Hey! Thanks as always for you lovely comments & votes - without them, I probably would have given up ages ago! Just a warning, it's not edited as it's very late & I'm so tired so I'm sorry for my laziness:'(
Also, I'm really not keen on this chapter. But I felt I should write one since it's been ages. I'm trying not to make it cringe or cliched so bear with me, all is not as it seems;) The next chapter should be good though...as the main chain of events are about to happen now!
Anyways, please enjoy! xx
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Chapter 5
It was the 24th of December at about 7.30pm. A Christmas film was blaring on the TV – the bright red of the Santa hats and the sparkles on the Christmas tree were all blurring together in my sleepiness and turning into a mush. Sort of like when you take multi coloured play dough and roll it together until you’re left with an unsatisfying brown colour.
The tiny, delicate frame of my baby sister, Renee, lay next to me on the sofa. I had propped her up on a bed of cushions where she slept quite peacefully, every so often her huge brown eyes would open and she would blink innocently at the television before she drifted off once more. Gemma was sitting upright on the armchair watching the film calming, sometimes turning to smile at me almost reassuringly, as though to convince me I wasn’t ruining their Christmas.
I picked up my sisters 3 days ago from the Station – both of them ridiculously excited to be in London. Renee was as excitable as any toddler would be – waddling around and quite often falling over on her bum. Gemma eyed up all the types of buildings having never been in such a big city before, this reminded me strongly of Siva and his love of Architecture…and bins. I laughed and she rolled her eyes at me a bit. We went and bought a tree, and since Charlie was back with his family, I let them decorate it however they liked. Gemma’s side was quite neat, but Renee’s had only a single strand of tinsel on the lowest branch since she wasn’t exactly tall and didn’t have the greatest attention span. I then took them to Hamley’s and let them picks some toys out.
So that was day 1. By the 2nd day I was struggling for ideas. That was when Nathan turned up, of course. He had joined them in the kitchen where they were peeling carrots for Rudolph in anticipation of Christmas Eve. He kissed their foreheads and gave them soft toys as an early present. I couldn’t help but stare at him, sitting in between them, teaching them how to peel carrots carefully so they didn’t skin their little fingers. He was so good with them.
Eventually when they had scurried off to bed, a set of arms wound around my waist from behind and someone kissed my neck. I giggled and turned around.
“How you feeling?” Nathan asked carefully. The flecks of brown in his green eyes shone.
“Why do I feel like a mum?” I laughed; it was hard to believe sometimes I was only 19. I felt so much older.
“Because you have so much responsibility.” Nathan nodded wisely.
I let my smile droop slightly, noticing as I did so that Nathan was frowning. “I don’t like it.”
“I know.” He put his arms around my neck in a comforting bear hug. I gently slid my arms inside his warm hoodie when I heard 2 stifled giggles from the door and we whipped around to see my sisters wearing their matching jim jams standing at the door with massive grins.
It was only now as I sat on the couch with my sisters watching the cringy clichéd film that I thought – maybe I was wrong. Maybe I could get on board with the whole responsibility thing. I had never been fussed about being a mum, but from my experience so far…I sort of liked it.
I suddenly jumped out of my skin, making Gemma shove a handful of curls into her mouth to muffle her laughter, at the sound of the doorbell. I sprinted there and hauled open the door.
“Err, hey.” Nathan was stood there with an amused grin. Okay, so I sort of forgot I had been wearing my onesie.
“Oh crap, hello!” I chuckled, trying to hide behind the door. But Nathan caught my fluffy arm and pulled me out into a hug.
“Aw, you’re warm.” He laughed, burying his face into my shoulder.
“Thanks!” I laughed but suddenly stopped when I saw him looking at me strangely. “What?”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” He asked abruptly.
I opened to mouth to say ‘yes’ but I couldn’t even get it out before he took my hand and dragged me, sliding around somewhat in my onesie’s feet, to my room. I watched his eyes glance around nervously while I hovered agitatedly in front of the closed door, feeling ridiculous in my onesie.
“I thought I wasn’t seeing you until tomorrow?” I started seeing as how Nathan looked a little lost.
“Yeah, I want to talk to about something.” He took a deep breath, his eyes rolling back slightly in his head which really freaked me out.
“Okay, you know I can’t deal with stuff like this – you’d better tell me!” I raised an accusing finger to point at him. “Seriously, I’m getting palpitations.” I was as well; I could feel myself getting worked up. He looked at me and crossed the room quickly, taking one of my hands and his and touching my cheek with his other hand. He stared deeply into my eyes and I sort of forgot what was going on for a second.
We moved slowly over to the bed and sunk down onto it, my body facing Nathan’s. He took a deep breath and supressed a small smile before saying “I know I made you uncomfortable before when I asked you to move in with me. I never wanted to pressure you, God knows you don’t need any more of those.”
“Nathan I want to, I just – “
“I know you do, but it’s not the right time.” He answered simply, his glassy eyes meeting mine searchingly so I sort of felt like he could see what I was thinking. “And that’s cool for now. Like I said, me and Tom will just stay in the house, Tom can’t be arsed finding a flat for himself.”
I brushed some of the hair of his face to see his usually bright eyes were filled with sadness. I instantly felt guilty. “Nathan, that’s so kind of you. But it’s what you wanted.”
“I’ve thought it over.” He nodded, taking my hand that had been resting on his leg. “You’ve been my girlfriend for near 3 years now and I love you.” I bit back my smile “I guess I just wanted our relationship to move forward. But that doesn’t mean living together if you don’t want to.” He looked sideways at me nervously. I felt confused.
“But Nathan what else is there?” I whispered warily.
He fixed me with a hard, penetrating look, as if trying to sense my reaction. “Like..” he broke off to laugh awkwardly so I squeezed his hand supportively. “Like if we just promised each other that we’ll always be together. Because that’s what I want.”
I took a moment to let this sink in. Suddenly everything was flashing before my eyes. Nathan waving cheekily at me from under an altar, Nathan chasing a little green eyed girl around a small, city garden.
“I promise!” I said carefully, leaning in to kiss the side of his mouth as that’s as far as I could reach, considering how he hadn’t yet turned to face me.
To my surprise I found him shaking his head “What?”
“Nothing,” He laughed, turning around and putting his arms around me.
I let him hug me but felt completely bewildered. Was that not what he had wanted me to say? Why on earth was he acting so funny?
“Nath, what’s wrong?” I pulled away and raised my eyebrows.
“Absolutely nothing!” Nath laughed, kissing my cheek and my nose before pulling me up with him. “I hope that hasn’t made you feel weird.”
“No!” I assured him “No, I love you. I do want to be with you forever.”
“Good, I’ll let you get back to your sisters then!” He grinned.
He was smiling too much. He was grinning like a maniac the whole time he popped in to fawn over my sisters sleeping and at the door when we said goodnight. Yet, not once did it meet his eyes. Same with his hugs, it was the sort of hug you’d get from your dad – friendly, warm – but certainly nothing more.
I felt completely bewildered and slightly hurt as I tucked my sisters into bed that night and settled on the lumpy sofa, willing sleep to claim me and take me away to a slightly less confusing place.
***
“Why couldn’t we open Santa’s presents at your home, Evanna?” Renee spluttered from her seat in the buggy.
“Because you should save them for going to Nathan’s house where we can all open them together.” I explained, carefully trying to lift the wheels of the buggy up each step so I could ring the Wanted’s doorbell. Not that they would all be living there this time next week.
“That’s more fun that way too, isn’t it Evanna?” Gemma nodded, watching me struggle with it and press the buzzer before taking my hand once more.
“Sure is!” I grinned, yanking her Santa’s hat down over her eyes playfully making her giggle.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Yelled Jay who was dressed head to foot in a Santa costume.
“Santa?” Asked Renee.
“Nope, I’m Jay Clause.” I burst out laughing earning a reproachful scowl from ‘Jay Clause’.
“You must be Renee and Gemma!” Jay said excitedly, bending low to shake their little hands which made them both giggle.
Jay helped me escort them both inside and he unclipped Renee from her buggy and led her up the stairs.
The girls were ushered in front of me into the living room, I followed and instantly gasped. It was decorated from floor to ceiling with a life size robotic Santa singing songs when someone stepped on the pad in front of it – looked like Jay Clause had some competition. The large plasma TV was blaring out the special annual episode of Christmas Top of The Pops – on which the boys would all be featuring. Siva was also dressed up as a giant green elf. It was the yellow tights that set me off though. The boys really had gone all out for my kid sisters.
I peeked through the living room in to the kitchen and barely had time to wave at Nareesha who was basting a rather large turkey and Kelsey who was having to physically having to restrain Tom from eating all the cocktail sausages before they’d even been put in the oven yet, before Jay yanked on the back of my blouse and hauled me out the living room.
“What are you doing?” I turned, already frowning but that didn’t last long when I saw him clipping on his bright white moustache.
“You got to help me lug all the presents from where they’re getting stored in my room down here!” He pleaded. “Your sisters will be safe with Siva. Although he might try to bore them to death. That is a genuine possibility.”
“Oh, it is not!” I slapped his arm but laughed all the same, following him up the stairs.
It was quite sad to see what had been Jay Bird’s room for about 4 years now stripped bare and just filled with a blow up bed, stack of cardboard boxes (3 of which were just labelled ‘Avatar Stuff’ and 2 of which were ‘Skittles’) and of course a gargantuan pile of presents. I was just about to reach down a scoop up a pile when I heard a voice very close by.
“Wait, she shot you down, again?” That was Max.
“Not exactly. She promised me we’d be together.” Okay, that was Nathan. Repeating exactly what I had said to him last night.
Jay made a motion to grab my arm but I shook it off, intently listening.
“Maybe it’s a good thing she never agreed to it.”
“Oh and how is that exactly?” Nathan sounded kind of miffed.
“Well when I got engaged to Michelle, things just got really rocky and look how we ended up? Not even dating anymore.” He said bitterly.
“But me and Ev are so close. It would be different for us.”
I think all my insides just turned to lead. I felt so heavy and really needed to sit down. Engaged? As in engaged to be married?
“Maybe, speaking of which, I think I heard the doorbell maybe she’s down stairs.” Max said and I waited until they had both plodded heavily down the stairs.
I turned to gape at Jay, not even finding his Santa costume remotely humorous anymore.
“Engaged?” I repeated, I was at a complete loss for what to say. Jay eyed me nervously. “ENGAGED?” I raised my voice and felt my heart taking off again.
“Yes.” Jay spluttered approaching me slowly like you would a firework in case they violently took off. “He said he went to yours last night. He’s been really down since the whole ‘moving in’ thing. He loves you way more than you even realise. He’s pretty serious about this.”
I felt tears suddenly coat my eyes. It suddenly made sense – I didn’t have a clue what he had been talking about – ‘promise to be together’? – and then when I had promised he’d gotten all strange. I guess he’d just been really disappointed I hadn’t caught on.
“But I promised..?” I said slowly.
“You also said that you would move in with him…and that’s not happening is it? I think he needs something more concrete.”
I laughed in frustration “He said he didn’t want to pressure me? I feel more pressured than ever! I mean this is insane! He’s insane! I can’t marry him! I’m 19!”
“Look,” Jay said slowly, squeezing my hand “I get it that you have loads of pressure from your family and your work. But Nathan’s my best mate and you owe it to be honest with him. He needs you to know where you’re at. Because if you’re at different places then things might…not work out.”
I know Jay was just looking out for his best mate, and for me, but I couldn’t help but feel completely guilty. He was making me out to be really selfish. Which I suppose I was being.
“Thanks Jay.” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry about it, Ev. I want you both to be happy that’s all.”
I nodded and helped him carry the presents downstairs.
The party was in full swing now, the tunes were blaring, my sisters were jumping around and Tom had finally secured himself some food he stole from Kels.
When Nathan saw me, I expected him to be angry with me, but instead his face lit up and he was by my side in an instant taking my hand and wishing me a very merry Christmas. Things shouldn’t be so difficult, after all, I loved him.