Tag: i don’t know

pluckyredhead
replied to your post “So, Matt probably spends Christmas with Foggy and his family, right?…”

OKAY BUT IF YOU DON’T WRITE MATT GETTING THE PRESENT AND KNOWING IT’S REALLY FROM FOGGY AND FEELING SOME KIND OF WAY ABOUT IT, I WILL

I MEAN, CLEARLY I HAD TO DO SOMETHING

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“Matty,” Mrs. Nelson says, when Matt opens his front door,
the day after Christmas.

“Oh,” Matt says. “Hi.”

“We missed you at dinner,” she says. “Can I come
inside?”

She doesn’t wait for him to say yes, brushing past him
and dropping an armful of packages on Matt’s kitchen table. She still smells
like Christmas, like cinnamon and spices and fresh-baked bread, peppermint.

Matt didn’t even go to Mass.

“Do you have a good excuse for not coming?” she asks,
not unkindly.

Matt opens his mouth, shuts it, shrugs before he
finally says, “I didn’t think I’d be welcome.”

“You’re always welcome,” she says, walking forward to
lay a warm hand on his arm. “I tell you that every year, I would have thought
it would have sunk in by now.”

“I—I don’t know what Foggy told you,” Matt says.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “You’re part of the family.
You’re always welcome.”

Matt tries to say something and just manages to
stammer, ducking his head. She squeezes his arm gently.

“You eat every single cookie that I brought you,” she
says, “and I’m supposed to emphasize that the present is absolutely not from
Foggy.”

“Okay,” Matt says, faintly.

“He also didn’t ask me to give you this,” she says,
then wraps her arms around Matt. Matt goes stiff for a couple of seconds before
he breathes in deep and sinks against her, feeling something break inside of
him. Mrs. Nelson is small, but she still feels like she’s holding him up while
Matt shudders and tries to blink away tears.

“Sorry for missing dinner,” he says, when she lets go
of him.

“You can come over next Friday to make it up to me,”
she says, then waits until he nods to pat his cheek gently. “I’ll make your
favorites. See you soon.”

“See you,” Matt murmurs.

He stands there for awhile with his arms curled around
himself after she leaves before he goes to open the present and pull out the
softest sweater that he’s ever felt. He runs his fingers over it slowly before he brings it up to press his face into it, inhaling deeply. It smells like Christmas, too, and a little bit like Foggy.

Matt kind of feels like his heart is breaking all over again.