A Christmas Wish For Us

Chapter 12: The Seal

The calendar on the wall of Ben’s spare room had become Liam’s enemy.

He had marked the days with a black Sharpie, the ink bleeding through the thin paper. November 14th. November 15th. Each 'X' was a paradoxical victory—he was still alive—and a crushing defeat, because he was still here to witness the slow-motion car crash of his own erasure.

It had been a week since the ice storm. A week of Liam rotting in the spare room while Ben slowly, reluctantly, stepped into the shoes of a fiancé.

Liam’s world had shrunk to the four beige walls of this room. The air smelled of dust and the metallic tang of the painkillers he was now dry-swallowing like candy. His left leg had resigned from the union entirely; it was a dead weight, a log he had to drag across the carpet. He had found an old wooden cane in Ben’s hall closet—probably belonging to a grandparent—and now he used it to shuffle from the bed to the bathroom, terrified that Sarah might look out her window and see the "healthy neighbor" hobbling like an octogenarian.

He was decaying. He could feel it—a slow oxidation of his cells.

But the Hum was vibrant. The tumor was throwing a party in his temporal lobe, a constant, high-voltage buzz that drowned out the silence of the house.

Tick-tock, it whispered. Tick-tock.

He sat in the dark by the window, the blinds cracked just a fraction of an inch. Outside, the snow was falling again—soft, heavy flakes that coated the world in silence. The streetlamp cast a pool of amber light on the sidewalk, illuminating the stage for the play he had written.

He checked his watch. 9:45 PM.

They would be back any minute.

Ben had taken Sarah to the skating rink downtown. It was Page 12 of the manual:

She loves skating, but she’s terrible at it. She needs you to hold her hands the entire time. Don't let go, even for a second, or she’ll panic. When her nose gets red, buy her hot cider, not cocoa.

Liam rubbed his chest, trying to massage away the phantom ache of a heart that was still beating but felt stone cold.

Please, he whispered to the empty room, his breath fogging the cold glass. Let this be the night.

He couldn't hold on much longer. Yesterday, he had forgotten the word for "spoon." He had stood in the kitchen for five minutes, staring at the silverware drawer, his mind a blank white static, until Ben had gently handed him the utensil.

He was fading. The hard drive was corrupting. He needed to know she was safe—anchored to someone who wasn't disappearing—before the static took him completely.

Headlights swept across the wall, blindingly bright.

A car pulled into the driveway. The engine cut, followed by the heavy thud of car doors closing.

Liam stiffened, pressing his face closer to the glass.

Ben and Sarah walked up the driveway. They weren't holding hands, but they were walking close, their shoulders brushing with a casual intimacy that made Liam’s stomach turn. Sarah was laughing. It was a bright, genuine sound that cut through the glass and stabbed him right in the chest.

She was wearing the red scarf—the one Ben had "found" in his car and returned to her. She had accepted it back without a flicker of memory, draping it around her neck as if it were just wool, not a promise.

They stopped on the porch.

Liam held his breath. He was only ten feet away, separated by a layer of brick and a thin pane of glass. He could hear the murmur of their voices, muffled but distinct against the quiet snow.

"I can't believe I didn't fall," Sarah was saying, stomping snow off her boots. "You're a really good teacher, Ben. You have... a surprisingly strong grip."

"I was just trying to keep you upright," Ben said. He sounded nervous. Liam could imagine him shifting his weight, hands jammed deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched—exactly as Liam had coached him. Don't be cocky. Be solid.

"Well, you saved my dignity," Sarah said softly. She turned to face him. "Thank you. For tonight. For everything. I feel like... I feel like I'm finally waking up from a long nap."

Liam closed his eyes. Waking up.

She wasn't waking up. She was falling into a new dream. A dream where Liam Blackwood had never existed.

"I'm glad," Ben said. "I like seeing you happy, Sarah."

"I am happy," she said.

There was a pause. A heavy, charged silence that Liam felt in his marrow. The air between them crackled with potential energy.

Do it, Liam commanded silently, gripping the windowsill until his knuckles turned white. Kiss her, Ben. Don't be a coward. Seal it.

On the porch, the silence stretched, thick as the snow.

Liam watched through the c***k in the blinds. He saw Sarah look up at Ben, snowflakes catching in her long eyelashes. She wasn't pulling away. She wasn't reaching for her keys. She was waiting.

She was waiting for the neighbor to become something more.

Ben hesitated. Liam could see the conflict in his friend's posture—the rigid back, the slight tremor in his hands. Ben was loyal. Ben loved Liam. Kissing Sarah felt like a betrayal of the highest order, a violation of the brotherhood they had shared since kindergarten.

But Ben also loved Sarah. And he had promised a dying man.

Liam saw Ben take a breath. The vapor clouded the air between them. He saw Ben step closer, closing the gap. He saw Ben reach out and gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind Sarah’s ear—a move Liam had done a thousand times. A move Liam had invented.

"Sarah," Ben whispered.

"Yeah?" she breathed.

Ben leaned down.

Liam didn't look away. He forced himself to watch. He owed it to his own tragedy to witness the ending. He needed the image burned into his retinas so that when the darkness came, he would know it was finished.

Ben’s lips touched Sarah’s.

It wasn't a passionate, movie-star kiss. It was tentative. Gentle. A question asked and answered in the snow.

Sarah didn't pull back. She didn't look confused. She rose on her tiptoes, her hand coming up to rest on Ben’s chest, steadying herself against him.

She melted into it.

Liam let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. It was a wretched, broken noise that scraped his throat.

It was done.

The replacement was installed. The anchor was dropped. The ship could sail without him.

Liam pulled away from the window, letting the blind snap shut with a plastic clatter. He stumbled back toward the bed, his bad leg dragging uselessly on the carpet. He collapsed onto the air mattress, staring at the ceiling, hot tears leaking from his eyes and running into his ears.

He felt an overwhelming, crushing sense of relief. And then, immediately following it, an emptiness so vast it threatened to swallow him whole.

She was gone. She was really, truly gone.

---

Five minutes later, the front door opened.

Ben walked into the house. He didn't turn on the lights. He walked straight down the hallway, his footsteps heavy and slow, and stood in the doorway of the spare room.

Liam didn't move. He lay in the dark, his arm thrown over his eyes.

"You saw," Ben said. His voice was flat, devoid of victory. It sounded like he had just committed a crime.

"I saw," Liam rasped.

Ben walked into the room and sat heavily on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. He smelled of cold air and her perfume—vanilla and cedar.

"I feel like I just cheated on you," Ben whispered. "I feel sick."

"She didn't push you away," Liam said. It was a statement, not a question.

"No," Ben admitted. "She... she kissed me back, Liam. She held on to me."

"Good," Liam said, forcing the word past the lump in his throat. "That's good."

"Is it?" Ben asked, his voice rising in sudden, sharp anger. "Because when I pulled away... she looked at me. And she looked confused."

Liam froze. He lowered his arm, staring at Ben’s silhouette in the gloom. "Confused how?"

"She touched her lips," Ben said, his voice trembling. "And she said... 'That felt familiar.'"

The room went silent. The Hum spiked, a high-pitched whine drilling into Liam’s auditory nerve.

"She thinks it's familiar because she's falling for you," Liam said quickly, desperate to keep the narrative intact. "Chemistry is chemistry, Ben. Don't overthink it."

"No." Ben shook his head in the dark. "She looked at me like she was trying to solve a puzzle. She said, 'I feel like I've kissed you a thousand times before.'"

Ben turned his head to look at Liam. Even in the shadows, his eyes were accusing.

"She's remembering the feeling, Liam. She might not remember your face, or your name, but her body remembers that. She’s kissing me, but she’s feeling you."

Liam felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. It was the cruelest twist of all. Even erased, even forgotten, he was still haunting her. She was loving Ben because Ben was an echo of Liam. She was falling in love with a ghost.

"It doesn't matter," Liam said coldly, rolling over to face the wall. "As long as she’s happy. As long as she’s not alone."

"She asked me if I wanted to come in," Ben said.

Liam’s breath hitched. "And?"

"And I said no," Ben said. "I told her I wanted to take it slow. I couldn't do it, Liam. I couldn't go into your house, into your bed, not tonight. I kissed her. That's what you asked for. Don't ask me for more."

"I won't," Liam whispered. "You did good, Ben. You did enough."

Ben didn't answer. He sat there for a long time, the silence stretching between them like a loaded weapon.

Finally, Ben stood up.

"I'm going to sleep," Ben said. "Or try to."

He walked to the door, then paused. His hand rested on the frame.

"She asked about you," Ben said.

Liam didn't answer. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"She asked why you never come over anymore," Ben continued, his voice cracking. "She said she misses her neighbor. She said... she said you look sad, and she wants to bake you cookies."

Liam bit his lip so hard he tasted copper. The image of her—standing in her kitchen, worrying about the "sad neighbor"—was too much.

"Tell her I moved," Liam choked out.

"Liam—"

"Do it!" Liam shouted, his voice cracking, raw and ugly. "End it, Ben! I can't be the sad neighbor anymore! I can't watch you kiss her again! Tell her I'm gone!"

The shout drained the last of his energy. He slumped into the pillow, shaking uncontrollably.

Ben stood in the doorway for a second longer. Then, softly, he closed the door.

Liam lay in the dark, the taste of blood in his mouth.

He had erased his past. He had secured her future.

Now, he just had to figure out how to die without making a sound.