like the rest of us have.”
“I don’t have a job, though,” I said in a small voice. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Then I suggest you grow up and figure it out.”
This was my big moment—I’d been waiting forever, and it was a bust. A disaster. Just like the rest of my life.
Anderson would have done it better. Where was he? How could he betray me? If he’d been here, my family would have been cheering me on. Then we’d ride off to a perfect happily ever after.
Tears prickled at my eyes.
Why had he abandoned me?