I Feel Our Memories Fade With Time.

When our parents left, two weeks later, we were on our way home. As soon as Christmas break started, we were gone. We dropped Toby off at a kennel on our way to the airport. The four of us managed to get on the same flight, and pretty early too. It may seem like nothing, just the usual home for the holidays, but our parents didn’t know we were coming, and that we rented a place to have a huge Christmas party for all of our families to get together. There were still six days left, so it was enough time to get in contact with everyone who would come.

We boarded the plane, quickly finding our seats. Katie and Kyle were in front of us, both girls in the window seat, and both put earphones in as soon as we were able to use electronics. Soon after that, both of them were asleep. Kyle turned around.

“So, any wedding plans yet?” he asked.

“Nothing new. So what about you two?” I grinned.

Kyle turned to make sure that Katie was asleep. Asleep or not I could hear old school Fall Out Boy blasting from her iPod, so I knew she wouldn’t hear anything. Kyle turned back to me, first looking at Steph, seeing that she was also out.

“At the Christmas party,” he said.

“Nice,” I said, smiling. “So, where’s the ring?”

“Up in my backpack. When we land, if you want to see it, come with me to the bathroom.”

I laughed slightly because we sounded like a couple girls, but I nodded. I wanted to see the ring, just because I was curious.

“We should have a double wedding,” I suggested.

“Sounds good, but I dunno. I wanna ask her, but I don’t think we’re ready to actually get married just yet.”

“Ah, I see. It’s no big deal. The offer still exists if you change your mind though.”

He nodded, then turned around, putting his earphones in. We had a long flight ahead of us, so I also succumbed to the musical nap for the next two hours or so. I woke up to Steph elbowing me in the side.

“What?”

“We’re landing soon, plus you were starting to snore,” she said.

“Shut up,” I said, rolling my eyes.

I rested my head on Steph’s shoulder to look out the window as our home came back into view. It still looked the same as it did when we left. It was a good feeling to be home. We landed, waited to de-plane, then once we got off, everyone had to go to the bathroom, so that was the first place we went. When safely in the men’s bathroom, Kyle dug around in his backpack, pulling out a box. He showed me a simple white gold band, a sapphire that was just slightly smaller than a popcorn kernel, and two tiny white diamonds on each side. More flashy than the one I got for Steph, but I thought it was perfect.

“Katie will love it,” I said.

When we were done, we went to baggage claim, then went outside, all four of us swearing at the cold. Steph and myself put our bags in one cab while Katie and Kyle put theirs in another.

“Kyle, call me tomorrow after you’ve talked to Katie about her parents, then we’ll try to talk about this Christmas thing,” I said.

“Gotcha. See you guys later.”

Both of our cabs stayed together for a while, so we would make fun of each other between the cars until theirs pulled off the highway towards Kyle’s house. We pulled off the next exit towards my house.

“So we’ll talk to my dad first, then go to your house and talk to your parents about it. Sound good?”

“Yep. I hope we can get everyone together for this,” she said.

“Me too, sweetie.” I wrapped my arm around her, holding her close to me.

A few minutes later we stopped outside my house. I smiled. It still looked the same, though with snow covering the grass, the trees, and the bushes. Strands of lights on the gutters, surrounding the windows, and wrapped around the two pine trees in the front yard. There were two cars in the driveway, but neither belonged to my dad. I assumed his was in the garage. We grabbed our bags and paid the cab driver.

“Okay, knock on the door, or stand there, call him and tell him to open the door?” Steph asked.

“How about we just walk in?” I asked, holding up my keys. “Let’s go to the back.”

We carried our bags so we wouldn’t make noise, then went up to the back door. I was able to glance in the windows along the way, not seeing anyone. Once again assuming, I thought that whoever was around, they were in the basement. I opened the back door, peeking my head in. Silence on the first floor. Steph and I walked in leaving our bags in the kitchen. We tiptoed around, stopping at the basement door. Acoustic music and singing. I opened the door and poked my head in. They seemed to be rehearsing. The familiar singing voice belonging to my Uncle Gerard. We stepped slowly down the carpeted steps, then right before we’d be in view, I squatted and tried to look. Like when I was a kid, it was still the same. Backs turned our way. I looked up at Steph, both of us grinning as we silently went to the bottom of the stairs. With my arm around Steph’s shoulders, we watched them for a moment.

“What do you guys want for Christmas?” I asked, getting their attention.

My dad, Uncle Frank, and Uncle Gerard all turned. My dad had a priceless look of shock on his face, looking like he was going to fall off his chair.

“Tyler!? What the-? How the-? What are you guys doing here?” he asked, running up to hug us.

“We felt like we needed to be home for Christmas,” I said.

“Well, this is a huge surprise,” Uncle Frank said, hugging me. “God, Ty, you’ve grown. Look, the kid’s taller than me,” he said.

We all laughed, then Gerard piped up. “Well you’ve always been short, duh, but now that you’re getting old, you’re gonna start shrinking.” We all laughed again, harder this time while Frank just rolled his eyes. “It’s good to see you, kiddo,” he said, taking his turn to hug me.

“You guys remember Stephanie right?”

I’d realized that they had met her, but it was back when we were still young.

“Barely, but yes,” Frank said. “New fiance, right?”

“Mikey told us when he got back. I’d never seen someone so happy,” Gerard said, laughing while he grabbed his brother in a playful headlock.

I laughed cause they still acted like they were our age. “Yep, my fiance.”

“Well, let’s go upstairs, get some coffee and talk,” my dad said.

That’s exactly what we did, then sat at the table.

“Okay, so what are you guys doing for Christmas?” I asked.

“Not much. A few people were going to come here. Ray and Bob were gonna go with their families,” dad explained. “Did you guys have anything in mind?”

Steph and I exchanged glances, grinning. “Well, the four of us rented one of those big party rooms at the Marriott downtown.”

“Four?”

“Kyle and Katie are here too. Anyways, we wanted to have as much of our families as possible to get together. It’s a big party room. I think it holds like two hundred people, but we just wanted everyone together.”

“Eve or day?”

“Eve, cause we’re going back the day after Christmas, since we’ve got midterms to study for.”

I finished explaining our plans, then said I was going to take Steph to her house to tell her parents, and that I needed a car to drive, looking to my dad for that one. I really had hoped that this Christmas thing would turn out better than expected.