Samantha bit her lip, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. She knew, knew, knew she shouldn’t be reading this e-mail over and over, like she had been obsessively doing since she got it, last week.

But it was so hard! It was just sitting there, in her inbox.

Taunting her.

It was as if, in writing it, he had instilled a bit of himself in it too. And that bit was speaking to her, in that calm, infuriating way, telling her to read it. She imagined what he would say to her tears, too.

“It’s an apology. You’re taking this the completely wrong way. You can be incredibly sensitive sometimes. But that’s what I like about you,” he would say, and smile, taking her face in his hands…

No! She couldn’t think like that. There would be no kisses from Louis, there would be none of his false compliments and certainly, there would be no romance this Christmas season.

She had already had the dubious pleasure of reliving the horrendous breakup as the tree had gone up in their living room, and again when the first presents had started arriving, but the e-mail had been the last straw. And now here she was, alone at eight-o-clock on Christmas eve, wondering if she should just give up now and go to sleep, if only to get her mind off things.

Christmas romance is so overrated, she thought, dismally. She thought back on her memories of the relationship.

There was the first snow, when he had taken her hand, led her outside, and showed her how to make snow angels.

The day after school got out for Christmas break, and he canceled their date because something had come up last minute.

And then, Christmas day, when he showed up at her house, without a gift, and said that he wasn’t ‘ready for a relationship right now’. What was that supposed to mean? They had been in a relationship for 3 months already! What was he talking about?

Well, she thought, looking at the e-mail again. I certainly know what he meant now.

Samantha had thought that after a year he wouldn’t be able to affect her like this anymore. Then again, Samantha had thought a lot of things that ended up being false.

She sighed. She tried to convince herself that the memories she had shared with Louis had been super cheesy, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that what they’d had was fake. But as much as she tried to block out the truth, it was staring her right in the face, written in plain text.

I’m sorry I used you. But that’s what I did. And nobody deserves--

Her eyes blurred with tears.

She allowed herself to wallow a few moments, stewing in her own problems, until her phone buzzed. She tapped the screen absently, wondering if she should even check it. She didn’t really feel up to having a conversation with an actual human being right now. Her phone continued buzzing periodically, and she realized the message was being rejected because her inbox was full.

She groaned and reluctantly picked up the phone. She looked at her inbox and debated what to erase. There were the brand new texts from yesterday, or…

There were the Louis texts.

She understood that it was pathetic of her to still have the texts, but she couldn’t bring herself to delete them. So she just deleted some of the newer ones and waited for her text to arrive. Finally she got it.

It was from her friend Zach. She smiled a bit before opening the text.

Wanna play in the snow? it said.

Funny. She hadn’t even known it was snowing. She peered out the window, only to see Zach standing in her lawn, all bundled up in tons of layers, smiling widely.

Samantha opened the window. “What are you doing?” she called, shivering from the freezing wind.

“Come on Sam, you’ve been wasting away in that room all break!” he yelled up. “We’ve come to the conclusion that you could use some cheering up.”

“We who?” she asked, finally laughing, hoping her face didn’t look red and tear streaked.

“Me,” he said, joking around. “Now come on, we’re gonna make snow angels!”

Snow angels. She felt her throat close up.

“Sam?” he called. “Come on, seriously, we can make a snowman!”

She looked at her computer screen, then back through the window. Her fingers hovered over the minimize button, but suddenly she changed her mind.

She clicked the trash icon and another window popped up.

Are you sure you want to delete? It prompted her.

She clicked yes and smiled, donning her warmest jacket and gloves. She slipped out of the house and into the 6 inch snow.

And the cold seeped into the room through the open window, as did the cheerful sounds of laughter and a new, incredibly cheesy Christmas romance.

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