She didn’t flinch. “I want to interview you.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged, but her eyes stayed steady. “Because you always make stories feel real.”
That landed somewhere tender.
“Fine. Tomorrow after school.”
So I sighed and nodded. “Fine. Tomorrow after school. But if you ask me about fruitcake, I’ll rant.”
She smiled. “Deal.”
The next afternoon, she sat across from me in the empty classroom with her notebook open, feet swinging under the chair.
She started easy.
“What were holidays like when you were a kid?”
I gave her the safe version: my mom’s terrible fruitcake, my dad blasting carols, the year our tree leaned like it was giving up.
“Can I ask something more personal?”
Emily wrote fast, like she was collecting gold.
Then she hesitated, tapping her pencil.
“Can I ask something more personal?” she said.
I leaned back. “Within reason.”
She took a breath. “Did you ever have a love story around Christmas? Someone special?”
That question hit an old bruise I’d spent decades avoiding.
“You don’t have to answer.”
His name was Daniel.
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