Giving thanks for what exactly?

I was not looking forward to thanksgiving. And it wasn’t even the thought of being with my family that did it for me – for the most part we all behaved around each other, and it was a good time to catch up while stuffing ourselves silly. But this year, things just didn’t seem to be going my way.

We decided to do Thanksgiving at the Slice. Noah’s family would be there, along with Sunny’s, the Mo’s, and mine. It was the only space big enough to hold it in, and I was looking forward to seeing everyone. Until I found out what time I would be volunteering with Matt.

I thought I’d be doing a good thing, and he told me that they have their dinner early so that the volunteers still had time to spend with their families, which worked out for my early afternoon plans with my own family. What Matt neglected to tell me though, was that I had to be there at five AM to start to help prepping everything.

Once I agreed, I couldn’t really back off and say no, right? ‘Sorry, I can’t help feed people who have no place else to go, because I’d rather stay in my nice warm bed, thanks.’ But I still dreaded having to get up that early. I was not a morning person, and I knew if I didn’t get home in time to take a nap before my family’s dinner, I was going to be a bear.

I had also sort of assumed that was something John and I could do together. He couldn’t go home to Utah, so I naturally assumed we would be together. Even though I assumed, I still figured I better ask, so I turned to him one night while he was over watching some TV.

“I’m volunteering with Matt on Thanksgiving. Do you want to come with me? It’s crazy early but then I figured but then afterwards we could take a nap before we head to Slice to meet up with everyone.”

“I didn’t realize we were hanging out that day.” He said, not even bothering to look at me.

“Uh…” I faltered, caught off guard. “I just sort of assumed… I mean you aren’t going home…”

“I know, but my boss invited me to his house and I told him I’d go. You had your family so…”

“I know, but I mean…. Sunny will be there too, along with Noah so… The more the merrier.”

“Well I can try to swing by after, maybe.”

“No. I mean it’s fine. Whatever you can do.” I said, and turned my focus back to the TV.

My problem was that I looked at John like he was my boyfriend, and just assumed we’d be together. John viewed me as a friend – a friend he hooked up with, but just a friend. I couldn’t be mad, this was the arrangement I had agreed too, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore that voice in the back of my head that said I wanted more than this.

Needless to say, I woke up the morning of thanksgiving already grumpy. It was early, and I laid in bed trying to talk myself in to getting out of bed. John rolled over and pulled me closer.

“Don’t go yet.” He said, planting light kisses on the back of my neck.

“I have too…” I said, gasping when he gently bit down on my shoulder.

“I want to show you what I’m thankful for first…” he said, sliding his hand up under my shirt.

I rolled over, facing him, and he kissed me deeply.

“You….” He said, planting kissing down my jawline. “Are so beautiful first think in the morning.” He pulled back in order to pull my shirt over my head. “So very beautiful.” He said, his eyes running up my torso, his hands following after.

I felt my face turn red – I still wasn’t used to the compliments, nor was I used to being naked in front of a man. We still hadn’t gone all the way – I had backed off after my last embarrassing attempt, and John had taken the hint and hadn’t pushed too much.

“Let me…” He said, slipping his hand down between my legs.

“Please…” I whispered, embarrassed.

“Please what? Do you want me to stop?” He asked, pulling back.

“No… Please.” I said more urgently, pulling him to me. I hoped he got the message – I didn’t want to have to ask.

He did get the hint, and as he hovered over me, he looked me in the eye and asked “are you sure?”

I just nodded.

Needless to say, I was late, and Matt was not happy when I arrived.

“I said five Lanie!” Was how he greeted me when I found him in the kitchen. “I’m sorry Matt, I overslept.” I lied. What I really wanted to say is that he could stop barking at me when I was doing him a favor and helping him out, but I bit my tongue.

He rolled his eyes in response. “How are you at cutting vegetables?”

“I run a pizza restaurant Matt. I can cut some veggies.”

But it turns out, I couldn’t cut them to Matt’s specifications. He was being totally manic – running all over the place and barking out orders to everyone. He left me alone in peace with my celery for all of ten minutes before he was back.

“Not like that Lanie!” He said, exasperated. He stood behind me and put his arms around me, holding my hand over the knife. “Like this.” He said, as he began to chop.

The feeling of his body against mine reminded me of how John’s felt against me this morning, and I closed my eyes for a moment, suddenly woozy.

And that was the moment I sliced down and Matt yelled out in pain. I opened my eyes and spun around to see Matt holding a finger that was gushing blood.

“Oh crap! I’m so sorry!” I yelled, and then I sprang into action.

Working in a kitchen meant I had dealt with my fair share of injuries, and I could handle cuts and burns. I grabbed a towel off the workstation and wrapped it around his finger. It quickly filled up with blood.

“Don’t remove the towel, we want to try to clot it.” I said, applying pressure. A few of the other volunteers had stopped what they were doing and moved in closer to try to help, one of them handing me another towel to wrap over the one that was now soaked in blood..

“Don’t. I’m fine, everyone go back to work.” Matt said. “We need to have dinner ready.”

“Matt, I think you’re going to have to go to the hospital.” I said calmly.

“I can’t leave Lanie, dinner….”

“You’re going to be of no use to us here, bleeding all over the place. Go on and get fixed up, we can manage.” An older lady said. Matt opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a word out, she turned to me. “Can you take him?”

I nodded and took his arm. “C’mon, let’s go.”

I figured the emergency room would be empty, it being so early, but no – it was apparently the place to be on Thanksgiving. People with burns, or who were holding what I assumed was a ‘vomit bucket’, as well as people who looked fine but probably just wanted somewhere to be. I thought Matt’s injury was serious enough to get us called back right away, but by the time the triage nurse called us back, the bleeding had slowed and Matt’s vitals were fine, so we were sent back out into the waiting room.

“I’m sorry, for cutting your finger.” I said, as we sat back down.

“It was my fault, if I hadn’t of been so anal… This dinner is just my thing, you know? When I first arrived here, they served a dinner, but it was so bad that they couldn’t even get homeless people to show up. I mean we had literally four people show up, and I don’t even know if they ate of if they just sat around for the company. So, the next year I took over, and I changed our menu around, and we’ve been steadily getting more and more people. But, I get so wrapped up in it, because it’s sort of MY thing, and now it looks like I’m going to miss the whole deal.” He said, looking down at his hand.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think Matt was trying to make me feel bad, but I did feel even worse. We sat in silence for a while, until finally his name was called.

“You don’t have to stick around, if you have someplace to be…” He said as he stood.

“No, I mean… How else are you going to get back?” I said, and I stood and followed him back to his room.

Where we waited even longer for a doctor to come back, look at his wound, and say what I already knew – Matt needed stitches. The doctor then left the room for another hour (apparently he was making the needle and thread himself) All in all, the actual stitching took about ten minutes, but we had spent about four hours in the ER.

After we left, we got back just in time to help start serving. The line seemed to be endless, and it felt both good and bad – I was happy to be there, happy that people had a place to go, but it is really hard seeing such little kids and knowing that this is it for them.

When we were done, Matt and I both tried to stay to help clean up, but the woman who insisted I take Matt to the hospital shooed us both away.

“You cannot get that finger all gunky. Sweetheart, take him home.”

As we walked out to our cars, I turned to Matt.

“We’re having dinner at the restaurant. You’re welcome to come… I mean unless you have something to do.”

“No, I’ve got nothing – my family postpones our dinner until the weekend. But, I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

“You won’t. It’s a whole bunch of people, so, the more the merrier. If you want to ride with me, I can run you home later.”

I wasn’t sure why I had invited Matt – I hadn’t really thought it through. I did still feel guilty about his finger, and I had sort of assumed he’d say no that he had family things to do.

When I walked into Slice, everyone was already there, setting up and cooking. I said hello to my Mom and siblings, and introduced Matt around to everyone. We were just sitting down to dinner when the door open – and in walked John, with the same woman who had given him a ride home the day he stood me up.