Unholy Nights: A Twisted Christmas Anthology

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss | Linda Barlow

In the Bleak Midwinter | Andra Brynn

A Love Charm for Dakota | Carly Carson

The Snow Queen | Alana Albertson

How Lovely Your Branches | Kara Ashley Dey

Until the Twelfth Night | Cherie Chulick

The Perfect Gift | Nicole Blanchard

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1
. Nightstalker

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I
t was getting to look a lot like Christmas, but I wasn't feeling it. My roommate Julie was oohing and ahhing over the first snowfall of the year and loudly switching the ring tone on her phone from one Christmas tune to another. I was getting ready to snatch her phone away and fling it at the wall when she finally settled on
Silver Bells
.

"What?" she said, noticing my scowl.

"I'm trying to get this paper written."

"No you aren't," said my golden-haired roommate with the flawless skin, perfect body, and outgoing personality. Some people are just born perfect. "You're brooding again. Stop it. It's Christmas, or it will be soon, Ms. Scrooge. You need to lighten up."

"What I need to do," I growled, "is go for a run." I stalked over to my closet and began pulling on my sweats and my running shoes.

"It's snowing."

"It stopped."

"Well, okay, but be careful. It might be slippery."

"Thanks, mom."

"Bitch," she said, without rancor.

A few minutes later I was outside, driving my body past the first early protests, waiting for it to settle into the smooth easy stride that I knew would eventually come. It was a blustery December evening a week before Christmas, and I was already thinking I should have worn a couple more layers to fend off the chill.

I wish I could claim to be some jock honing myself into a kick-ass running machine, but that wasn't the case at all. I wasn't doing this to train, to burn calories, or even to get away from my annoyingly cheerful roommate. The real reason I was out here was to stalk Will MacIvey, whose dorm I was planning to cruise.

Not that I was a first-class stalker. In fact, I sucked at it. I wasn't expecting to encounter Will. All I hoped for was that the lights would be on in his dorm room. Maybe he would even walk in front of the window, so I could catch a precious glimpse.

I know. Pathetic. Believe me, this hadn't escaped my attention.

The thing is, there was only one guy I wanted. And wouldn't you know it,
of course,
Will MacIvey didn't want me.

An icy gust of wind slammed into my face, making my eyes tear up. I rammed my fists deep into the pockets of my down vest, hunching my shoulders and ducking my head against the cold. As my feet pounded the road, I was thankful it wasn't slippery. The storm had left about an inch of crisp white powder on the grass and given the campus that magical look the first snowfall confers. It hadn't stuck on the roads, though. If there was anything more doleful than me running all the way to the far side of campus to check out some dude's window, it would be me falling on my ass in front of his dorm.

I'm not even going to admit how many times I'd done this since that night in October when Will and I had hooked up.

I'd known a couple of stalker girls back in high school, but I hadn't fathomed, then, why they did it. I figured they had no self-esteem. If things didn't work out with one of my relatively few boyfriends, my heartbreak rarely lasted for more than a couple weeks. Never had I imagined myself doing stuff like loitering outside the Baker Science Center because I knew Will would be getting out of chem lab and might notice me. Or reading his tweets obsessively. And let's just forget that adorable e-card I sent him. With puppies.

His dorm, Wolfe Hall, was on the hill ahead. It was one of those neo-Georgian brick rectangles with ivy-covered walls. My own dorm was more modern, dating back thirty years or so, but Wolfe had probably been built pre-World War I. The trees here were taller and older, too. Wolfe was situated on the highest point of a slope, and I was feeling winded when I approached the top of the incline. My pace dropped, partly because I was used up and partly because I needed to savor the approaching fly-by moment. I was near Will again, and I could feel the thrill as a vibration in the air. It was intoxicating and a little scary.

One time, when I'd been even crazier, I had gotten quite close to him. I'd slipped into his dorm as someone was exiting. Feeling like a burglar, but excited and even a little turned on at the same time, I'd climbed stealthily up to the third floor and tiptoed along the corridor, my heart thudding and my quads trembling so bad I could hardly stay upright. I crept up to his door, past other kids' doors with music blasting and dudes arguing politics or philosophy or football. One door was thumping rhythmically as if the occupant was either kicking a ball against it or fucking someone.

I could have been caught at any moment. Someone could have run up the stairs or popped out of their room, and there I'd be, standing like an idiot in a dorm where I didn't belong. Busted.

But no one had entered the third floor hallway while I was there. I'd found the door to Will's room and pressed my ear against it. He was in there; I could hear soft music playing. Classical, probably Mozart. He loved Mozart. How could someone who loved Mozart not also love me?

Later, after I'd escaped from this close encounter with Total Loseritis, I couldn't believe I'd taken such a chance. I'm not much of a risk-taker. I'm more likely to get a panic attack than an adrenaline high. Why couldn't I stop obsessing about the guy? So what if we'd hooked up once and he'd done a vanishing act? This is college; it happens all the time. Why was I making such a big deal about it? It's not like I'd never had a guy disappear on me before.

Anyway, I had only done the creeping up to his door thing once. Since then I'd managed to restrict myself to running past his dorm a few times a week. At least my leg muscles were getting hard and tight, and the hills didn't bother me as much as they had at the beginning. In fact, despite the cold I was feeling good. Exams were finally over and the only paper I had left was almost ready to be turned in. My Will obsession wouldn't take time away from my studies anymore.

Usually I don't have trouble studying. I like my classes, and I've always been a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to nailing everything I need to know for exams. I like taking tests—they're a challenge and a game. I try to figure out what I would ask if I were the professor. Like, what has been emphasized in the course? Had they given hints I could capitalize on? I enjoy analyzing that stuff, and it was cool how often I could psyche the professors out and study the correct things. Granted, it hadn't worked so well sophomore year with molecular biology, but with humanities courses my testing techniques worked fine.

This semester, though, things hadn't gone as smoothly. Whenever I'd sit in a quiet spot in the library or in my dorm room with the headphones on so I wouldn't have to listen to Julie's fingers texting madly with her friends, my mind would keep sliding from Enlightenment philosophy or Russian history into Will MacIvey Fantasy Land. I'd remember how he'd touched me in the small of my back the first time, gently and lightly, hardly a touch at all. Or how he'd kissed me up against the wall of his dorm room, soft, sweet, and almost shy.

He had seemed so sincere. Truly interested in me. He'd told me about himself, too, but not in an egotistical manner. He'd talked mostly about his family, with whom he was obviously close. His mom, who was a pediatrician. His brother, a high school soccer star. His little sister Clary, who was already a junior ice skating champion at the age of 11 and might even be good enough to try out for the Olympics in a few years.

He knew stuff about me, too. I'd explained about growing up in Ankara, Turkey and going to the American School there while my dad served in the embassy. How I'd played with the kids in the neighborhood where we lived and learned to speak badass Turkish. How I still remembered some of it, and was taking a course in Ottoman history and loved to watch a cheesy Turkish soap opera about Suleyman the Magnificent on YouTube.

Will had seemed really into me. We'd had fun. So why hadn't he called? It wasn't as if we'd stumbled into a drunken hookup that neither of us could remember in the morning. We hadn't just been joined at the groin. We'd connected a lot more profoundly than that.

Or so I'd thought at the time.

I was coming up on Wolfe Hall. Most of the windows in the dorm were dark. A lot of students had already left for Christmas break. I didn't think Will had gone yet, though. He told me he never leaves until the 24th. He loves his family, he said, but when all the aunts, uncles, and cousins show up, there were just too many of them. Besides, his mom had given his old room to his little sister, so he had to crash on the sofa bed in the living room, which was not exactly private.

Ahead of me on the road, I saw the lights of a car approaching. I moved over to give it plenty of room to pass me, but the car slowed as its right blinker came on. Someone was parking on the side of the road in front of the dorm. A couple of other vehicles had already been left there. The college usually doesn't allow parking in front of the dorm, but with so many students gone, I guess they didn't mind.

It was getting dark, but I recognized the car. It was his. It was Will's car.

My heart, which had been beating slowly and steadily from all the miles I'd been racking up lately, started tripping all over itself. The cold air was tearing at my lungs, but I couldn't seem to get enough. Of all the times I'd done this—run by his dorm hoping to see him—I never actually had. It was as if he'd been a phantom, as insubstantial as his silhouette on the window shade. But, given my pace and where he had parked, I was probably going to run right into him. He would see me. He would know.

Part of me wanted him to see. It was his fault I was doing these asinine things. We'd had a perfect night together, and then he'd turned to ice. He'd never told me why. Surely I hadn't imagined the rapport we'd found, the joy in one another? The awesome sex?

Right
, my colder, harder, not so idealistic self snorted. This wasn't Mr. Darcy. Get over it.

I slowed to a walk and leaned over, as if I were more tired than I was. As if I'd just run a marathon. I pulled my plastic water bottle out of the pouch in my backpack and swallowed an icy squirt. Not-Mr.-Darcy was ambling across the street toward the dorm now, paying no attention to the runner in the road.

My heart skipped again as I drank him in. He was wearing jeans and a short winter jacket, but no hat, no gloves. His dark hair was a tad longer than it had been in October and his face looked scruffy, as if he needed a shave. Probably too busy studying. He was pre-med, and he took things like final exams seriously.

I liked his scruffy look. Every time I'd seen him before he'd been very precise, all neatly put together from head to toe. There was something incredibly sexy about the aura of control that emanated from him, but I also liked these new rough edges. It was as though he could be anything—surgeon or rock star, scholar or bandit. I'd seen it in bed with him, too. He had a self-contained intensity that made me wonder what he was going to do next, and if I'd like it. Not that there was any "if" involved. I'd loved it all.

People jogged around campus at all hours, so there was nothing special about me. I ran in place, trying to keep warm, although my skin was hot and damp inside my sweats. I had my hair tucked up inside my woolen cap, and I was tall and lean. It might not even be clear to him whether I was a girl or a guy.

If he didn't look my way at all, I wasn't sure if I'd be crushed or relieved. All those times I'd run by his dorm, hadn't I hoped I might encounter him? Now was my chance. I could run right up to him, do a double take and go, "Whoa, Will? Wow, what a surprise. How're you doing? How'd your exams go? Me? I'm just out training. Got to get some exercise, you know. I run three times around this campus every day."

Except it sounded so fake. He would know. He probably knew already. He might have seen me through the window on one of my previous fly-bys.

He crossed the road right in front of me and headed toward the front door of his dorm. I knew I should call out, say something. I was a student here, too, and I had every right to jog around the campus. To run past his dorm. It didn't have to mean anything. It wasn't as though I was forbidden to enter his territory or breathe his air just because he hadn't called. If I failed to speak to him, I would curse myself later. I'd call myself every kind of coward, and it would be true.