Free A Cliché Christmas by Nicole Deese Page B

mid-October. It was too cold.
    Leaning against the big oak tree, I shivered as tears rolled down my cheeks. My mom’s most recent lecture replayed in my mind—her insensitive words, her unyielding expectations, her uncompromising demands.
    When Weston slumped down beside me, I envisioned every nickname imaginable involving the word baby being tacked on to Georgia by the end of the school week. He’d mock me, tease me, ridicule me for years to come. All because the girl he saw every day at school—the one who wouldn’t be caught dead showing weakness to the world, the one who had challenged him time and time again inside the safety of those four walls Monday through Friday—didn’t match the girl who sat crying in the park. The girl who was so tired of compensating for her emotionally absent mother.
    But Weston said nothing.
    He simply lifted my hands to his mouth and warmed me from the inside out.
    No words needed.
    After that day, he still pestered me, of course, still sought me out in school and joked with me, but that day at the tree changed me—gave me hope.
    That we could be more than just classmates.
    That he could be something I’d never really had before.
    A friend.
    An unspoken, unexpected, friend.

    Weston’s inviting breath dissolved the knot that had wrapped itself around my heart and held me captive to my doubts. As his lips brushed against my fingertips, his warmth sparked my frozen core back to life. I didn’t yank my hand away, or twist my arm, or elbow his wickedly attractive face. I simply thawed under his touch, berating myself for the weakness that had once again taken me over.
    He reached for my other hand as if it were a piece of kindling to add to a fire—the one he’d just built inside me. “You are so stubborn.”
    Diverting my eyes, I exhaled shakily.
    “Why do you do this, Weston?”
    “Do what?”
    “This?” I nodded to my hands and pulled them away from his grasp, cold seeping into my bones immediately. “Just stop it already. We aren’t kids anymore.”
    His intense gaze steamrolled me. “No, we certainly are not.”
    Every hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. I swallowed.
    “Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know, Georgia? Tell me why one day I was confessing my feelings to you and the next you pretended not to know me. Like I was suddenly some kind of creep for trying to talk to you at schoo l . . . or anywhere.”
    Weston stepped closer as my backside pressed against the freezing metal of my car door.
    “Maybe I got tired of being your dirty little secret, the butt of your jokes.”
    His jaw clenched. “What are you talking about?”
    Placing my hands firmly on his chest, I pushed against him. He didn’t budge an inch. Instead, he caged me in, pressing his palms to the car on either side of me.
    “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m an expert in one-sided relationships.” I practically spat the words.
    Weston shook his head, and his body inched close, close, closer. “There was nothing one-sided about what we ha d . . . what I thought we had. You still owe me an explanation.”
    I fought against him. “ I owe you ? Are you kidding me? Do you even remember what happened the night of the Christmas play, when you left me lying on the floor with a ripped dress, gawking at me like you had no idea why I had just flung myself at you?” My voice cracked. “While everyone laughe d . . . including you and Miss Perfect!”
    Weston’s eyes narrowed as he recalled the memory, a memory that was still near the forefront of my mind. “Why would I laugh at you? I don’t even know what happened that night.”
    “You’re unbelievable!” I took a step to the side, struggling to free myself from him. “You and Sydney tricked me. You added that last-minute scene change just to humiliate me. Why? So the two most popular kids in school could have one last laugh at the underdog?”
    Weston flattened me against the car door,