Mary’s tradition going back twenty years or so and drawing more of a crowd every year.Three days before Christmas. A week since April walked out of his apartment.A week since he’d let her walk out, telling himself it was for the best, he should have never dragged her into this mess he called a life, anyway. That there simply wasn’t enough of him to go around.And yet, when he’d spotted her and Mel at their booth in the town square earlier, heard her laugh long before he saw her, he’d felt sliced in two. When Nat had left them, there’d been pain, sure—of failure, of rejection. But to be honest there’d also been relief, that he’d no longer have to see the disappointment on her face, or feel the frustration that came from trying to revive something long dead. With April, though, there was just pain.Like being ripped apart from the inside.“Wondered where you’re gotten to,” his mother said as she squeezed in beside him to link her arm through his. He’d said little to his family other than it hadn’t worked out between him and April, and amazingly enough, they’d all kept their traps shut.
