Tayvin | Better Than This

20 》 Christmas

Taylor's POV

I was sitting on the couch with Adam. Austin was also in the room but everyone else was asleep. Austin would usually be at Notre Damn studying but he was home for the holidays. Leah's birthday was December 9th, only a couple days before mine.

"How about this picture?" Adam asked, showing me a picture of Leah playing with the Christmas lights.

"It's perfect. Let me post it!"

I watched the comments come in. Everyone was in shock. There were lots of nice messages but the majority were confused and shocked. I didn't blame them, I hadn't given an explanantion. I pulled out my laptop where I had already written a blog post. I clicked post. It read:

Hey guys,

So recently there has been a very big change in our lives which we are excited to share with you all. You might have seen the picture we both posted on instagram and if you have then you're probably confused.

A few months ago we found this little girl called Leah. We looked after her and decided that we were so in love with her that we were going to adopt her. The adoption process took roughly 2 months to be finalised but as of last week, we are officially the proud parents of Leah Swift-Wiles.

Leah has had a tough life so we are happy to be able to provide her with a safe and loving environment. We would really appreciate for you to help us out on this by respecting our privacy as we don't want to overwhelm her.

Today we celebrated her 3rd birthday and we can't wait to make more wonderful memories with our beautiful daughter.

We thank you for all your kind messages,

Adam and Taylor

-----

16 days later

December 25th (Christmas)

Adam's POV

The media freaked out over the news about Leah. Because of it we decided to stay inside until it died down a little.

The day after Leah's birthday we went to stay at Taylor's apartment here in Nashville to give Andrea some rest since she is currently undergoing treatment for her cancer. Yesterday (Christmas eve) we went back to Taylor's parents' house so that we'd wake up there on Christmas morning. I considered flying to Scotland to spend the holidays with my family but I have Taylor and Leah here and it's our first Christmas as a family.

For Taylor's birthday we had a very quiet celebration inside. A few of her close friends came but it was nothing big.

It's Christmas morning. We went to bed pretty late as we stayed up wrapping presents. I woke up to Leah jumping onto me and Taylor.

"IT'S CHRISTMAS! DID SANTA COME!?"

"Morning bug. And as long as you've been a good girl this year then Santa has come." I say. Leah's excited face immediately drops and a few silent tears slide down her cheek.

"What's wrong baby?" Taylor asks, concerned as to why our 3 year old wasn't excited for presents.

"I did bad things..." She mumbles. I look at Taylor which looks just as confused and concerned as I do.

"What do you mean, baby?"

"I'm sorry..." She mumbled. "I didn't want to do those things..."

"Baby, I'm sure it was a mistake. Whatever you did." Taylor said.

"No." Leah answered. "It wasn't a mistake but I had to do it."

"Bug, could you tell us what you did?"

"No.."

"Please?" Taylor asks. We were both worried about what Leah was going on about.

"No."

"You know we won't get mad..." Taylor started but was interrupted by Leah bursting into tears.

"How about we go open presents. I'm sure santa came because you are an amazing little girl."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

We got up and made our way to the living room.

"Are these for me!?" Leah asked, her face lighting up whilst she wiped her tear-stained cheeks.

"The ones with your name are and from what I can see that's most of them."

"Hold on a second, I just need to check on something..." Taylor said, leaving the room.

Andrea walked in smiling alongside Scott.

"Merry Christmas!" Said Andrea. We sit on the couch near the Christmas tree and Leah starts opening her presents the moment Taylor walks in the room again. Leah squeals in excitement when she discovers what is under the wrapping paper.

"It's a princess dress!" She squeals.

"Yeah. Do you know which princess?" Taylor asks.

"Rapunzel!" She screams back.

After Leah had finished opening her presents and was happily playing with all her new toys it was time for me and Taylor to exchange gifts.

"Me first." I say, picking up a box and passing it to Taylor. She carefully opens it and pulls out a necklace.

"Oh my gosh." She says as she looks at the necklace. It's a locket with the date 12/2/16 on it. The day that Leah was officially ours. Inside the locket was a picture of the three of us. A tear falls down Taylor's cheek as she leans into me and pulls me into a hug. "I love it."

"My turn to give you your gift!" Taylor exclaims. "It's outside!"

I get up and Taylor follows behind me, walking towards the front door.

"Surprise!"

______________________________________
Oo what's Adam's gift??
AND I AM SO SO SO SORRY I DIDN'T UPDATE FOR OVER A WEEK!!!!
I edited the entire book (like fixed mistakes) and I had 13 exams this week so I had to revise a lot for them . Now that they're over I should be updating more often again.
TYSM for reading,
S