Lost At Christmas: Part 2

A vulnerable confrontation with an old crush.

Based on a post by Tx Tall Tales, in 2 parts. Listen to the Podcast at My First time.

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Christmas

What had started out with the potential for so much
disappointment, my first Christmas away from home, was actually quite
wonderful. The family embraced me and treated me as one of their own. Dinner
was scrumptious, a Christmas ham, with the full complement of side dishes.
After dinner we chatted, drank a little too much spiked eggnog, and told
stories of the last few years.

I sat close to Sheri when I could, beside her at the dinner
table, and next to her on the couch while we had our eggnog. I tried to engage
her in some quiet conversation of our own, but the setting was all wrong for
that, and I eventually abandoned those attempts. It was nice enough just to be
near her.

Tommy's step-father Dave, insisted I call Santiago, even
though I knew the price would be outrageous, and I did. I gave my family my
Christmas wishes, and told them how much I missed them and was looking forward
to seeing them in a couple of days. Everyone in the room took a minute to say
hello and share season's greetings. I had to spend a few minutes trying to get
my Mom to stop crying at the far end, before we finally were able to hang-up.

The small ones had to go to bed relatively early, and so we
all got to open one gift the night before, as was their tradition. I gave Tommy
his gift, and his mother opened the family gift and everyone acted pleased. In
turn, they had bought me a present which I opened. It was two books for the
trip, and they had a card for me. Inside was $50. I was completely in shock.

"Dear Steve,

Your short visit was a wonderful Christmas gift to us all.
Thanks so much for choosing to spend this Christmas with us. Here's some mad
money for the trip home. We all love you.

Dave, June, Robert, Sheri, John and Jean"

I was deeply touched by the gesture. I went over and gave
Tommy's Mom a big hug, thanking her for the card and books. The kids jumped up
with presents of their own, and I got two new drawings for my dorm room, as
well as some mystery invention from John, which was supposed to be a spy tool
to stop people from breaking into my room. I thanked them profusely, and they
were put to bed shortly after.

Dave, Tommy and I discussed the logistics of my morning bus
ride back to Charleston. It left at 7:30 am, but was only about 15 minutes
away, so we figured on getting a 7:00 am start. We relaxed around the fire,
ruminating on the poor souls who had the job of driving that bus all day
Christmas day.

There was a guitar in the corner, Greg's. I was surprised he
hadn't taken it with him. I went over and grabbed it, and finding it miserably
out of tune, I tuned it up.

"Play something Christmassy", Tommy's Mom asked,
and so I played a couple of tunes. I'm a fair guitarist; I was studying guitar
at the Eastman School of Music since it was convenient, and ROTC was picking up
the tab, and had improved quite a bit from the days of our first band. I got
rave reviews from my small audience, and took requests for a while, before we
broke it up. The parents still had some work to do for the kids, and Tommy and
I wanted to hit the hay early, in order to catch that 7:30 bus.

More hugs and kisses all around, with a firm handshake for
Dave, and I retired to my room to finish my packing. I got ready for bed,
dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, laid out my clothes for the morning, and
completed my packing. I had one last thing I wanted to do before hitting the
sack, so I went back into the bathroom, and knocked on the opposite door into
Sheri's room.

I heard a muffled "Come in" or something to that
effect, and opened the door to find Sheri sitting up in bed, brushing her long
blonde hair. She was dressed in a nearly see-through pale green nightie that
took my breath away.

"Hi." I felt incredibly awkward, like I was 16 all
over again.

She looked up at me, giving me a quizzically upraised
eyebrow.

"I had a gift for you, but I felt kind of silly giving
it to you out there. I hope you don't mind that I waited until now." I
handed her a small leather pouch.

She took it, laying her brush to the side, and opened it,
pulling out a small cross. She stretched out the cord, and looked at me in
surprise.

"But this is your mountain cross! You always wear
this!" She said, looking at me with a strange look I couldn't quite
fathom.

The cross was one I had found mountain climbing several
years earlier. I had been in a small accident. I'd fallen into a glacier fed
stream on a mountain trip, while collecting firewood in a storm. I'd almost
frozen before I'd made it back to the cabin. Literally. I thought I was going
to die. I was staggering the last 20 feet to the building, in a daze, when a
friend returning from the outhouse ran into me, and dragged me inside to warm
up. The next morning I found a small ivory cross on a rotted leather lanyard at
almost the very place I had climbed out of the stream, and I had worn it for
years since then. Sheri knew the story. I had told her the whole thing one
evening when I had been giving her driving lessons.

I don't know what had motivated me to give it to her, but I
had had this urge, and I've always been a pretty impetuous person.

"I just want you to have it." I explained.

She patted the bed beside her for me to sit down then she
handed me the cross to put around her neck and turned her back to me. I passed
my hands over the head, letting the cross dangle in the valley between her
breasts, and she reached back and pulled her hair up and out of the way, so I
could latch the necklace on her.

When I was done she turned to me, and fingering the cross
she thanked me.

"I got the strangest call today." She told me.

"Strange how?" I asked.

"Kathryn called me. We haven't talked probably in over
a year, but she called me out of the blue, and we talked about nothing but you
for over an hour." She said with a teasing smile.

I could feel my face burning from the blush.

We were real quiet for a bit. Then she spoke up softly, not
looking at me at all, just looking down at her hands.

"Do you remember the skating party where you asked me
to skate, like 5 times?"

"Do I ever! My hand was so sweaty I was embarrassed to
hold yours, but didn't know how to dry it off, and I wasn't good enough a
skater to make a real dance out of it." I laughed.

"I thought you liked me, and were going to ask me out,
but you never did. Why not?" She asked.

The memory was embarrassing, and I thought about it a bit
before confessing. "I had skated with Kathryn earlier in the evening, and
she asked me who I liked. I told her I would answer by the end of the evening.
Later, just when I was trying to get the nerve up to skate with you again, and
ask you to sit by me on the Pensacola bus trip, Jack found me and told me that
I had better ask Kathryn to skate. She was waiting for me to tell her
something. Well, I did ask her to skate, and she reminded me of our previous
conversation.

I admitted that I really liked two people, you and her. Then
she asked me if I minded if she 'monopolized' me for a while. I went along. You
know the rest. One out-of-town bus trip; one back-row of the movie; and me
completely screwing everything up."

She listened without showing too much surprise. "But
how come you never tried anything after that?"

"God! How could I? You knew everything that had
happened. Don't you remember the time I stopped by when Net was over here
spending the night. Every time I passed you guys, you seemed to be laughing at
me. And then when you passed me in the hall and whispered, "Oooh, I Love
You," teasing me with what I'd said to Kathryn before completely blowing
her off, I was just devastated. I hadn't screwed up just the one chance, but
you as well."

Sheri had the grace to blush from embarrassment at that.
"I really didn't know much of what was going on. Kathryn just told me to
go up to you and say that. I'm sorry."

"Not half as sorry as I was." I told her.
"You had to know how much I liked you. I was always trying to be around
you and do things with you."

"I didn't know how much of that was just being Tommy's
sister, or what. I kept waiting for you to try something, anything, but you
never did." She looked at me intensely almost with anguish.

I was 16 all over again. I was still embarrassed over my
ineptness around women. I had screwed things up with Kathryn. I had screwed up
with Teri. And I had screwed up with Sheri. Since then I'd had more than my
share of success with the young women I'd known, but all of a sudden, it was
like I was a clumsy, scared virgin all over again.

Sheri looked at me for a long while, then finally sighed and
looked away, picking up her brush and going back to brushing her hair.
"Some things will never change, I guess," she muttered, ignoring me.

I started to get up, to go to my room, knowing this was
neither the time, nor the place to try to start something with Sheri, but I
just couldn't leave things as they were. I reached out and took the brush from
her, which she relinquished