𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄 | 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 |

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

CHRISTMAS HAS ALWAYS BEEN my favorite holiday. I always enjoyed decorating the house in lights, different knick knacks and baking cookies, but, what I loved the most about the holiday was going to see The Nutcracker with my parents every year. But, all of that stopped when I was eleven years old—my parents had gotten a divorce, which meant the annual trips to see The Nutcracker came to a halt.

A year-and-a-half after the divorce was finalized, my father got remarried to a woman who worked in his building, and within that same year, my mother passed away. My grandmother likes to say that she died from a broken heart, and truthfully, I believe it to be true.

After my mother passed, I moved in with my father and my stepmother. My father tried his hardest to get me to bond with them and recreate Christmas how it used to be when my mother was still alive, and it didn't work because stepmother dearest didn't want to partake in any of the activities that my father and I loved.

Two years later, my father and my stepmother died in a car accident and I had to move in with my grandmother. Throughout these events, there was only one person who was there with me throughout it all, Laysha Myers–or Lay, to me and her family members. The two of us have been best friends since we were seven years old and remained inseparable throughout our entire lives. After my parents passed, I spent Winter Break at Laysha's house with her family every year, and that never changed, even when she and her family moved to Charleston, South Carolina.

Laysha's family quickly became my family–all except one person in particular: Landon Myers, who is Laysha's older brother became the singular reason that I dreaded making trips to Charleston, because I knew that he would go out of his way to do things that would annoy me, and of course, I would retaliate, because even though I was confused as to why Landon just didn't like me–although I've never done anything to him–I was always one to reciprocate the energy given to me.

Overtime, members in Laysha's family began saying that he acted that way towards me because he had a crush on me, but I believe that to be false information. It even got to a point where Mrs. Myers gave me her unequivocal blessing if I were to somehow end up with him. Back then, I doubted it, and if you would've told 15 or 16 year-old me that I would fall in love with Landon Myers, I would have laughed in your face.