I Lost My Fear of Falling

It was Christmas and I’d managed to not slaughter my brother, which was a Christmas miracle in itself.
My family had just finished opening presents and I had obtained permission to spend the rest of the day with Mikey and his family.
I think my mom agreed just so she could piss my dad off. He hadn’t even come downstairs for the present opening.
I was just happy to be going to see Mikey. I really hoped he wouldn’t think my gift was corny.
The door was open for me when I got to his house and I closed it behind me.
“Merry Christmas Emmy.” Mikey’s mom said, giving me a warm hug.
“Merry Christmas.” I gave her an awkward hug back and she led me into the living room.
Gee was dancing around the tree singing, “It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas!” in some really weird skeleton pajamas. Mikey was just laughing at him, until he spotted me.
He pulled me down onto the floor with him and Mrs. Way quickly vacated the room, followed closely by Gee.
“They seem to do that a lot.” I remarked, pulling the wrapped package out of my coat. I already had the lock charm around my neck.
He pulled a box out from behind his back and we traded. I felt bad because my gift was so much smaller than his.
“Open yours first.” I insisted. He peeled back the wrapping paper and held the key up in front of him.
I lifted the lock out of my shirt and showed it to him. “The key fits the lock.”
He grinned when he figured out what the charms meant. “Help me get it on?” I closed the clasp for him and he gave me a kiss.
“Okay, now open yours.” He clapped his hands excitedly like a little kid.
I opened the package and saw his Anthrax shirt on top. Underneath was a plaid flannel shirt and a black hoodie, both his.
“I don’t know if you notice this, but every time you give me a hug, you sniff me. So I figured now you could sniff me all the time. I’ll have to rotate them out for you so they still smell like me.”
I tackled him to the floor. “That is so sweet.” I kissed him once, twice, three times before pulling him to his feet. “Come on, traditional Christmas snow man.”
My hands were nearly frozen by the time we were done, but we had a snow man built in the space between our houses by noon.
“Are you ready for your other present?” Mikey asked, his hands gripping my hips. I had a feeling I knew what he was getting at.
“Oh yeah.” I let him tow me to his car. We sang along to the Smashing Pumpkins at the top of our lungs as we drove to god knows where, hopefully somewhere deserted, seeing as I wasn’t much of an exhibitionist.
“I think we might be going to hell.” I said as we turned down a side road that didn’t seem to be used too often.
“Sex on Christmas? We’re trying to make the next Jesus.” Mikey said, his face dead serious. I nearly busted a rib laughing.
He parked and in a flash I had his seatbelt off and was pulling him into the backseat.
Wes was right about it hurting less the second time around.
Mikey’s head was resting on my chest and we were both trying to catch our breath. I barely registered how fogged up the windows were, I was so focused on Mikey’s heartbeat.
He had a blanket in the car and he wrapped us up in it, pulling me in close to his chest.
“If anything, I’m hot right now Mikers.” I rested my face on his neck. “We should head back soon, before they start getting suspicious.”
“Do we have to?” He made a face.
“I don’t want to either, but seeing as my parents are gonna start flipping their shit in a bit, we should go. I don’t want them to keep us apart.”
“Can’t argue with that.” It was hard to get our clothes back on in the backseat but soon we were on our way back home.
I fell asleep that night thinking of Mikey, in the black hoodie he’d given me.
Every few minutes I’d bring up the sleeve to my nose and inhale the smell of him. It felt like he was right there with me.