Merry's Christmas: A Love Story by Susan Rohrer Read Free Book Online

list’s contents, she knew she wanted to get off on the right foot with
Tara. “This is some list. Very...complete.”
    Hayden chortled. “Yeah, she’s actually
glad to be Christmassing again. Amazing we have the same DNA.”
    Tara whirled toward her twin. “I’m just
trying to be supportive. Not everyone has to be all grinch-o-rama like you.”
    Undaunted, Hayden ripped off a blank
piece of notebook paper and held it up. “Yeah. Here’s my list. I don’t want
anything.”
    Desperate to diffuse the situation, Merry
stepped closer. “Oh, you know what? I’m sorry. See, I was hoping you’d each
make a list of what you want to get for everybody else. Not even stuff to buy
necessarily. Just things you really want for each other.”
    “Don’t even get me started on that,”
Hayden replied.
    Tara studied Merry, puzzled. “Wait. These
lists, they’re...she’s... That’s what we’re going to get?”
    “The lists would be of what you’re going
to give,” Merry clarified.
    Tara wrinkled her brow. Hayden stifled a
giggle. Finally, Tara snatched the lists from Merry. Then, ceremoniously, Tara
gave her own laundry list of desired gifts to Hayden and grabbed Hayden’s blank
list for herself. “Done!” Tara pronounced as she strode out victoriously.
    Left alone with Hayden, Merry wasn’t sure
what to do. Though she’d never had a family of her own, she knew what sibling
rivalry could be like from her youth spent with other kids in orphanages and
foster care. At a loss for what to say, Merry sent up a silent plea for help.
    Hayden perused Tara’s list. She rolled
her eyes, crumpled it up and tossed it into her wastebasket. She plopped back
down on her bed and resumed her studies as if Merry wasn’t even there.
    Merry was used to feeling invisible.
She’d felt that way most of her life. But this wasn’t about how Merry felt and
she knew it. It was about Hayden. Merry took a deep breath, realizing that they
were nothing alike. She searched her mind for common ground, any way into
Hayden’s locked up heart.
    Merry tentatively ambled into the room.
“I almost had a sister once. I always wanted one,” she ventured.
    “Want mine?” Hayden shot back, never even
looking up from her work.
    “I wish it were that easy.”
    Hayden finally looked at Merry. “Who says
it’s easy having one? Especially if I’m supposed to want to give her something
that she doesn’t already have. She’s more popular. She’s got a boyfriend. She’s
prettier.”
    Seeing a crack in Hayden’s armor, Merry
risked perching on the end of her bed. “Hayden, why do you... I mean, you’re
both beautiful. You’re twins.”
    Hayden shook her head. “And in every set
there’s an Alpha. You’re looking at the uncontested Beta, here.”
    Merry sat quietly for a moment,
understanding what it was like to be passed over all too well. “Not so big on
Christmas, huh?”
    At the mention of the season, Hayden
looked sadly peeved. “Look. Even if I wanted to rally around the Christmas
tree—which I so completely don’t—I’ve still got nothing for Tara. Nothing she’d
want.”
    Hayden broke eye contact with Merry. She
picked up a pencil and seemed only to pretend to resume her homework.
    Merry read Hayden’s signal. Not wanting
to press too far too soon, she rose from the bed. “You seem really smart,
Hayden. Smarter than I ever was. As far as what Tara might like you to give her
this Christmas goes, well...you’ll think of something.”
    Merry wandered away, down the upstairs
hallway. She gazed at the family photos along the wall. Indeed, it was easy to
tell Tara from Hayden in the pictures. They’d been dressed alike as babies, and
similarly in childhood shots, as many young twins are. But clearly, as the
girls had grown into their teens, their differences had emerged. From the first
of the photos where their mother was absent, Tara was completely put together
in every picture, while Hayden looked deliberately disheveled.