Her posture, stiffly genteel, was off-begging. “No, thank you,” it imparted.

A magnet steeling my arrogance.

Sensing the weight of the work ahead, but never one to shirk a trying task, I folded my stiffly-starched cuffs to my elbows. Primly primed, I took the seat beside hers, though there were other, less encroaching seats available.

Her sigh oozed her disappointment. “Really?”

“I prefer a chair’s potential to it’s comfort.”

“Hmmm... that is how I choose my shoes, and this pair is potentially walking away.”

”See? What chair could offer a better view than that… pray-tell?”

Aaah, a smile... before parting.

"No thank you, I'm full." Is a gunshot in the air.

My ears ring, tongue licking lips to clear them of the gunpowder.

The duellists beneath this yellow lighting- a ninety-one year old immigrant grandmother, and a thirty-something girlfriend.

I watch, my eyelids peeled against my will (my torturer; the grip of familial penchant for drama).

My grandmother grins. All rates-ratus (grab a pipe, or a glass of wine)

"Ai-th-ee, please see this whorish-mule of a woman out."

She says to my brother; the boyfriend.

Shotgun shells litter the floor as she pushes her chair back, and disappears to pray.

'Oh honey we have to do something about these grey hairs. They aren't doing you ANY favours,' Marcel grimaced as he ran his fingers through Astrid's fringe.

Astrid glanced up from her glossy magazine and focused on the face in the large garishly lit salon mirror.

At the smile lines around her mouth, crows feet at the side of her eyes and a sprinkling of grey through her auburn hair.

'No Marcel,' she said. 'My body is a canvas of a life well-lived.'

He raised an eyebrow incredulously.

'I like the salt and pepper. So just a trim thank you.'

She was the type of gal you'd wanna get real nice with, get real close to. The kind where you wanna meet her parents and thank them. She danced low and slow to the ground like mist- no, like smoke. Her dark halo of curls stood stiffly as she meandered her way over to me. She moved like syrup sliding off pancakes.

"I don't recognize you, you with Tony?" she asked, the dim light glittering in her dark, molasses-colored eyes. Truthfully, I had no business in that dingy club. I was only there for her, the dame of my dreams.

A thousand other people could have told you that my travel through the woods was foolish. But it is only this situation that finally makes me realize that truth.

The offer to take me with him in his carriage so that I will not have to walk is still extended. His horses throw their heads to glare at me with electric blue eyes, the same color as the snapping cords connecting them to the floating carriage.

"No thank you, I'll just walk."

He tips his smoking black hat in answer, twisted smile tugging his lips back from fangs.

"Good luck."

I write the letters into the air, imagining what it would be like to hear them said out loud. There is fire in my heart. It burns for recognition, burns to answer the question: what if? But I bite my lips as you drop love letters on the table. The sounds from my mouth shape the word no, regret churning in my stomach. But I would never thank myself for saying yes. I can forgive myself for wanting you to stay. I don't know if I could forgive you for staying. I silence my apologies. You walk out the door.

Three whispered words shatter the atmosphere that had been formed over the past two hours. A social faux pas indeed, but a moral disgrace. His face remains unchanged, even when rows of people gasp and stare at him with a myriad of emotions. Disgust being the prevailing one. The woman at the microphone freezes, hand still outstretched, beckoning the man who had coldly rejected her invitation in front of hundreds. She opens her mouth a few times, words unable to form due shock. The man repeats himself. "No thank you." And then he stands, and leaves his parents' funeral midway.

Hushed voices, the swish of scrubs, the clang of stainless steel. Droning hum of machines. Ethan is across the room, scratching his beard. “What’s wrong? Is Seamus okay?” Ethan looks right through me, the lines in his forehead deep, too old for 21. He looks like his own father. I’m offered applesauce or yoghurt. “No, thank you,” I say to both. Some dull feeling in my stomach, that isn’t pain, but is the memory of pain and is worse. I’m sending smoke signals; Ethan isn’t getting them. The smoke and the noise swirl together. “Baby, little man didn’t make it.”

Of course I would just love to host Thanksgiving! You mean I get to spend days preparing several different courses, have distant cousins sleep on my couch and rummage through my medicine cabinet, argue with that one uncle who gets his news from Facebook, eat auntie’s horrifying casserole with a smile plastered on my face, and spend a couple of hours doing dishes after it all?

Well, let me think about it. And… I’m done thinking. No fuckin’ thank you.

Oh, you’re bringing wine. Make it a case of tequila instead and you've convinced me. Let’s get this over with.

Would you like cranberry sauce on your turkey? No thank you. It's about time for you to get married, have you found a boyfriend yet? I don't want a boyfriend. Then how are you going to have kids? Adoption; plenty of kids in the system. I want you to have my grandbabies. Well I'm not sure if that's what I want, so we're gonna leave this alone. Why are you always trying to hurt me?! Don't my needs matter?! Yes mom, but- You don't care about me! I'm not gonna have this same conversation every family holiday. Okay, mom? Please.