Walking the Wire | PETER PARKER [1]

| 35 |

"All I want for Christmas—"

Elena pinches the bridge of her nose as Lucy takes a deep breath. "Please no—"

"—is YOUUUU!" Lucy sings with her arms open wide, making everyone within earshot turn and give her dirty looks and cover their ears. She ends the lyric with a tone-deaf run before bowing dramatically. "Thank you, thank you!" She blows kisses to students at other lunch tables.

"I am so sick of all the same songs on repeat since Halloween," Elena groans as she rubs her temples. "I swear I've heard Mariah Carey's voice more than I've heard my mother's this week."

"Probably," Luis mutters, occupied with peeling his orange. He lets out a frustrated huff when the orange is sour and more yellow than orange, since oranges aren't in season. He sets it aside and pulls out a small plastic tupperware container with a homemade empanada inside, no doubt prepared by Mamá Rodrìguez.

Elena's eyes zero-in on her brother. She swipes the empanada from his grasp, making him complain loudly.

"Hey!" He exclaims, reaching across the table to get it back. "That's my lunch, perra."

"This was the last one! Mamá was saving it for me!" She barks.

Luis swipes it from her grasp and retorts, "Well, it's mine now."

Elena crosses her arms. "Cabrón," she spits. Luis just grins at her smugly as he digs into the cold dish.

Lucy taps her fingernails against the table. "As much as I love hearing you two curse each other out in Spanish," she drawls sarcastically, "I was thinking."

"Not again," Cliff murmurs playfully. Lucy shoots him a sharp look, and he laughs.

"Anyways ... Friendsmas. My house. Christmas Eve." She sits back and crosses her arms, brilliant smile on her lips like she just called out the right answer in math class.

Eloise doesn't know what type of reaction she was expecting, but it clearly wasn't looks of confusion and disgust.

"Friendsmas?" Cliff asks incredulously. "Isn't that something basic white chicks do?"

Alev, Elena, and Luis stifle their laughter. Eloise eats her potato chips and watches Cliff and Lucy's exchange, wanting to see how she'd react.

Lucy looks offended. "Okay, well, we're all doing it this year," she shoots back. "So no, it isn't something only basic white chicks do, because one Vietnamese, two black, two Mexicans, and one non-basic Caucasian are going to be there."

Eloise's hand that was reaching into her bag of chips stops. Whereas everyone else at the table isn't too fond of the idea of sharing a Friendsmas on Christmas Eve this year, Eloise is actually not hating it. She's usually alone on Christmas Eve since her parents are working, and on Christmas Day the family meets up for a dinner at her great aunt Carey's house. Since Eloise's family is usually offensive and boring, she doesn't go and instead spends Christmas on the couch watching Christmas specials on TV. Sometimes she'll bake sugar cookies and eat them all within 24 hours.

But the same reoccurring thought strikes Eloise—what if she snaps and goes all psycho on them? She has to push the thought away before she can dwell too much on the idea of hurting her friends on such a happy occasion. She hasn't snapped yet, and although that doesn't mean that it'll never happen, she heads to Bucky's advice and tries not to stay stuck on the idea.