Chosen- A Selection Fanfiction

Chapter 27

Without Landon on my mind, I went back to Harrison's room. I sat on his bed in my dress and crossed my legs. "What do you think of the snow?" He asked suddenly.

"I knew it was flaking last night, but how much of it is there?" I asked him. He had a window, but the blinds were drawn, and I was too lazy to get up and raise them.

"Almost a foot, didn't you know? It's the most snow Angeles has gotten in twenty seven years," he said excitedly.

"That's so different from home," I said softly. I thought back to the white Christmases and snow days we had in Hampton. I would load up on scarves and hats. I would put three cardigans, two sweaters, and a giant jacket on over my fluffiest dress. I'd layer on so many pairs of tights and knee-high socks under my boots, my feet were always shoulder width apart. Leave it to Mother to ban pants on a snow day.

"We have to get used to it, don't we?" He said with a sigh.

"Yeah, I guess we do." I stared at him in his pajama pants and shirt. He still was such a kid, yet he had grown so much in the past year. We both had been put through a lot this year, and now we were at our first Christmas without Mother, Father, Franny, or Penelope. "You want to make breakfast?"

"Sure!" He grinned. I hopped off the bed, and we both walked a little too fast to the kitchen. I pushed open the doors and peeked inside to see that it was empty. I took my head back out and waved him in.

"What should we make?" I asked him. "There's literally so much food here, we could make anything."

"Let's make Mother's Christmas Cake," he said, already getting out the ingredients.

"For breakfast? That was a dinner dessert," I laughed, shaking my head.

"But I want it now," he whined. He held the flour and the milk with a pouting face.

"Okay," I said, succumbing. "Get the stuff for the ice cream."

Mother used to make a cake very Christmas dinner that we always looked forward to. It was two layers of vanilla cake with a mint-chocolate chip ice cream layer in between. It was topped with white chocolate icing and crushed peppermints on the sides, and white chocolate and peppermint candy on top.

Literally the highlight of my Christmases.

"Can you handle the icing?" I asked while mixing together the ice cream. I put it in the machine to freeze, and we could get it out later.

  While Harry struggled with the icing, I baked the cake. I mixed in the water, flavoring, flour, and eggs, and when they were well blended, I placed them in two cake pans of the same size to put in the oven.

"How long until it's done?" Harrison asked eagerly. I shook my head, smiling at him. Every year he would ask this question, and every year we had the same answer.

"One hour," I chuckled.

"That's way too long," he groaned. I flicked his nose and went to look for candy canes. They weren't hard to find considering the walk in pantry was stocked with candy and such. I took out all of the candy canes since they were going to be wasted after Christmas anyway.

I gave Harrison some to begin crushing. I handed him off a mortar and a stone bowl, but I doubt that the chefs intended for it to be used for candy canes, rather herbs and spices. I unwrapped the candy canes as fast as I could, but it wasn't fast enough to keep out with Harry. He was seriously getting way into demolishing the peppermint candies.

I took his icing and tasted it. Although a bit sugary, I put it in the piping bag regardless. I laid it beside Harrison and his mess of Christmas festivities. The oven dinged, and I put on two oven mitts before cautiously taking out both layers of vanilla cake. After putting them on resting spots, I flipped them onto the cake holder I had chosen to house our masterpiece.

"Harry, could you get the ice cream out of the super freezer please?" I asked him. He was still absorbed in his tiresome work of murdering innocent Christmas treats. "Harrison," I repeated.

"Huh?" he responded, clearly distracted. He looked up from his task and flushed a bit from embarrassment.

"The ice cream? In the freezer?" I laughed.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed excitedly. While I prepared the bottom cake layer, Harry dug around in the freezer to get the mint ice cream. I took it from him and smothered it onto the layer of cake after making sure the cake had cooled. I glance out of the corner of my eyes and saw Harrison toying with the piping bag for icing, which made me shake my head a bit.

I stole the piping bag and put a bunch on the top layer. I dumped some more on the sides and sat the bag down. I took a flattened kitchen tool to even the layers of icing before putting on the crushed candy, courtesy of Harrison.

I looked over to see Harry eagerly waiting to eat the cake, knife in hand. "Can you calm down for a few seconds?" I scoffed while rinsing my hands of the dish soap I had used to clean them.

"Obviously not," he snorted.

"Obviously," I muttered under my breath. "Go ahead; cut the cake."

He didn't need to be told twice. He began slicing up the cake into eighths, putting one slice each onto the plates I slid in front of them. He ransacked the rest of the kitchen for forks, putting them down on the counter top next to our plates. Meanwhile, I was putting the leftover cake inside the freezer, hiding it inside a drawer where nobody would bother it.

Harrison was already halfway through his slice by the time I started. It was an amazing cake, but it didn't feel right eating it. I wasn't sharing it with my entire family on Christmas night inside our kitchen, which was one of the rare occasions Mother actually cooked in the kitchen at home. No, I was eating it with my brother while he was still in his pajamas.

"Is it as good as Mother's?"I asked after a few bites. I continued to push the food around on my plate, the ice cream melting a bit.

"No," he said with a furrowed brow. He was scooping up the crumbs onto his fork to duck into his mouth. "It will probably never be as good as Mother's."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," I chastised.

"Now you're sounding like Mother," he teased with a grin.

I was glad for this moment with Harrison. I may not have the rest of my family with me here physically, but they're here in spirit. I think Harrison knew it, too. This Christmas won't be like any Christmas we've had before, but no Christmas would ever be the same.

And I was okay with that.  

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I'm so sorry that over half of this chapter is literally baking a god dang cake.

And so school started. So that's fun. I'm now a freshman in highschool, which was a huge disappointment. I don't like a lot of my teachers, except for maybe 3 out of 8.

I have such a passion for school, really, I do. I love learning, but oh my god, my lunch teacher that preps us for a state test makes me feel like a kindergarten idiot. Everyone in that class can't stand her, and we all just kind of look at each other like, is she for real right now?

AND GOD BLESS MY AP HISTORY TEACHER. Everything is moved down this year, so you have freshmen taking a junior class or an advanced sophomore class.

He's literally such a jerk and favors his kids on his sports team. It's only been the second day, and I have a crap ton of homework I tried to get done tonight instead of reading and writing on here. I spent two hours on it, and I'm nowhere near done. I don't want to do it over the weekend because I have a retreat, and it's due Monday. He's putting all the class tests on Monday because of sports on week nights or whatever!

I'm going to kill someone. It's going to happen.

Band is taking over dance and piano, so I can't teach my little girls until after marching season, and I'm so sad. Those are like my little sisters, and I love them to death.

I don't meant to dump on you guys, but it's just a way for me to rant. And it's the only reason I'm posting this chapter tonight LOLLLLL

So, tell me in the comments or even pm me about your problems. I'll try and respond, but no promises considering this shit is my life.