“Oh, goodie! Something I can help with,” Millie cheers happily, bending over a little and leaning her upper body toward me, since both of her hands are still full of McDonald’s. “But just so you know, I’ve had three nervous breakdowns, and this is not that. It’s just your garden variety panic attack. If you want to just reach down into the front of my dress, I’ve got Xannies, Percocets, a couple of Tylenols with codeine, and one horse tranquilizer that I would not recommend mixing with alcohol or you’ll wake up in a yurt in Tibet with John Mayer.” Millie laughs with a humming sigh as she shimmies her body a little to try to get me to reach into her tit pharmacy.
“I told you; I don’t do drugs. I’m going to law school. I’m going to be a lawyer,” I remind her, swallowing a few times before I can speak again as I glance over to see my father looking annoyed and heading in this direction. “I literally just vomited in my mouth when I said that. What is happening to me right now? Am I dying?”
My heart beats faster. Butterflies are flapping around so hard in my stomach it feels like they’re going to claw their way out. And my father is still looking irritated with me as he makes his way over here through the pink nightmare of flowers and people.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper as my eyes dart around the room.
I don’t want to be a lawyer.
I don’t want to be friends with douchebags.
I sure as shit don’t want to become my father.
And I definitely don’t want to be here right now, on Christmas Eve, in a house filled with fake people—minus Millie—and pink shit, instead of pine garland, and twinkle lights, and genuine happiness.
“Did you know my parents never took me to see Santa? Never. Not once. That’s pretty shitty, right?” I laugh a little hysterically.
“I’m Jewish, and even I’ve sat on Santa’s lap. But you know, he was young, and hot, and he wasn’t wearing pants at the time, and my dad paid him to be at one of our parties, so it felt a little hookerish when we snuck off, but whatever. I was a very good girl that year.” Millie laughs softly before giving me a reassuring rub of her hand on my arm.
I don’t know what the hell I want to do, but I know I don’t want this. This feeling like I’m losing control of my own life and if I don’t get out now, I never will. I’ll be stuck here in this pink nightmare on Christmas Eve without ever knowing what it’s like to truly be happy and free. Without ever knowing what it’s like to wear matching Christmas pajamas, sitting in front of a tree with someone who loves me for me. Who lets me be whoever I want and doesn’t shame me for my choices, whatever they might be.
“You’re an adult. Do whatever the fuck you want to do,” Millie says with a shrug like it’s the easiest thing in the world as she shakes the ice cubes around in her cup.
Looking beyond my father a few feet away who stopped to chat with someone on his way to me, I see the wide-open sliding doors the lead from the formal living room out to the backyard. And beyond that, even though it’s pitch-black and I can’t really see anything, I know the ocean is out there, filled with nothing but endless possibilities.
So why in the hell am I still standing in here? Millie’s right. I’m an adult, and I can do whatever the fuck I want to do.
Tugging my tie the rest of the way off, I lean over and drape it around Millie’s neck.
“Thank you,” I tell her with a smile, still feeling like I might throw up, but at least I’m not panting anymore.
“For what?” she asks.
“For… just being Millie.”
Giving her a kiss on the cheek, I step around her, pulling my tuxedo jacket off and tossing it over a pink loveseat as I go. And then I unhook my cummerbund and chuck it into a marble fountain in the middle of the room with pink water running through it. With each step I take through this pink nightmare of a house, I unbutton another button on my dress shirt until they’re all undone and I’m tugging it out of my black tuxedo pants.
“Bodhi! What the hell are you doing?” my father whispers angrily as I walk right on by him without even glancing in his direction while I yank my shirt off my shoulders and down my arms.
I continue through the house, smiling and nodding at all the shocked faces as I toss my dress shirt into a flower arrangement in the middle of a table, and then I pause by the sliding doors to the backyard to kick off my shoes and pull off my socks. Walking a few feet out into the grassy backyard until I can hear the sounds of the waves crashing into the shore, I hear a cough to my right and turn my head to find a guy in a pink onesie leaning against a palm tree and smoking.