Outside

46

The glow from tree lights shone all the way through to the kitchen as Rory and I prepared the food, we had guests over later in the afternoon and he was determined to make the whole day special for them.

I didn't really care much, Christmas had always been the same for me, it was just another day except you got gifts and the house felt a little more alive and I felt a little less lonely. I didn't care about having a huge family dinner, making it extra special for the guests or exchanging gifts, it just made me feel pretentious and as if I was acting like someone I wasn't just to please everyone.

Rory made a huge deal out of it though, he absolutely adored Christmas day and the whole month leading up to it. Despite the stressing about what to buy my parents and the disastrous shopping for decorations, Rory was beyond ecstatic.

Luckily I managed to persuade him to stay home with me and after a lot of thinking, he agreed, but as long as we invited my parents and his parents to join us for dinner. I was hesitant at first because we'd had many family dinners like this and not a single one of them went well, they always consisted of at least one argument, sly comments were always thrown around and Rory and I both knew our parents completely hated each other.

As I was chopping the carrots, I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket so I pulled it out and noticed that someone had texted me, but not just anyone... Larry.

'Hey, I know you probably won't come but I thought asking you was worth a try anyway, Bond is having a new year's eve party and we were all hoping you'd come along, get the group back together again... what do you say?'

I stared at the text for a few minutes, reading it over and over again just trying to understand why Larry would ask me such a thing. Did he really think there would even be a slight chance that I would want to be in the same room as Van? Did he really think I would say yes to a party, where everyone was going to be drunk and emotional and annoying?

The answer was quite clearly no, so I placed my phone back into my pocket and carried on with the dinner, trying not to think too much about it or else I felt like my head would explode.

"Who was that?" Rory asked, taking the roasted potatoes out of the oven and placing them onto a plate.

"It was... it was just work, wishing us a merry Christmas" I lied, knowing that if he knew, he would one hundred percent tell me to say no. I was going to anyway, just not on his accord.

"That's nice of them, you'll tell them thank you for me won't you?" He asked, smiling at the false text message.

"Of course I will" I said softly as I began tidying up.

I made my way into the living room and turned the TV on, going straight to the comedy movies, despite Rory begging me to watch Christmas movies with him all month long. I didn't really mind Christmas films, but I'd watched too many over the past month and I was getting bored of seeing so many families happily joined at the dinner table laughing and joking as conversing in a civil manner, something our family wouldn't ever dream of doing.

The day flew by, Rory and I set the table and not long after, the doorbell rang and both our parents were stood at the door. My mum, who I hadn't seen in months, was dressed highly sophisticated and I could tell she was absolutely freezing in those toeless heels of hers, I didn't understand why she couldn't just wear something weather-appropriate at least once. Dad was just dressed casual like always, a crate of beer in his hand and a gloomy look on his face. Rory's parents were always dressed smart, his mum was always in a dress and the highest heels you could even think of, whilst his dad wore a full suit.

Rory and I looked at them, and then at each other, noticing that we were both just in jeans and a t-shirt and neither of us had even thought of changing before they came. We were both so busy with the food and opening gifts that we forgot to actually put effort into our appearances, I looked like I'd just woken up and shoved on the first thing I could find.