The living room of Mrs. Moon’s place is giddy with light. I’m in the corner, dim with eggnog.

The room is full of bodies and faces - most of which I don’t know - snacking on the gourmet baked goods Mrs. Moon has spread out on fancy porcelain ware and ten-tiered metal towers that look like something from an old-fashioned tea parlor. I sit on the left-most end of the white leather couch melting into the glow of the Christmas tree - staring at the back halves of red and blue fireflies suspended by wire vines crisscrossed around the space like an LED spider's web. 

In the dining room, Kattar’s mother is serving out hot chocolate cupcakes filled with fudge and marshmallow creme, to two or three pretty ladies in business wear, all chatting like magpies. 

I can see Kattar out of the corner of my eye, but I try not to.

“- I remember when Clara first started bragging about this girl a few years back,” says the cherry-haired woman, sifting her eggnog with the air of a connoisseur, “She always said she was going to be so famous someday...”

“I think it was more than a few years, darling,” says a young-looking woman with dark wavy hair, holding a candy cane between two fingers like a cigarette, “It was more than a decade ago.”

“Time moves in strange ways when you get to be my age, Daphne. You’ll have to excuse my memory. My childhood is starting to seem like yesterday.”

“When last year feels like five minutes ago let me know,” Daphne smirks, “I still don’t know what you did with that jacket I lent you.”

“Aish, this girl can hold grudges!” Mrs Moon laughs, brushing a crumb from Daphne’s face, “When are you going to let Jun off the hook?” 

“When last year feels like a thousand years ago,” she says flatly, sucking the end of the candy cane with a mildly irritated air, “But I suppose Clara was right - look at the girl now. Veggera Foundation…” she shakes her head almost as if it’s a tragedy, “I can’t imagine. I was ten years older than her before I got that kind of recognition, and still working a day job. I guess it helps to have a famous mother, eh?”

A wave of bubbly, chatting bodies washes over the entrance to the dining room, blocking my vision. I glance at Kattar and can tell he’s listening too, with an unpleasant expression, like he’s sucked on a lemon.

I can just decern over the din Mrs. Moon’s voice saying firmly, but not unkindly, “I never helped her that much. I funded the initial endeavors, but any fame she’s acquired is by her own merit.” now I can see her running her painted nails along the rim of her mug of cocoa, with a pensive look on her pretty face, “She’s a talented little girl - and I didn’t birth that, though I envy the woman who did…” 

At those words, Kattar seems to flinch - just a fraction of a movement - but I catch it. Guilty perhaps? Or jealous of the attention I’m getting, albeit indirectly. He seems to sink into his chair as his mother goes on - “Fortunately or unfortunately none of my genes created that prodigy.”

“But you hung her artwork in your office,” Daphne muses, pointing at Mrs. Moon with the candy cane, “That had to do something for her reputation.”

“I thought Victor painted the picture you had in your office?” Jun queries, her forehead lined with confusion, “The one of the mountains?”

“I took that painting down 29 years ago, darling," Mrs. Moon says calmly, with a wave of her hand. “I gave it to a friend sometime after the divorce.”

“She has some bluebirds in her office now that Kattar’s girlfriend painted when they were teenagers,” Daphne adds drily, with an almost sarcastic lilt in her voice, as she admires the candy cane, she’s managed to suck into a murderous point.

If Kattar sinks any lower, he’ll disappear completely.

“They’re not a couple, just friends,” Mrs. Moon says almost too firmly, with a glance in Kattar’s direction - before she smiles one of her tooth-paste-model smiles back at Daphne with aggressive composure, “Kattar’s never had any girlfriend. He’s career-focused, like his mother.”

Daphne raises one eyebrow as if she doesn’t believe Mrs. Moon for a second, before shrugging carelessly and sticking the candy cane into her cup of cocoa.

“It’s a shame then - and a waste of good looks. He’s a handsome little devil.”

“He looks a lot like Victor used to,” Mrs. Moon admits, with a slight sigh, “lacking a bit of the paleness - and heaven knows he dresses a lot better. Victor always looked like he’d just woken up under a bridge.”

Daphne smirks at that, using the candy cane to stir her drink, “With a face like that he could have made it a style - ‘starving artist chic.’”

“Well, if he looked as much like the boy as you say, then perhaps he missed his calling as a painter,” Jun offers kindly. "He should have become a model.”

There’s a twitch in Mrs. Moon’s expression, even behind her impassive civility, but it’s gone in an instant. She smiles graciously, with a delicate wave of her hand.

“If he missed his calling, dear, it was only because he slept in. You never saw the beat of that man for shiftlessness.”

Daphne raises her dark brows as if daring them to ask her, but Mrs. Moon just shakes her head pensively, raising her mug to her lips.

“It’s true enough though, what Daphne said. He was a handsome fool.”

“Well, I never met him, you remember,” says Jun, “I was in Ibiza for that hotel job the year you were married. Do you have any pictures of him and the boy side by side?”

“No,” Mrs. Moon says with dispassionate finality, “The divorce was finished a month before my little prince was born, and a good thing too. The last thing I needed was Victor rubbing off on him. It’s worry enough to know he looks so much like the devil.”

I look at Kattar’s face and immediately regret it.

*

It’s quiet at 9 p.m.

The guests, other than me, have all gone home. Mrs. Moon is pulling the last batch of cupcakes from the oven.

Today feels too familiar.

Are we sure this isn’t Groundhog Day?

Only today is darker - it gets worse every time.

Kattar sits miserably in his chair, under the mistletoe, arms propped up on the armrest, head down, a sickly shade of scarlet in his cheeks, and paler than I’ve ever seen him - almost ever - but still beautiful.

Without thinking I move from my spot, and sit down beside him.

“Kattar?” he looks up, his eyes dark, just waiting, without energy, without curiosity.

I hesitate-

It was stupid.

Why bother?

Oh for crying out loud. Just-

“Do you remember the night I asked you if you’d like your mother to adopt me?”

He looks at me vacantly, but nods, “Yeah.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

He seems to come to a little bit, propping himself more upright in the chair, he looks at me quizzically.

“Do you still wish my mother had adopted you?”

“No.”

I say it quickly - before I can stop myself- and I see such a brilliant light come into his eyes at that one word - such a cross between paleness and heart-racing - flushing and hope - that I scare myself-

Change the subject.

“I shouldn’t have tried to butt in between you and your mom. It wasn’t my place.”

The light seems to fade out, “Oh,” he says glumly.

Stupid.

Why couldn't I have just kept my mouth shut?

I should have just suffered the embarrassment - the panic - and let it sink in until one of us-

I wish for the ten thousand and tenth time that I could rewind.

But if I had magic we wouldn’t be here in the first place. There’s a lot…

I squeeze my hands between my legs until my fingers turn white, and sit miserably in the silence.

“I didn’t know your dad was an artist,” I say meekly.

Kattar, stares at the floor, resting his cheek on his hand, “neither did I.”

*

It’s pitch black in the room but I’m seeing red, screaming into my pillow until the angry tears run hot and soak the sheets.

I’m so angry at myself I could swear and I don’t know what to be angry about first - or the most-

What might I have been doing tonight…?

I should have just told him the truth - I was so close.

We could have finally…

Broken through this silence.

Instead, I’m alone in the dark, squeezing the pillow until it can’t breathe-

I’m so sick of myself-

I shouldn’t have brought up his dad.

He always gets into a mood about that -

Not that I can blame him-

‘I’ve only ever heard the things my mom was willing to say about him,’ he told me once ‘and they were never good.’

What did people tell me when my parents divorced?

 My mom never talked about it. My aunt said they were too different - but that never helped.

Still, I knew my dad. I could form my own opinions though at this point the memories are all distant - hazy-

Kattar has nothing to forget.

“Do you miss him?” I asked once - not thinking - I never think things through enough-

“How could I? I don't know what to miss.”

My throat burns, and the angry tears turn into suffocated sobs.

“When I was little I used to think my dad was imaginary or some ‘in the sky person’ like God, who didn’t have a face you could see,” he tried to say it like a joke, his eyes laughing too hard.

But his mom always told him they had to be careful talking about it around me - he mentioned on a few occasions when we were older - because I was still sensitive from my parent's divorce-

I can’t help but wonder-

-But if he’s hurting, he’s always masked it with that perfect smile.

Just once in our lives, I saw him cracking at the mention of his dad - half laughing-

“Sometimes I have this weird idea - it’s totally stupid - but you know, shower thoughts - my mom says they were divorced 30 days before I was born, but that’s old enough to recognize voices I’ve heard - even in the womb. Sometimes I kinda wonder if I ever met him, if something inside me would just know…”

I see his pretty face - lips trembling slightly despite the smile - despite the laughter.

It’s too cold.

I grab the stolen hoodie from my bedside table slipping the ocean of cloth over my small frame - and pull hard on the drawstrings - with all the force of the misery - making the faded fabric hold me.