A Teddy Bear for Christmas

"Thanks." It was what I could afford with the help of that big deposit from my Mom and Dad. It was small but I liked it all the same. Twenty ninth floor, nice view over the river, you could see everything except my bedroom from where he was standing. My spotless little galley kitchen on the right, my little home office alcove with my desk and bookcases and my high-powered gaming PC on the left, the single big living room straight ahead. Teddy looked at my gaming PC, looked at me. Grinned knowingly.

I smiled back. I had friends' online, people I gamed with who I'd never met but who I chatted with, played with. Online, I was a different person, the person I'd liked to have been in reality and I was good at it. People wanted me on their team, playing with them. We chatted, we joked, the only thing we never did was meet in person, but I knew that if we did, that whole mirage, the image I'd built up of myself, it would burn away in the grim light of reality, just as Cinderella's ball gown and glass slippers had disappeared at midnight. I could fake a life online at least. I couldn't fake real life but I wanted to.

"What you see is it except for the sunroom and my bedroom." I led him across the room, wanting to show him everything, afraid to show him anything. What if he didn't like it?

He looked into my small sunroom on the far right corner, my six foot tall dragon tree, my old carved wooden Chinese couch and two matching chairs inlaid with mother-of-pearl, two matching side tables, a rectangular coffee table with the large old Tibetan rug on the floor and the Chinese scrolls on the walls. I'd picked the hardwood floor to match the furniture.

"It looks like a Chinese tea room," Teddy said, admiring the solidly hand-carved rosewood couch and chairs with their inlayed mother-of-pearl artwork, all flowers and dragons. "It's beautiful...." He hesitated, "...it feels so ... so tranquil."

"That's what I was trying for," I said, heart leaping. He liked it, he did. The furniture had been my grandparents. The dragon tree too. After my granddad had passed away, my grandma had given it to me when she leased out their house and moved in with my Mom and Dad. That sunroom always brought back memories of the peace and calm of my grandparents' home when I was a little girl. The smell of incense and Chinese herbs, my granddad sitting drinking jasmine tea and reading. My grandma and her friends in the dining room playing mah-jong and chattering away.

That sunroom right on the corner of the building was my favorite space, a tranquil and sunny oasis of security in which to sit and relax or lie and read a book on a Sunday afternoon. Teddy liking my sunroom gave me a little flush of happiness and joy, temporarily replacing that fear, that dread of tomorrow.

Kevin had always laughed at my sunroom furniture. "It's so old-fashioned Chinese," he'd said after he'd first seen my apartment. "You should just dump that crappy old furniture."

Right after I'd explained what that small sunroom and that beautiful old furniture meant to me. Even the memory of those words of Kevin's still stabbed deep into my heart. Really, when I thought about it, he was such an asshole. Now that I'd decided we were over, it was hard to see what I'd actually seen in him at all. Other than desperation on my part, I guess. That wasn't a nice thought, that I'd been that desperate. That I was that desperate.

I left Teddy to look around while I returned to the kitchen to grind the coffee beans, firing up the Miele to make the coffee. I could see Teddy standing looking at the large Chinese painting I'd mounted as the centerpiece on one wall.

"It's from Beijing," I told him as he stepped closer, examining it. "Two hundred and fifty years old." I'd splurged on that. It was totally more than I could afford at the time. I'd loved the painting the moment I'd laid eyes on it in a shop in Chinatown that sold old Chinese furniture and art. One of those old Chinese landscapes, all mountains and rivers and trees. The old Chinese guy that owned the shop had held it for me until I could pay him. I'd scrimped and saved for three entire months to pay for it on top of maxing out one of my credit cards. I could sit there and look at that painting for hours. I was still paying that one off. Kevin had never looked at it, not even once.

"It's so beautiful," Teddy said, examining it. I could tell from the way he said it that he meant it. "You've got some beautiful stuff here, Sara."

"Thank you," I said, a little shyly, basking in the glow of the smile he gave me. I was sure he wasn't just being polite. He meant every word. "There's not much else to see."

But I showed him anyway. Grandma's old display cabinet that had come as a matching set with my sideboard and the rosewood and inlaid mother-of-pearl couch and chairs in my sunroom. That display cabinet held my carefully acquired collection of old Chinese porcelain and Chinese tea sets. I had a couple of beautiful old French Louis XIV teacups that I'd found in an antique market as well as three old antique coffeepots. Lastly, and rather more shyly, I showed him my bedroom. My apartment only had one, but it was large, with its own en-suite bathroom and sliding glass doors into the sunroom so you could open them and the bedroom would look even larger and more open.

Usually I left those doors open. That large bedroom was the reason I'd bought this apartment, rather than the model with two smaller bedrooms and no home office nook.

"Nice bed," Teddy said, eyeing my king-sized futon with the slatted wood headboard and footboard. "Can I?"

I blushed, nodding as he stepped into my bedroom. Not even Kevin had ever been in here. I'd always kept the door firmly closed when he came around. I didn't want to give him any ideas. Mom had drilled that into me. "Nothing before the engagement ring's on your finger, Sara. You remember that."

Well, there wasn't going to be an engagement ring anytime soon, was there?

Seeing Teddy inside my bedroom, my heart beat faster, my cheeks burned. My bedroom furniture was something else I'd taken a lot of care picking. Weekends and weekends. It wasn't like I'd had anything better to do but how I'd wished at the time that I'd had a friend I could go shopping with. That beautiful futon bed, two wooden Japanese-styled nightstands and a dresser that came as a set with the futon. Two big bookcases made of teak packed with all my favorite romance novels. A small coffee table made of Indonesian teak and bamboo and glass sat under the single window. Two Chinese rugs, one on either side of the bed.

Teddy was looking at the artwork on my bedroom walls. I'd wanted something Japanese, to match the furniture. I'd picked up four very subdued pieces, a set of matching Japanese paintings in silver and gold and copper, Chokin-style landscapes. I loved them. My Miele chose that moment to whistle at me. I left Teddy in my bedroom to contemplate my paintings while I poured us a couple of mugs.

"Cream and sugar?" I called from the kitchen.

"Cream, no sugar," he called back, emerging from my bedroom as I walked across to the single large black leather couch that sat under the window. We sat down, side by side, each of us half turned towards the other. Over dinner, we'd seemed to have had so much in common, so many interests we shared, so many things to talk about. Not just Teddy talking either, Teddy had got me talking and I hadn't said anything dumb or stupid and I'd understood everything, or at least I thought I had. Now, not moving, finally sitting down without anything to distract my thoughts, I wasn't sure anymore. All my fears and worries resurfaced in an instant.

"What's wrong, Sara?" Teddy looked concerned, and really, that just made it worse.

Was I so easy to read? Thinking about tomorrow? About facing my parents. Facing all my uncles and aunts and cousins. Without Kevin, when they would all be expecting to meet the guy who liked poor Sara enough to come visit her family with her. I felt sick. My heart juddered in my chest. I couldn't think. My hand shook, spilling hot coffee on my little black dress. Teddy reached over, took my coffee out of my hands, placed my mug on the coffee table. Took my trembling hands in his.

"What is it, Sara? What's wrong? Is it Kevin?"

I clutched at his hands where he held mine, looking at nothing, trembling, my teeth chattering, feeling my hands shaking. Even clasped in his, my hands were shaking. Cold. I felt so cold. Shivering now. "He was supposed to go out to dinner with me tonight, Teddy. It was supposed to be a romantic dinner and then he was coming to my parents with me tomorrow for Christmas and he just cancelled everything on me at the last second because of some stupid work thing and he knows my family are all expecting him. He's Chinese, Teddy, he knows what it meant to me and he stood me up ... he stood me up right at the last minute and now I have to face my whole family without him, Teddy, after I told them all he was coming with me, that they were going to meet him."

I looked at Teddy blindly. "What did I ever do to deserve that? I mean, I know I'm not the most beautiful girl in the world, I'm not even pretty really, and I'm too smart and I don't have any social skills and everyone thinks I'm being rude because I just say what I think and it's not fair, Teddy. It's not fair. I'd never think of doing something like that to anyone. Never. Not even to Kevin and I know he's a loser, Teddy. I don't even love him but he was the best I could do on my own and I was willing to take him just because he wanted me and even though he's a brown nosing little jerk and I know that but I dated him all the same because I thought he wanted me and he stood me up just like that, without a second thought. What's wrong with me, Teddy? What's wrong with me? Why did he do that to me? How could he be so cruel? How could he?"

On the verge of tears again, I stood up, walked to the windows, the bright city lights glittering with such beauty through the unshed tears of pain that filled my eyes. Why me? Why had Kevin been so cruel to me? Standing me up the way he had. He was Chinese, like me, he had to know what he'd done, he had to, and it was just such a horrible thing to have happen to me when my expectations and hopes had been raised so high. Couldn't he at least have waited until after Christmas if he wanted to dump me? That might have been worse for me but at least I wouldn't have been made to look like a total loser in front of my entire family.

For weeks I'd been so looking forward to this Christmas with my family. For the first time ever, I'd be going home with a boyfriend at my side. At last I'd be able to look at my Mom and Dad and my Uncles and Aunties and cousins and not feel like I was letting the family down. Now my hopes had been dashed to pieces. I was going to feel both guilty and a complete loser. A total failure. I already felt like one now and I couldn't bear it. A sob escaped me. Another. I felt those tears finally trickling down my cheek.

I couldn't hold them back, even though I tried so hard. I'd tried so hard for so long, for so many years. But what Kevin had done to me tonight, it was just too much pain for me to bear. I'd believed him. He'd said he loved me and I'd believed him and his words had meant so much to me now this.

Big strong arms engulfed me as Teddy held me from behind. "It's okay, Sara. It's okay. You're better off without him."

"It's not okay, Teddy." I was crying now, my tears flowing without restraint as I turned in his arms to bury my head against his shoulder. "It's not okay at all. I really thought he loved me, Teddy, I thought he meant what he said. I did. Even if I didn't love him at all, I thought he loved me and that was enough for me, Teddy. It was enough for me that he said he loved me and I trusted him and I told my family he was coming to stay for Christmas and he stood me up, Teddy. He stood me up. He didn't even give me enough time to make up a story for my family. They're expecting to see him with me tomorrow, Teddy and he won't be and he's making me look like a total loser to my entire family. I'm such a failure."

"Sara, Sara, Sara." He was holding me tight, one arm around my back, the other stroking my hair as my tears soaked into his shirt. "He's an idiot and you're beautiful, you're adorable." His lips brushed the top of my head but I was too wrapped up in my own misery to stop. I barely heard what he'd said.

"I'm not, Teddy, I'm not beautiful at all. I'm skinny and my boobs are too small and my butt's non-existent and I've got a flat nose and my eyebrows are all wrong and my feet are too big and I can't do social chit-chat to save my life and I annoy everyone I work with coz I'm too smart and I don't know how to be nice about it when they're wrong and I always say the wrong thing at the wrong time and I haven't got any friends anymore coz they're all married and busy with their husbands and kids and they were never really friends anyhow, they just tolerated me hanging around and I've never had a boyfriend in my life besides Kevin and I know he's a total jerk and a brownnosing little asshole but he was the best I could do and I couldn't even keep him.....Oh god, I'm just a complete failure, Teddy, and now I'm telling you all this and I only met you tonight and I'm such a loser that I don't even have anyone else I'm friends with that I can say this too. I don't have anyone, Teddy and I'm just so lonely all the time."

I was crying so hard now that I could barely stand. I just wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and howl. I'd never felt such agony, not even back at High School when everyone was rude to me, including my friends, because I was such a nerd and I didn't understand the jokes and I couldn't talk music and fashion and makeup and movies and boys like everyone else and I'd never been on a date, let alone had a boyfriend. Girls can be so cruel, but even then I'd never felt the sheer misery that I was feeling now.

That feeling of complete and utter rejection by the one person I'd placed all my hopes on. He'd told me that he loved me. He'd actually said that to me and I'd believed him and it'd all been lies, he hadn't loved me at all. He hadn't even cared. It'd just been words and knowing that, knowing Kevin hadn't meant a thing he'd said, despair overwhelmed me, crashing down on me like an avalanche. That feeling of loneliness, of having absolutely no-one to go to, to talk to, to share things with. In a city with millions of people, I was so completely alone.

Anguish at knowing that even that brownnosing little climber Kevin had no qualms at all about standing me up for the most important event in my life without a second thought. He probably hadn't even had a first thought. He'd just gone ahead and done it without a care in the world. What had been so important to me, the focus of my life for the last six weeks, it hadn't meant a thing to him. I meant that little to Kevin that he could do that. The one person in the world who I'd thought had actually loved me enough to want me and knowing that, realizing that he didn't, that he never had, that it'd been a lie and that I'd fooled myself into believing it because I needed so desperately to believe it, my heart finally shattered into infinitesimal fragments and I clung to Teddy, bawling my eyes out.

Tonight's magical dinner with Teddy was the way it should have been with Kevin. And then I should have been seeing my family tomorrow with him at my side, feeling so proud of myself. So happy that I could show up with my guy, that my boyfriend was coming for Christmas with my family and that finally I'd met my family's expectations, even if he wasn't the world's best catch, even if I didn't love him. He'd said he loved me. That'd do for me.

And he'd stood me up.

It was too much to bear. It was all too much for me.

Teddy swept me of my feet, picked me up in his arms as if I was a feather, carried me to my couch, sat down with me on his lap, held me in his arms. Holding me, cradling my head against his shoulder as I wept tears of bitterness and anguish and misery. Tears of pain and hopelessness. All the tears I hadn't wept since I was twelve years old and I'd summoned up all my courage and asked Micheal Robson to dance with me at the Bible Class Christmas Party and he'd looked at me like I was some weird insect and just laughed and said, "with you?" and turned and walked away, leaving me standing there, crying.

Even my friends from Bible Class, the one place up until then where I'd felt safe from laughter and the making fun of me that happened at school, even they'd joined in the laughter. I'd never forgotten the pain and the total humiliation of that moment. I'd never gone back to Bible Class after that night. I'd never cried since then either, not in public anyhow, but now those years and years of held back tears poured out, on and on as Teddy held me.

He held me the way I'd always wanted someone to hold me and that made the pain, the hurt, the despair, the misery; that made it all even worse. All those years, this was all I'd ever wanted. To be held in someone's arms and told they liked me. Not even that they loved me, just that they liked me enough to hold me and care for me and no-one ever had.

Not even that jerk, Kevin. He'd held me, but that was just to kiss me and to try and get his hand under my top or under my skirt and when I'd stopped him, he'd let me go. He'd never just held me because he liked to hold me or because he cared for me. Cradled in Teddy's arms I knew the difference and I cried even harder. Now it was all so clear to me. Kevin hadn't really loved me at all, not even really liked me, he was just trying it on with me and he'd never cared at all and I'd totally misread his interest in me and knowing that, I began to drown in a sea of unmitigated wretchedness.

"Sara ... Sara ...," Teddy held me, stroked my hair, my head as I soaked his shirt with my tears. "Don't cry, Sara, he's not worth your tears." His arms held me tight, his lips kissed the top of my head. A hand appeared, holding tissues, wiping my face, my eyes, lips kissing the top of my head as his voice whispered, "Sara, you're not alone, you've got me now. Look at me, Sara, look at me."

A finger under my chin tilted my face up. I looked up, unable to stop crying, the tears pouring down my face.

"You're beautiful, Sara." Teddy kissed me, his fingers under my chin, brushing my jaw, brushing my cheek as his lips brushed mine so gently, so delicately.

Stunned disbelief held me frozen as his lips somehow took possession of mine, my mouth opening to him, opening wide for his tongue, feeling his tongue in my mouth, touching mine, flirting and dancing with mine and I was being kissed as I'd never been kissed by Kevin. The only guy who'd ever kissed me before. Teddy's kiss was magical, an ethereal experience that held me still in his arms, looking up at him, still crying silently as he continued to kiss me.

Why? Why was he kissing me? Did he feel sorry for me? Did he pity me? I couldn't stand to be pitied. Not by anyone, least of all now by Teddy. But he'd put his arm around me when we'd walked to Bocata. He'd smiled at me. He'd held my hand all the way from Bocata back to my apartment and I'd loved that. Loved my hand held in his, loved his arm around me. He was holding me now, holding me so tight in his arms. Maybe he really did like me? Faint hope warred with the agony of long and bitter experience within me. I wanted him to like me so much. I wanted that more than anything but I was so afraid. Afraid of rejection, afraid of laughter, afraid of disappointment.

Afraid that he didn't mean it, that he was toying with me. Guys did that, I knew. I'd seen it happen with girls I knew and I couldn't stand to have that happen to me, not after Kevin's phone call tonight. Not with Teddy, whom I found so attractive, who'd given me those magical hours earlier this evening when I'd almost forgotten the pain and the humiliation that I'd be facing tomorrow and Christmas Day and the day after. I wanted to remember those magical few hours with Teddy, to treasure them, to hold them safe in my mind, not to have them join that endless series of pain-filled memories and now that he was kissing me, I was so afraid that they would.