Tim shook his head. “I’m not you.”
“Oh.” I sat down next to him on the carpet and picked up a gift wrapped in blue paper with a skiing snowmen pattern. The tag said it was for me. I shook the small box. It was heavy for its size and didn’t rattle.
“Hey, don’t break it.” Tim took a strip of tape that had to be at least six inches long. He placed it along the seam on the back of the present he was wrapping. “I’m busy. I don’t have time to replace your gift.”
I set the box gently back beneath the tree, resting it on the red felt tree skirt. “Are you worried about finals?”
“School? No way.” He tore off another overly long strip of tape and placed it lengthwise on the crumpled paper at the end of the box.
His technique was textbook boy, but it still made me twitchy. “Really, I can wrap these for you.”
“And make them look pretty? Why bother?” He rolled the paper on the other end of the box the way one rolls a paper lunch bag. “Everybody just tears through the paper anyway.”
Yeesh. It was all I could do not to snatch the box from him and smooth the crumpled paper into orderly folds.
“You surprised me.” Tim took a small, peel-and-press gift tag, scribbled Dad’s name on it, tore off the paper backing, and stuck it on his gift.
“Sorry. I’ll get out of your way. I didn’t realize you had more gifts to wrap.” I started to stand, intending to give him his privacy.
“No.” He put a hand on my arm, drawing me back to the carpet. “I meant, you really stepped up for Mom and Dad. They’re still tense with each other, but it’s a better kind of tension.”
“That’s…” So weird to hear coming out of my little brother’s mouth. He’d grown up in the five years since I’d seen him last. “That’s really nice of you to say.”
He scoffed. “Don’t get ideas. You are the bane of my existence.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re perfect.”
“Hardly.” An ornament on the tree caught my eye. I tapped it gently. “See this wooden rocking horse? It looks pretty, doesn’t it? I painted that in fourth grade. Or rather, I painted the back side.” I turned it around so that he could see the mess the back was. The colors ran together to form black on that side. “Mom painted the front. I’m like this ornament. Half is just for show, created by Mom’s handiwork.”
How could Nick want to be with someone like me?
I returned the rocking horse ornament to its original place, Mom side out.
Tim turned it back so the side I’d painted faced us. “This is you.” He reached further around the Christmas tree to draw out another wooden rocking horse ornament. “I had Mrs. Berry for fourth grade, too. Mom didn’t come in to help in any of my classes.” His rocking horse was painted a blotchy blue and yellow all around. “Mom gave up on me by the third grade. I wasn’t an athlete. I sure as heck wasn’t a dancer. And all I wanted to do was play video games.”
I nodded. “She always blamed Dad for giving you that game console for Christmas as a third-grader.”
“The parents want me to go to college,” Tim said morosely. “They don’t listen when I tell them I make a good living livestreaming my game play now. I got Mom and Dad new cell phones for Christmas.”
My mouth dropped open. Even working two jobs and collecting tips at the café, I couldn’t afford to buy my parents each a cell phone.
“But they won’t see that as proof that I know what I’m doing,” Tim said mournfully. “They think I need a fallback plan.”
“I wish they would have made me consider a fallback plan. Maybe then I wouldn’t be at a loss as to what to do with my life after my dance career ends.”
Tim scoffed again. “Why get distracted from what you love until it’s time to find something else to love?”
“I suppose there’s truth to that. But it’s not easy.” And increasingly, I felt pressure to find something else to be passionate about. “My friend Carol just moved back to town and bought the bookstore.” Come to think of it, I had no idea what she’d done in New York. Had she worked in a bookstore while there? I was embarrassed to realize that I didn’t know.
“She’s a friend of yours? She’s starting over and she’s ancient.” Tim arranged the boxes underneath the tree into a symmetric trio formation. All three boxes were the same size.
“Did you get me a phone for Christmas?” I reached for the box tagged as mine once more.
Tim swatted my hand away. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
I studied my little brother with his average teenage looks. He didn’t seem so average anymore. “How much do you make a year with this livestreaming thing you do?”