Just something I felt like writing while sitting in my quiet living room at 2:00 in the morning. Hope you like it! Reviews are the best! :)
Disclaimer: characters are not mine, of course.
The smell of gingerbread fills the air. The sound of laughter, light and easy, drifts from the common room down the hallway to the room where Sonny sits on a couch with her legs crossed under her and glasses perched on her face. She's focused, very focused, on the notebook she holds open in her lap; the tip of the pen in her hand taps gently on her lip.
Chad watches her from the doorway. He wonders what she's doing in there, tense and frustrated. She scribbles something down, stares at it for a moment, then scratches it out angrily and rips the paper from the notebook. It flies across the room and lands near his foot. He holds his breath, hoping she won't turn and see him standing there, and she doesn't. He slowly exhales.
She sighs deeply and taps the pen on the notebook. What is she doing? He wonders, glancing briefly at the crumpled up paper on the floor. He looks up and sees her write something else down, slowly this time, then put her pen down on the table in front of her.
It's Christmas Eve, and Mr. Condor is holding a party for the casts of his two most popular shows. They are doing a secret Santa gift exchange. Chad thinks it's a silly idea and wasn't originally going to come, but something had made him want to anyway.
Someone in the common room says something; everyone laughs. Chad thinks he should probably go back there; his excuse of needing to use the washroom is expiring. How long has he been watching Sonny? He doesn't know. He looks at her again, and she's staring at the sentence written in the notebook.
She stands and he tenses again, hoping she won't come towards him. There's another door on the other side of the room, and he relaxes again when she heads towards it. Then she's gone, the room is silent and he stands alone in the doorway. He remembers the crumpled paper on the floor and bends down to pick it up. He unfolds it carefully and reads it slowly.
Christmas is a time for forgiveness, and a new year marks a time for new beginnings. I think we should
He reads it again. Who was she writing to, and why? He wonders these questions, but subconsciously, he knows the answer. He doesn't acknowledge that fact. Instead, he re-crumples the paper and throws it back to the floor, then makes his way back to the common room. He does not wonder anymore; later, when he gets his secret Santa gift, he knows exactly who it is from.
I hope you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Simple. Written in the same neat, precise lettering as the letter he'd left crumpled on the floor. He looks at Sonny, sitting atop the piano across the room. She looks away, but he knows she had been looking at him, too.