Whiteout at Christmas

IT NEVER QUITE made sense to Samara Valdez that some people in the world genuinely hated Christmas. She couldn't get her head round how anybody could loathe the sparkling lights or trimmed trees; she couldn't see how anyone might resent the festive songs or the holiday films. The lead-in to the season had always been the part she loved most, draping tinsel through the hall and hanging baubles on the tree. Last year had been the best. In 2016, she was certain, Christmas had never treated her better. Much as she had loved the holidays when she was a child, with everyone together and her brother sleeping in the same room on Christmas Eve, the one before this had surpassed the lot. Instead of going to church with her parents and popping in on her brother and his ever-expanding brood, she had celebrated beside her own small family at last. The first of many, or so she'd thought. Once she'd moved in with her boyfriend, she had imagined all the Christmases ahead; she had thrown herself into making the season magical for his daughter; she had pictured herself becoming stepmother to the little girl she adored. Poppy was a precious little thing, one of the children in her nursery class, and Samara had fallen for her father, which should have been the beginning of everything. Now that future was dead. 2017 was shaping up to be the bleakest Christmas, one she wasn't sure she even wanted when it meant sitting in her miserable flat, a cramped little place on the edge of town that she couldn't bear to decorate. Decorating only reminded her that she wasn't doing it beside her fiancé: he was at his own house with his daughter, putting up the tree Samara had wanted them to choose. When November rolled in, she'd pictured taking Poppy's hand while they chose the right fir and wound it with lights. She had started mapping out the whole week, from Christmas Eve's magic to the mayhem of the next day, but her imagination had been hacked short when the man she'd loved for two years ended the relationship. Even in the wreckage of being left by the man she'd imagined spending forever with, one small part of her had wished he'd at least held off until January. Single and hating every second of it, Samara had no clue how to occupy herself as she trudged down Hollowmere High Street with her hands shoved deep in her pockets, snowflakes dusting down and numbing her fingertips. It was meant to be a white Christmas, the first proper one in years: she couldn't even recall the last time snow had come on the twenty-fifth and, in any other year, she'd have been thrilled, but now excitement felt impossible. She got to the bus stop just in time to see the number seven pull away and, scowling, sank onto one of the hard slanted seats with both feet braced on the ground. The town looked too pretty, lights strung from shop to shop above windows full of festive displays. Festive was the last thing she felt, and she found herself wishing she were anywhere else. Going home wasn't worth it unless she wanted to stand there another half hour for the next bus. She didn't. Dragging her lower lip between her teeth, she sighed hard in an effort to ease the scowl, then fished her phone from her pocket, warming her thumb enough for the screen to register it. Hunched by the glass side of the shelter, which barely blocked the cold, she pushed up her hood and called her brother. Gabriel was better than being on her own. "I know you're there," she muttered while it rang. "Pick up, Gabe. Answer the phone."