Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

The motorcycle helmet clattered to the floor when I got back to my apartment.

“What the fuck?” I mumbled.

The whole place looked like I’d stepped into Santa’s workshop at the North fucking Pole.

Wreaths decorated the windows, the Christmas tree had been decorated, there was garland over the doorway, stockings were on the unused fireplace, and a picture of Pugnog and Gracie in matching knitted Santa hats and sweaters was propped on the mantel. Strands of paper snowflakes twisted slightly above me, strung on the steel structure.

I reached up and tore the nearest one down, crumpling it up.

I was immediately filled with regret. I went to the coffee table to smooth out the snowflake on the tabletop, but I couldn’t salvage it.

The lights on the Christmas tree sparkled softly, the tinsel reflecting the lights onto the ruined snowflake.

“Worst Christmas ever, huh,” I said to the tree.

It glowed at me.

There was a single, solitary present tucked under the branches. I sat down on the floor in front of the tree and picked it up.

For: Hudson

From: Gracie

I pulled the present for her out of my bag and placed it there, feeling like I was in a waking nightmare.

What did I think was going to happen, though, when I’d gotten that late-night bus to Maplewood Falls? That Grayson, out of the goodness of his heart and moved by the spirit of Christmas, wasn’t going to deploy the ultimate weapon to take down one of his rivals? That Gracie was going to wrap her arms around me when she saw me, tell me that she forgave me, smile up at me like I was her hero, and thank me for coming back to her? That I was going to give some sort of impassioned speech about why she and I were meant to be together, and she would tell me love conquers all?

I was as delusional as she was.

“I should burn this whole fucking place to the ground.”

Instead, I went to the fridge, needing a drink.

Along with the bottle of vodka was a red Pyrex dish decorated with white Christmas trees covered in foil. I slowly pulled it out, placed it on the counter, and peeled back the foil.

Inside was a breakfast casserole Gracie had made and put in my fridge, probably expecting me to come home to her that morning.

I stuck it in the oven, letting the savory warm smells make the apartment feel like home. Like Gracie.

“I fucking hate Christmas.”

“It looks even better in person!” I heard Elsa exclaim.

The floor vibrated under my cheek as my siblings piled into my apartment.

“Something smells amazing,” Talbot said.

“Are you cooking, Hudson?” Lawrence called from the kitchen.

Else walked around, admiring the decorations while my head felt like it was going to split open.

“Aw. I wanted to know if she liked the present,” Elsa said when she saw it under the tree. “I guess you didn’t give it to her because you were waiting for Christmas, huh?”

Anderson snorted.

“Yeah. That sure looks like what happened,” Elsa said, crouching down next to me.

I hated having her see me like this, see me like Mom.

“Go away. Please just go away.” I rubbed my face. “You shouldn’t have to sit through another Christmas with a family member too drunk to remember their own name,” I slurred.

I didn’t drink in excess when I was working a contract. But now it was over and the check deposited, so I drank and tried to forget about Gracie and the casserole and how she hated me and how she didn’t believe me when I said I loved her.

I reached for the vodka bottle.

“Hey.” Talbot grabbed it from me. “I think you had enough.”

Lawrence stuffed forkfuls of Gracie’s breakfast casserole in my mouth.

“This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever eaten,” Jake groaned from his own plate.

“We’re all thinking of going to Barbados for Christmas,” Talbot told me.

“You’re all going to get a sunburn,” I mumbled.

“You shouldn’t drink alone.” Jake and Lawrence tried to roll me over.

“I have too many siblings. Get off of me.” I swiped at Jake.

He force-fed me more casserole.

“We could have lost you, and then Grayson would never give us another contract.”

“Yeah, you’re his friend,” Anderson said.

“I’m not friends with Grayson Richmond,” I snapped.

“You always hang out with him.”

“He ruined my fucking life.”

“Come on, big brother.” Anderson and Lawrence grabbed each one of my arms. They hauled me up, half carried me to the bedroom, and dumped me unceremoniously on the bed.

“She washed the sheets,” I said deliriously. “She wanted to take care of me, and I ruined it.”

Lawrence tried to make me sit up to drink a glass of water.

“Was $5 and a half million worth it to ruin what I had with Gracie?” I asked Elsa helplessly.

My little sister gave me a sympathetic look, a pitying look.

“You hate me.”

“You’re my big brother, and I love you,” she told me soothingly. “You did what you thought you had to do. You were trying to look out for your company and us and …” She looked to Anderson.

He tapped in.

“It’s the holidays,” Anderson said carefully. “They make people crazy, give people existential crises. There’s not a lot of sunlight. You start remembering the bad times with your family, thinking about another year over, another year possibly wasted. You’ll feel like your old self in January.”

My siblings looked worried, probably because they hadn’t ever seen me this low.

Not that I had never been this low. I had just been better about hiding it.

“What you need to remember,” Lawrence said, with forced cheeriness, “was you never actually had a relationship with her. You never had anything with her. It was fake, all fake. You can’t ruin something you never had to begin with.”

I curled up with a groan.

“You suck at this,” Jake said, shoving him aside and lying down next to me. Elsa squeezed in next to me, and Talbot jumped on top of me, his elbow jabbing me in my ribs. Anderson sat near my head and put me in a headlock, and Lawrence lay crossways, draping his knees over my legs.

We lay there like we did when we were kids in the drafty old crumbling house, the leaking pipes forming sheets of ice on the walls in the winter.

In the living room, the clock Gracie had brought shrieked out a tiny Christmas carol, letting us know that it was now 11 p.m., and if you were tired of hearing the first few bars of “Jingle Bells,” too fucking bad. Hope your alcohol cabinet was well stocked.

Anderson ruffled my hair.

“You have until New Year’s to wallow, then we need you back in the game. Grayson Richmond is going to throw more work at us. You know he will.”

I wasn’t sure if I had it in me anymore.

I felt like this last job, Gracie had broken me.