Escaping Christmas
An excerpt from A Very Merry Ex-Mas
After her perfect boyfriend breaks up with her, the last place Aijah wants to be is back home for Christmas and as such, she escapes to a small cabin for the holiday. But who she finds there makes being back home look more appealing. Below is an excerpt from A Very Merry Ex-Mas.
A Mack truck whizzed by with a container rattling behind it as it went in the opposite direction. By now, Aijah had gotten used to the open road, but now her focus was on a conversation with her mother.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Aijah hated to hear the disappointment in Jasmine Washington's voice.
"I'm sorry, mom," Aijah sped along the road in the opposite direction of her hometown. "I had planned on telling you sooner but time got away."
"I guess you're spending Christmas with Jaden's family."
"Uh, no."
"The two of you are staying in the city?" her mother asked cautiously.
"Mom," she really should have spoken with her mother sooner. "Jaden broke up with me."
"Oh, Aijah," Aijah could hear Jasmine's heart was breaking for her. "You should be at home with family at a time like this."
Any other time of the year, her mother would be right, but the last place Aijah wanted to be was among extended family who would be asking probing questions. She could imagine Uncle Theo asking about Jaden and right away she pushed the thought away.
"I know, but..." how could she put this. Ideally, she would have loved to go home and curl up in her childhood room. Her mother would have given the space she needed but would have also been a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. "I just can't... I will only dampen the holiday spirit."
"You wouldn't have to take part in the festivities," her mother offered. "You... stay... room... and–"
"Mom?" Aijah quickly glanced across at the phone attached to the dashboard.
"Ai..."
Reaching out and bringing the display to life, she checked to see the cell phone's connectivity. At another quick glance, she discovered the bars flicking between none and one.
"Mom... uh," she groaned. "I'm going to hang up, the connection is–" in that instance, the call dropped out. "Have a great Christmas," Aijah muttered as the phone's display faded to black.
Putting her full focus on the road ahead, Aijah settled into the final leg of the trip. Thoughts of Christmases past soon transitioned to Jaden and the way he broke up with her. The memory was not as raw and she could scrutinize it objectively.
This led to her comparing it to breaks up in the past. There was Kenroy, she was seeing him before Jaden. The dark skin dentist with the tight ass was..., Aijah smiled to herself when she recalled the weekend they had spent in New York. Her smile soon faded when she remembered him sitting across from her in her apartment.
He could barely maintain eye contact, then he had said, "This isn't working for me."
"What's not working?" she had turned to catch his eyes. When he didn't reply, she had said, "You're breaking up with me."
It was as if the statement and her making it was what Kenroy had needed to be able to face her. In his eyes, she had seen relief. "Aija..."
"Just go," she had turned away and gone to her bedroom. With the closing of the door, she had let her tears go free.
"Aijah," she had heard him through the door.
"Go," she had sobbed. "Just go."
She had listened to the apartment door close and her tears had flowed the rest of the day until she had been spent.
She had only left the bedroom when hunger gripped her stomach like a vice. Over Chinese food and wine, she had pulled herself together. The days that followed, she had unraveled her life from the dentist and had let her heart heal.
Staring at the strip of asphalt ahead, Aijah found solace in knowing that those breakups were not the result of them cheating on her. If they had...
They didn't, she assured herself. Maybe that's why it doesn't hurt so much.
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