By noon, I had made enough peppermint mochas to qualify as a public health concern. People lined up in scarves and synthetic cheer, clutching phones and apologizing for existing while ordering beverages that taste like toothpaste and inherited guilt.
“Happy holidays!”
“Merry Christmas!”
“Oh my God, you’re working tonight?”
Yes. I am the sacrificial dairy lamb of December.
Some man in a blinking reindeer sweater grabbed my wrist and said, “That’s so sad.”
I told him sadness pairs well with oat milk.
He tipped two dollars. We both pretended that fixed something.
I blurred through most of it.
Steam. Pour. Lid. Repeat.
When you move fast enough, you don’t have to think. And when you don’t think, you don’t feel. And when you don’t feel, you don’t remember that everyone else has somewhere to be tonight.
Cassie was glowing like a sentient ornament. She wrapped the tip jar in fairy lights and renamed it “Santa’s Bail Fund,” which is criminally funny and morally unstable. She hummed carols like she personally negotiated the armistice between sugar and sanity.
Melanie watched me the way you watch a stray animal insisting it doesn’t need food.
“You’re doing that thing,” she said.
“I don’t have things.”
“You absolutely have things.”
JB — whose nametag still says Evan, because identity is apparently optional — flirted with three customers, a concept, and possibly the espresso grinder. He kept adjusting his Santa hat like it mattered deeply to him that we understood it was ironic.
It was not ironic.
The rush tapered into that strange late-afternoon softness where everything feels briefly intimate.
We did a small gift exchange before everyone left.
Cassie handed out watercolor chaos. Melanie gave aggressively practical items that could double as survival tools. JB shoved a small box toward me and tried very hard not to look nervous.
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Inside: earbuds.
Hand-painted. Hard Candy Paranoia logo on the casing. Slightly imperfect lines. Tiny brushstroke texture. Time invested.
“You defaced perfectly good tech for me?” I asked.
“Custom,” he said.
There is something destabilizing about being noticed.
I told him they were ridiculous.
I am absolutely using them.
Then came closing.
Melanie pointed at me immediately.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I don’t mind.”
Cassie hesitated. “You sure?”
“I don’t really celebrate.”
Curated truth.
It’s a line that shuts down concern efficiently. It lets people leave without guilt. They hugged me anyway.
Door chime.
Cold air.
Laughter dissolving into parking lot snow.
Then silence.
Silence in a café after closing feels like the inside of a snow globe once the shaking stops.
I wiped counters slower.
No rush. No audience.
It’s easier to say you don’t celebrate than to admit no one expects you.
Halfway through dismantling the espresso machine, there was a knock.
Soft.
Unexpected.
My brain immediately supplied disaster.
She knows.
I opened the door.
Auré.
Snow caught in her hair. Cheeks flushed from the cold. Breath visible in the doorway light.
“You’re supposed to be with your family,” I said.
“So are you.”
Annoying.
She stepped inside with a thermos and a small paper bag.
“I had a couple hours before dinner,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
My stomach did something deeply inconvenient.
She helped me close.
Stacked chairs. Wiped tables. Moved around me like it was natural.
Domestic proximity is dangerous.
Her shoulder brushed mine once. Warm through fabric. Brief. Accidental.
My body reacted anyway.
I hate that I notice how she smells. Clean. Warm. Something faintly sweet.
I kept waiting for the shift.
The accusation.
The “Why were you in my room?”
Nothing.
She just stayed.
We sat behind the counter afterward.
Hot cocoa for her.
Mocha latte for me.
Snow tapping softly at the windows.
She put on the Jim Carrey Grinch.
I didn’t realize he was that relatable.
Scheduling time to loathe yourself? That’s commitment. That’s calendar discipline.
Living on a mountain. Watching everyone celebrate from a safe distance. Deciding you hate it before it can reject you first.
That’s not villainy.
That’s strategy.
“You really don’t have anyone?” she asked at some point.
“Not really.”
Curated truth.
She didn’t push.
“I’m glad you’re not alone tonight,” she said softly.
And I almost told her.
Almost told her I’d already been inside her house.
Almost told her I knew what her bedroom walls looked like.
Almost detonated the only peaceful hour I’ve had in months.
Instead, I let it live.
She left before dinner.
Hugged me.
Long enough to register.
Short enough to deny.
“Joyful Christmas, Tag.”
Snow swallowed her shape.
I locked the door behind her.
The café shrank back into itself.
My phone buzzed.
I almost ignored it.
The screen lit up anyway.
Dad.
One message.
Taylor, we need to talk.
No “Merry Christmas.”
No punctuation.
No warmth.
Just the name.
The old one.
The buried one.
The one I don’t use.
Snow melted into my hair while I stared at it.
Auré thinks I don’t have family.
That’s not entirely true.
It’s just cleaner.
The Grinch didn’t ruin Christmas Eve.
He didn’t do it while the Whos were singing.
He did it after.
He waited until morning.
I didn’t ruin tonight.
I’m not cruel.
I’m patient.
— Tag