Cheat With My Boyfriend Best Friend

Why Not Breakup?

Christmas was coming, whether I wanted it or not.

Mariah Carey was playing in on every speaker, and each of the small shops along the street were decorated with red and green ribbons. Starbucks was serving their annually seasonal drinks (btw, they all tastes the same), and the sweet smell of baked gingerbread wafted around every corner.

Everyone was welcoming the Christmas spirit, except me.

And it wasn’t just my work that was getting me down.

I knew trying to yield any results before Christmas would be hopeless. It would take a miracle to make that kind of progress in a week, and it was a little too late to ask Santa.

I swallowed a mouthful of my pumpkin spice latte as I worried: Where on earth was I going to spend Christmas?

For most people, it’s a no-brainer. They were going to go see their families. All in all, Christmas was the festival for families.

But my family was just a headache to deal with every year.

Last night I found a dirty package in my mailbox from my parents. It came with a postcard that said, “Sweetie, we’re sorry we won’t be able to spend Christmas with you this year either. We’ve reached a critical stage of our research, but we still made sure to get you a gift.”

I wasn’t surprised when I opened the package.

It was a stuffed penguin.

holidays, but the sight of

stuffed penguin for Christmas for

specifically, they studied penguins. They fell in love on an icebreaker headed to Antarctica for research. Most researchers would get sick of the environment after a few months, but not my parents. Both of them preferred the company of animals over human society. They were practically made for each

when they left Antarctica for my education. After they came to New York, they were lucky they found a boarding school that would accept someone as young as three months old. If

with them is a Christmas card attached to a stuffed penguin. They probably considered

for me. No one wanted to be alone while

of being left alone, I was invited to too many gatherings by too

people.

religious parents. Ever since I was first invited to one of their Christmas parties, I’ve fantasized

say how much of my

his family party again, but I definitely

Cinder invited me to go to a ski resort

because of a scholarship opportunity while she was there because her father

father had been married four times, so his number of children was in the double digits, and that’s not even counting the illegitimate ones. Her entire family got together

he was planning on taking a cruise! The

then there

invited me to spend

him out. He acted like he’d mentioned it on a whim, which made me wonder if

men who talk about marriage just to win a woman’s heart, even though they didn’t want to get married at all.

Like Vincent.

we were coming over.” Vincent asked. “She said she had an extra gift for you since we just got engaged. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably my great- grandma’s wedding ring. It’s a family