Please, Miss (GirlxGirl) ✔️

20 | christmas morning

                I awoke on Christmas morning to a six year old dive-bombing into my abdomen and screaming blue murder that I needed to wake up so we could check if Santa had been. To say the least, I was extremely unimpressed and also genuinely wondering if my ribs remained intact.

"Come on," Owen squealed, scrambling off my bed and grabbing my arm, yanking as hard as he could. Luckily, six year olds aren't known for being particularly strong, and I didn't go flying out of bed. I told him to wait in the hallway and I'd be out in a minute, and surprisingly, he did as he was told.

I put a bra on beneath my oversized t-shirt and shoved my feet into my slippers on the floor, before making my way out of the bedroom. My fathers were just coming out of their room at the same time, and we found ourselves all gathered in the hallway. "Is someone going to move?" I asked with a roll of my eyes.

"Hey Grinch, lose the sass," Tommy grinned, nudging me. "It's Christmas. Go on then Owen, you head into the lounge."

Owen practically flew down the corridor and into the lounge, screaming as he entered. "He came, Daddy, he came!" We followed along behind him, and I saw an overflow of presents beneath the tree.

"Right, Owen hold on a second buddy. Your dad and I will sort these gifts into piles and then we can all open them at the same time, alright?"

He nodded, practically bursting with excitement as he joined me on the couch. We sat chatting for a few minutes as Tommy and Christopher divided the gifts. We ended up with four piles, Owen's noticeably bigger than anyone else's.

We each began opening our gifts, interrupted every few minutes by an almost inaudible high pitched scream from Owen as he unwrapped a new present. After twenty minutes or so, I was down to just a handful more gifts. So far, I'd gotten a lot of winter clothes for when I headed back to England, a beautiful necklace, a pair of shoes, and a few books. I used to love reading, but I'd sort of given it up a while back. Now though, the thought of settling down and burying myself in a story seemed like quite a nice idea.

I tore open a gift from one of my Grandma's, and it was an awful burgundy knitted jumper with my initials in bright green on the front.  Clearly she'd taken this years sweater inspiration from Molly Weasley. I held it up to my chest. "Well that's being burned right away."

"Hey, don't be mean," Christopher said, though I could tell he was trying not to laugh. "I'm sure she spent a lot of time on that."

"I'm sure she did, but that doesn't make it any less horrendous. She does have two eyes, maybe she could use them next time she's making me a gift?"

They both laughed as I opened a pair of socks from my other Grandma. Jesus, why we're grandparents so notoriously awful at giving gifts?

I screwed up the wrapping paper and threw it into the pile of trash in the middle. Looking down at the floor, I had just one gift left. It was a small square shape wrapped in silver paper. The tag simply read my name, but gave no indication of who it was from. I tore it open more carefully than I had with my other presents, uncovering a small velvet black box, just like the one Alex had given me for my birthday. I opened it curiously, seeing a small white card. I picked it up, my eyes scanning the words written neatly. "Saw this and thought of you. I know I have already given you a charm, but I figured you might like this one too. Merry Christmas, Evie."

I looked underneath the card, seeing a small black flower charm on a white satin cushion. It looked identical to the plastic flower I had given to Alex, but a much daintier version. I felt like I'd forgotten to breathe as I pulled it out from the little box, stroking it gently with my thumb. It was beautiful.