Member-only story
My Candy Cane Girl
You’d know her if you saw her…
I can’t tell you when I first started dreaming about her. She was just an ordinary girl, really, but something about her arrested me. Her chestnut locks fell to her shoulders, and every time she bent her head I could see her pastel lips pucker in what I liked to believe might one day be a kiss made for me.
But the best dream was the one I had about her the night before Christmas. Was it a doozy? Yes, in a way, it was.
This picture-perfect girl sat under a Christmas tree bedazzled with the glow of dozens of flaming candle lights. Her luminous eyes shone bright as she sat there, knees pressed to the floor, the skirt of a dress striped in the red and white of a candy cane fanned out around her. And around her neck was a red ribbon tied like a choker made just for her.
I sucked in a breath as I stood there, watching her. Stacked around her were piles of pretty red-and-green packages atop each other — but she was the best present of all from what I could tell.
Then she looked up at me, and I was lost.
“Hello,” I said after a moment, wary, afraid the dream would dissipate as soon as I got too close. That always happened. It was as if she were just something spun of sugar, ready to dissolve at any hint of rain.
