Vanessa Pike sat in the living room writing in her journal. Nicky and Claire were watching something on television, but they didn't pay her any attention. She used to be intensely private about her musings, and made extra effort to hide her journal, even after Mallory had moved out of the house to attend school in New Hampshire. However, she had eventually realized that there was no need for her to be so secretive; her brothers and sisters were all so invested in themselves, with the exception of Byron, that they didn't have much energy to expend on getting involved in each other's lives. Besides, her siblings never forgave her for the year that she talked incessantly in rhyme, and as a result, generally thought that she was boring, citing her articles published in the schools news paper as proof. She sometimes admitted to herself that they were mostly right.
It used to bother her that the Pike kids were no longer the cohesive group that friends and neighbors undoubtedly still thought of them as. It became clear that they were never going to be like that again once her parents announced that they were separating and were going to get divorced. At that point, every one had stopped pretending that things would ever be any different.
And that was basically why she was so upset that her mom was making a big deal out of what they were doing for Christmas. Seriously, who cared? It's not like they would ever be a family again, no matter who they spend the holiday with. This is what she wrote about for pages on end in her diary. She knew that she was becoming more cynical, which was something that she attributed to spending so much time with Jordan. She smiled when she thought of how ironic it was that she was the closest to Jordan of all her siblings; no one who had seen them when they were nine and ten respectively would have ever predicted that.
Maybe spending so much time with Jordan made her more cynical, but he had also kind of saved her. She had been so lost after Mallory left, and had spent even more time writing in her journal than she did now, if any one could even believe that. One night when she was eleven he had literally dragged her out of the house, and they had shared a cigarette behind Polly's Fine Candy. She had hated it, and he had laughed, but it didn't matter. That night had cemented their friendship in a way that the rest of their family failed to understand.
And okay, so maybe she wasn't as cynical as she pretended to be. There were some things that she didn't admit, even to Jordan. She hated that fact that her family was so disjointed, and she hated the fact that she couldn't do anything about it even more. She hated the fact that Mallory hadn't been part of their family for years, and that Adam was so angry, that Byron had taken it upon himself to save them all, and that Jordan was mad at the world. She hated it that Nicky didn't fit in, and Margo made herself miserable, and that Claire was just so sad. And most of all she hated it that her father was living all by himself, and actually seemed sort of relieved, and that her mom was working as hard as she could to take care of everyone and everything, but was ignoring herself in the process. She hated being fifteen, timid, and unable to make a difference in any way that mattered.
It was much easier to write in her journals, withdraw from everyone except for Jordan, and pretend to be a cynic. So that is what she did. She didn't really think that any one knew the difference any way. The Pike family never did have many rules, and as long as the kids were making good grades they were left to their own devices. She sometimes thought that her mom saw through her façade, but she never asked about it, and Vanessa couldn't blame her. Nicky, Margo, and Claire were practically falling apart, and her mom had her hands full just trying to keep them together, and keep tabs on the rest of the family. Eight kids was just too many for one parent, or even one set of parents, to keep track of. Inevitably, some of them had to fall through the cracks.
In her heart she wished that her entire family would be together for Christmas, including Great Uncle Joe, who had passed away a while ago. She let this image play out in her head, to the point where the family had resumed the tradition of drawing each other's name for Secret Santa. She knew that her mom really would try to capture some of the magic of this Christmas' of her childhood, but no matter what she did, it just wouldn't be the same. And because of that, Vanessa didn't even want to have any sort of Christmas. Invariably, she would be let down. Knowing this, she did everything she could to not let herself get her hopes up.
Raising her eyes and pen from the tattered notebook, Vanessa noticed that the television had been shut off, and her siblings had left the room, leaving her alone. They really were all living separate lives.
It wasn't the worst thing that they were all living separate lives. It was okay, after all, to let yourself go, as long as you let yourself come back. Maybe if her family could find someway to make it through Christmas truly together, at least for a little while, things would be okay. And as much as she hated to hope and be let down, a little part of her did anyway.