All I Want for Christmas Is You

Mark & Carrie Return Home

Christmas lights line the streets as Mark makes his way home from the mall after last minute shopping for his folks. The streets are wet and as the sun sets, the roads are getting icy. Curbs are lined with dirty snow. He looks up at the sky, wondering if more snow will be falling tonight so Christmas morning will look like a winter wonderland in his Michigan hometown. It looks promising. When you live in a northern state, you always hope for a white Christmas, not a dirty brown one laced with yellow snow and rock salt. However, dirty brown snow is better than no snow at all.

He pulls up to a stoplight slowly – feeling his brakes struggling to take hold on the icy street. He looks around at the city he grew up in. He remembers bicycling every street and hanging out with friends playing video games and going to the movies. Most of his childhood is filled with good memories. It’s funny how he spent a lot of it chasing away boredom  – looking for excitement in everything he did. Little did he know, as an adult, he would be forever chasing the nothing-to-do days of growing up.

Thinking back, at exactly this time of year, he would have been getting together with his friends on Christmas Eve. They’d find a way to drink whatever they could get their hands on in their parents’ liquor cabinets. And here he is, several years later, driving back from the mall alone and looking forward to a quiet night with his folks sipping rum-laced eggnog in front of the fireplace. Times have changed. Mark knows he has changed.

The light turns green and he puts his foot on the gas. He leans over and turns the heat up in his Mom’s SUV. He misses the warmth of LA. It will be his seventh year living in California, a state that now feels like home. He enjoys visiting Michigan but he doesn’t think he could ever come back full-time. He doesn’t miss scraping his windows or being locked out of a frozen car.

And other than his parents, there’s really no reason to return. Michigan was a great place to grow up but those days are gone. It’s time to put down roots in LA. When he gets back, he has a meeting with his realtor. He wants to start looking into buying a condo. And he’s decided he’s ready to commit to Layla. He’s been dating her for over a year and he’s feeling the pressure from her to take the relationship to the next level. He likes her. They have great sex. So there’s no reason not to commit.

The car in front of him suddenly spins out of control and comes to a stop with its front end pointed right at him. He waits to see if the car will turn around. It doesn’t. He turns on his hazard lights and gets out of his SUV and runs to the driver’s side of the BMW facing the wrong way. A young woman is leaning forward over her steering wheel. Mark knocks on her window, worried she’s injured. Thankfully, she looks up.

When she does, Mark takes in a quick breath. This woman has beautiful, big brown eyes that are brimming with tears. She has lovely ivory skin that is in sharp contrast to her full red lips and silky dark hair that spills out from under her hat and over her shoulders. There’s something familiar about her but Mark can’t put his finger on it. He’s enamored until a passing car honks at him, shaking him from his reverie, reminding him that she needs to get her car turned around and out of traffic.

He opens her door. “Are you okay?”

She looks down at herself. “I think so. I can’t believe that just happened.”

“We need to get your car out of the road. Do you want me to move it for you?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” she nods and steps out of her car. He helps her over to the passenger seat. He gets inside and moves the car onto a side street and parks it in front of the first home.

“Let me just move my car too. I’ll be right back.” She nods again.

He runs to his vehicle, just avoiding a car that almost runs him over. He makes it inside the SUV and pulls it onto the street where the pretty woman and her car wait. He parks and runs back to her. He hops in the driver’s seat.