I don’t know why I said I’d walk her to her car when I can’t find any appropriate words to say. I feel like an idiot.

After another minute of silence, Wren says, “Looks like the rats have new roommates now.”

I look up to find a family of three, all dressed in plaid shirts and flap-eared hats, walking into the cabin Wren used to sleep in.

I grin. “There were never any rats, and you know it.” The traps never caught anything, and I’ve checked them every day since.

Finally—fucking finally—she turns to me and deadpans, “There. Were. Rats.”

“Sure, cariño. Keep telling yourself that.”

She huffs, but the tension is slightly less heavy than before, so I’ll count it as a win.

Hands in her pockets, she looks around the land as she keeps walking. “Your family really has a beautiful place.”

“Yeah, they do. We do.” If I’m to officially take over, I need to start treating this place as my own sooner rather than later.

We reach her car, which is parked close to those of the customers, and just as I open the passenger door for her to drop her stuff in, I remember something.

“Be right back,” I say before running to the side of the commercial zone. When I walk back, I have a small but beautiful tree in my arms.

After putting her bag inside the car, Wren turns around, and as soon as she spots me, her eyes widen.

“Is that for me?”

I shrug, as if I didn’t spend thirty minutes roaming the lanes to find the perfect tree for her apartment. “I thought it could be a nice thank you gift.”

She looks it over, even going so far as touching the green of the soft needles. “It’s beautiful.”

We’re only a few days away from December 25th, but I still risked it. “I hope you hadn’t already put one up?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t really celebrate Christmas.”

“What?” I say, eyebrows narrowed. How can she not celebrate the best holiday there is?

“Not much fun in celebrating alone,” she answers casually, like she hasn’t said one of the saddest sentence I’ve ever heard. Here, Christmas is spent singing and dancing and cooking and baking and hugging. Maybe this year will be a little different, but I know even with the illness that carved its place into our home, it can’t not be a beautiful day.

The fact that she doesn’t have that, and probably hasn’t had that for a while, breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.

“What about friends, though?” I ask. Christmas doesn’t have to be about blood family. Surely, there are people who’d love to celebrate with her.

She snickers, though there’s no humor in it. “I don’t have a lot of people around me.”