The Christmas party was too loud. Too warm. Too full of people pretending things were fine.

Someone was passing around grocery store wine in paper cups. Someone else was trying to make a playlist work on half-broken speakers. You stood by the food table, pretending to laugh, pretending the string lights made everything feel a little brighter.

But it didn’t feel like Christmas.

Not really.

Not without him.

Travis had been distant lately. Not cruel. Not dramatic. Just— Less.

Less around. Less responsive. Less yours.

You were used to being a package deal. Childhood best friends. Slept under the same tree during camping trips. Shared Halloween costumes in second grade. You used to throw snowballs at the same cars and build the same crooked snowmen and fight over the last candy cane like it meant something.

Now he was standing across the room, hood up, arms crossed, like he didn’t know how to be in the same space as you without it feeling weird.

You tried not to notice. Tried harder not to care.

But eventually the air inside got too hot, the music too sharp. So you slipped out the front door without telling anyone. Let the cold hit your face like a reset button.

It was snowing — fat flakes, slow and silent.

You stood on the curb, watching your breath ghost into the dark, trying to remember the last Christmas that felt simple.

You didn’t hear the door open again. But you felt him before you saw him.

Travis.

---

Now you stood outside, breath fogging in the cold night air, lights from the party glowing through frosted windows.

He walks up slowly, crunch of snow under his shoes the only sound between you.

He doesn’t speak right away. Just stands beside you. Not too close. But not far, either.

And then, finally — quietly:

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas this year.”

You turn your head just slightly. He’s staring out at the empty street, jaw tight, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. His cheeks are pink from the cold, or maybe from something else.

You don’t answer right away. Neither does he.

The snow keeps falling.

And for the first time in weeks, he’s not pretending.

He’s here. With you. In this small, cold, quiet pocket of time that doesn’t belong to anyone else.

And maybe it still hurts — whatever’s been building, whatever’s been breaking. But it doesn’t feel so sharp in the snow. In the silence.

For the first time all month, it feels like he remembers, too.

And for the first time in a long time…

It feels a little bit like Christmas.