Who's Fault?

Chapter Ten

On Christmas day I slept in until around noon, I woke up groggy and it took me a few minutes to reorient myself. When I got out of bed, the first thing I did was examine myself in the mirror in the bathroom. My hair looked like a rats nest, there was sleep gunk all around my eyes, and, overall, I just seemed disheveled. I quickly tore off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the bathroom floor and took a shower.

After scrubbing myself clean, I dressed in a pair of black leggings and a Christmas themed sweater. It was green with a silhouette of a white reindeer and polka dots embroidered on it. I then put all the normal products in my hair that kept my long curls semi-tamed and left it to dry. I wasn't sure why, but I also applied mascara to my lashes. Who am I trying to impress? I'm all alone!

Before doing anything else, I lit Christmas scented candles and turned on Christmas music so it was blasting throughout the house. I did this every year. A part of me always hoped that it would piss off my mother. She never said anything about it to me, but I still felt like it was a huge 'fuck you' towards her. I went to get started preparing my food, but suddenly remembered I had to send out Christmas texts. Usually I only sent those out to Max and Chloe, but this year I was able to add someone else to the list.

After sending my texts to the two siblings, I typed out my message to Eli. 'Merry Christmas Ellie. I hope you enjoy your day with your family!' I hit send before I could think twice about it. Yes, I knew we were dating now, but in the moments when I was alone with my thoughts, it still felt odd to me. It felt like it wasn't real. It isn't. He's just lying. He'll show his true colors eventually. It's too good to be true.

To block out those thoughts, I started gathering my ingredients. I always made my Christmas meal like how a Thanksgiving meal should be. I made a small turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and also chocolate French silk pie. Granted some of the prep work had to have been started early, like defrosting the turkey, but I still liked the idea of having this as a meal. Even if it didn't take place on Thanksgiving day. I got started with the turkey and stuffing; I knew since it was already so late in the day that I would be eating late at night, but I didn't mind it at all.

When they turkey was in the oven, I made sure to thoroughly wash my hands before getting started on the pie. I must admit, I did have a bad habit of cheating a bit when it came to making this part of the meal. I bought pre-made pie crusts instead of going through the effort of making them by myself. This year I got a graham cracker crust; I figured it would taste good. With that piece of the pie taken care of (haha get it!?!), I moved on to mixing the ingredients for the filling. The worst part about the recipe I used was getting the cooled chocolate that needed to be previously melted in a double boiler out of the pot and into the mixture. I powered through it though because it had never failed to taste incredible.

I stashed the pie into the fridge to set, then turned the music off and the TV on to watch a Christmas movie or two before moving on to finishing with my meal preparations. I picked the two Home Alone movies as I settled on the couch. I watched the same movies every year, the order in which I did so wasn't always the same.

As the second movie ended, I pulled out my phone with the intent to scroll through Facebook for a couple minutes. I smiled when I saw that I had gotten a text from Eli, 'thanks Wren. To you and your family too.' A small frown formed on my face as I read it. It was sweet of him to say, but I was my own family. And that's really not something for me to be proud of. It wasn't his fault though. He didn't know because I had kept it from him. Shaking my head, I sent him the kissy face emoji then got up and headed for the kitchen.

I started working on peeling the potatoes. Oh yeah, when I mentioned I made mashed potatoes, I meant homemade mashed potatoes... from scratch. Peeling them took a long time, so as I worked I turned the music back on and sang along to the music blaring through the speakers. After peeling the potatoes, I cut them into quarters, tossed them into a pot with some water, and left them to boil.