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.

being unreliable around the holidays, but the

They’ve been sending me a stuffed penguin for Christmas for the past decade! I wasn’t a child

specifically, they studied penguins. They fell in love on an icebreaker headed to Antarctica for research. Most researchers would get sick of

young as three months old. If they were

a Christmas card attached to a stuffed penguin.

been hard for me. No one wanted to be alone while everyone else was

opposite problem. Instead of being left alone, I was

people.

dated Vincent, we went to his parents’ house. He was from a big family with religious parents. Ever since I was first

say how much of my “love” for Vincent was just love for his

definitely didn’t want to spend the holiday with the

Cinder invited me to go to

girls’ boarding school when we were younger. I was there because of a scholarship opportunity while she was

illegitimate ones. Her entire family got together for Christmas, and it was always a good show. Sometimes, Cinder went home to see the

year, he was planning on taking a cruise! The ship was set to

there was

me

He acted like he’d mentioned it on a whim, which made me wonder if it was another

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

Like Vincent.

over.” Vincent asked. “She said she had an extra gift for you since we just got engaged.