Prologue: A Companion for Christmas

Bzzt, Bzzt, Bzzt. My phone vibrations woke me way earlier that I should have been on my day off of work. Sitting up, I quickly check my messages to see several from my best friend. Thinking it may have been an emergency I quickly call her as I scroll through the messages. “Have you seen the pictures I sent you?” Mari yells at me through the phone. “Looking at them now”, I reply as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. 

“I told you he was a lying, cheating scumbag,” Mari says. I could already picture her pacing and waving her hands around in frustration already. “Girl, I told you he has been ghosting you for days for a reason. I was out minding my own business, grabbing some coffee and Bam! There he was with some girl, and THEN he kissed her! Kissed her I tell you! The lying cheat!”

“Thanks for the heads up, bestie. Where is he at?”, I replied. 

“He’s at that cafe you guys went to for your first date. I’m in that fast food place across the street, I’ll be waiting for you and I’ll keep an eye on them and get some more evidence.” Mari says deviously. 

“Don’t enjoy yourself too much, I’ll be there soon.” I reply before getting up to get dressed. 

Fortunately, I had braided my curly hair the night before, so after some minor touch ups, my hair was ready to go. I chose a cute outfit that showed off my body perfectly and put on my makeup in the taxi on the way there. 

I immediately head to the fast food place to meet up with Mari and I find her intently watching the two of them in the Cafe. “Shall we go confront them?” I say. Mari immediately replies saying, “Yes, we shall.” 

Upon walking into the Cafe, I saw his face drop when he realized that the two of us had walked in and he turned pale as though he might faint when he realized that the two of us were headed directly for him. As we approach, he quickly says, “Hello, Misty. I want you to meet Aly.” I politely replied saying, “Hello, nice to meet you.” Then I turned to him and said “Ghosting me is no way to end the relationship, you haven’t answered any of my texts, so I figured while I can see you, we should end things officially. We’re done, good luck with your new woman.” With this information, Aly seems to snap into action, arguing with him as Mari and I make our way to the counter. 

With that Mari and I order our coffees and leave. As we are walking down the street Mari turns to me saying, “You did great back there. But are you sure you’re okay? I mean I know you guys weren’t doing great but still.”

“Yeah I’m fine. I mean I kind of saw it coming for a while there. Plus, out of the 6 months we dated, he ghosted me like every other week. I honestly should have broken it off earlier but I wanted to bring him to Christmas dinner with my family. He missed Thanksgiving and they all thought I was lying about being in a relationship. Now they are really going to think I’m lying if I said we just broke up before they were supposed to meet him on Christmas.” I said with a sigh. 

"There is a solution for that", Mari says. "We could take you out clubbing or post an ad somewhere. After all there's gotta be someone else who is looking for a Christmas date just like you. You know, maybe we could make a business for that."

Humoring her, Misty decided to ask "What would you call it?"

Immediately Mari responds saying, "I don't know, it's got to be something kind of catchy. How about A Companion for Christmas? It advertises the service and it's kind of cute."

A few years later...