Gingerbread Girl

By Jade Dove

The night is cold. Snow is drifting on a barely-there wind. Down the street, the houses are bright with strings of red and green and white lights. Yards are decorated with Nutcrackers and Nativity scenes.

I’m sitting on the slant of shingled roof outside my window. From downstairs, I can hear Tiff’s Christmas party. Drunk guys yelling for more beer. Cheerleaders singing along with Mariah Carey.

Just as Jesus would have wanted, I think. Tiffany and her friends inviting the football team to wreck our living room while Mom and Dad get smashed at the Roberts’.

I wish for the fifteenth time that Loren was here. At least I could have someone to complain to.

As if hearing my thoughts, I see her walking up the sidewalk past the Stapleton’s yard decked out in wire reindeers. She sees me looking down at her and gives a sarcastic salute.

When she gets up to my room, she crawls out onto the roof beside me.

“Were the festivities too exciting for you?”

“Yeah. You know how much I love partying,” I say. “Anyway, what’re you doing here?”

“I come bearing gifts and tidings of good cheer,” she says, reaching into the pocket of her hoodie and withdrawing something wrapped in paper towels.

Without another word, she hands it to me and I unwrap her gift.

Inside the bundle of towels are two gingerbread cookies in the shape of girls that resemble her and me. Frosted glasses and purple hair for me, frosted black skirt and black hair for her.

“You created a perfect likeness,” I say, biting my gingerbread head off.

She plucks her alter ego from my hand and takes a small bite of her gingerbread leg. Chewing, she says “I think I went a little too heavy on my frosting.”

“I think I taste pretty good,” I say. “You got my hair just right too.”

We sit chewing in the freezing night, watching the flakes gather on the yards and street.

I wish we could do this every night, I think.

I remind myself that we pretty much do do this every night, but I still think it’d be nice to keep sitting in comfortable silence together for the rest of our lives.

“You’re in deep thought,” she says, finishing the remaining bit of her gingerbread double. “Might as well tell me what you’re thinking about.”

I take another bite. “Do you ever think about what’s next?” I say.

“You mean like going downstairs to dunk on Tiffany and have some nog?”

“You know what I mean. Do you ever think about the future? After graduation. When we’re no longer stuck with our parents and our classmates.”

Her usual sarcastic smile softens and in a serious tone, she says “well, yeah. Kinda hard not to. It’ll be senior year soon. Then graduation. But I just try to enjoy things as they come. I mean, sure, I’m applying to art school and stuff. But the way I see it, it’s best to just enjoy the now.”

Like sitting here with you here and now.

“Yeah, makes sense,” I say. “I guess I keep thinking I’m gonna miss this when it’s over. When you’re off studying Goya and I’m studying classic novels. We won’t have these conversations, won’t get to share our mutual disgust with this town, won’t get to—”

Be together is what I almost say.

“—sit on my roof,” I finish lamely.

She smiles and says “just cuz we’re going off to college doesn’t mean we won’t be friends. Or that we can’t text or call. It’s just college. Not like we’re dying.”

I’ve been thinking about this myself but there’s so much I want to say. So much else I can’t say.

Like how I’ve harbored a massive crush on her since eighth grade.

Or how I still think about the times she casually brushed my arm or the time she playfully punched my shoulder. Or how little moments like this are all I think about.

Why can’t you just feel the same? I think. Why can’t you show some interest in me too?

“I know,” I say. “But you’re such a part of my life, I don’t know how I’m gonna function without talking about stuff over pizza or sitting on my parents’ roof with you.”

She grins. “Well, we may not be on your parents’ roof but we’ll always be friends. And of course I’ll still show you all my sketches of fruit and flowers.”

“You won’t drift away?” As soon as I say it, it smacks of clinginess and I cringe. Trying to brush it off, I say “you know, that cliche.”

Sensing my concern, she gently takes my hand in hers. A shockwave rolls through my whole body. My heart feels like a stone in my chest. I have to fight sucking air through my teeth, biting back the intake.

She looks in my eyes and says, more serious than usual, “you know we’ll always be together. Even if we’re not in the same city, we’ll always have each other. You don’t have to worry. I love you.”

She’s never said that before. Even in a platonic way. So hearing it now, it hits me like a truck.

Fighting through my emotion, I say “I-I love you too. Always have.”

She smiles softly and keeps looking at me in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Then she looks down and says “can I ask you something?”

I feel my heart tighten. Is she going to ask if I like her? Was it that transparent?

“You know you can tell me anything. No judgement.”

I gulp a lungful of dry air. I nod. The anxiety is pouring over me in waves.

“Do you…”she starts, unsure how to say it. She looks down at the street and the gathering snow instead.

“Do you, I don’t know, like me?”

There. After picturing this moment for years, after rehearsing what I’d say, it’s out in the open and I find I can’t speak.

Now it’s my turn to look down and away. “Would that be a problem?”

She doesn’t say anything but takes my hand and slowly—as if time has slowed—kisses it gently.

My heart is rattling like a bird in a cage. I feel myself sucking in a deep breath.

Seeing my expression, she laughs. “I was hoping you’d say something first but you never did. So I just kept waiting. And waiting.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“You never seemed like you were ready. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if you were, you know, out.”

“I always assumed you wouldn’t feel the same.”

She barks a laugh. “Have you not seen me? Do I look like I’d be into guys? Besides, I wasn’t into anyone else. Just you.”

“But why now?”

I can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m so happy.

“I guess I just realized it was now or never. I’ve always been the more proactive one.”

I laugh at that. At me for worrying so much all this time. “Yeah, true.”

“So I guess we can be…?”

She smiles. “Yeah.”

We hold hands as the snow falls.

🩷🩷🩷

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Jade Dove is the author of six poetry collections and two chapbooks.