Thanks to Tif S for reviewing.
There's a new character coming into this chapter. Tyler Martin, sent in by LocalXmusicXjellybeanX. His POV will be the last one but I have added him to the cast list and he's portrayed by Hudson Yang.
December 24th, 2018.
Sarah POV
In Sweden everyone celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve. So it was with a feeling heavier than ever I woke up and looked out the window. If I could only have seen some nicer weather so I could maybe finally have gotten the chance to go home and celebrate Christmas with my little boy and the rest of my family.
"Good morning." Cassie came into my room holding a tray, with a cup of tea and some popsicles. "I was thinking these might help against your morning sickness."
I forced myself to smile at her- but it probably ended up mostly a half-hearted grimace, I had only lied awake like this for at least a couple of hours, jet-lagged as I still was I sat up, not moving from the bed while I sat up and Cassie reached me a popsicle.
"Thank you." I mumbled. "So… well… this is Christmas!"
"Here at Grey House we're always wanting to make our guests feel as much like home as possible. So maybe you would like to tell me some more about your- Swedish Christmas?"
"Well…" I was slowly sucking on another popsicle. "…Everyone at home always has their biggest celebrations- the opening gifts and everything, today. On Christmas Eve…" I thought back to last Christmas and all my childhood's Christmas. "It's Donald Duck and his friends at three. With Donald and Ferdinand and everyone. Then, right after that there's a movie called Can you whistle Johanna? And at last, at seven there's another movie called Karl-Bertil's Christmas Eve… I never liked Robin Hood or Can you whistle Johanna much. But I had to watch it anyway because… otherwise it just wouldn't be Christmas. So… I guess it won't quite be Christmas."
I had pulled my feet up where I sat, and hugged my knees. It gave me a feeling that I could make the sadness smaller with me. And maybe I wouldn't feel so miserable.
"Could she? Johanna, could she whistle?"
I had to think for a moment, that stupid movie wasn't even good yet I watched it every damn year since it was mum's favourite. And it just wasn't Christmas without young Berra and Ulf. And the way Berra thought Nils was his grandfather.
"Johanna was dead." I said, the sobbing I could feel rising in my throat. "But there were two young boys, and they found a grandfather at an old people's home for Berra. And he's trying to learn how to whistle. But then when he does…"
Johanna was the old man's late wife. That movie wasn't even good but it was mum's favorite part of every year so who would I be not to watch it with her. And with dad, Thomas and little Eric who was also trying to learn how to whistle.
There were probably be a few years yet before Eric did. But that wouldn't stop him from trying and blowing out and out.
"Thank you… for the popsicles. But I guess it's time for my Christmas Eve to start."
"Will you be talking to your son today?"
"I don't want him by the computer all his Christmas. He's with his dad and my parents all day. We'll video chat some right before he goes to bed. And then we'll talk more tomorrow…." I looked towards the window. "…If our Internet is still working through this weather."
It wouldn't be the same though- I needed him here and to wrap him in my arms!
"I hope they keep helping so you don't feel nauseas more." Cassie told me. "It helped me when I was having Grace."
"I guess it will show quite soon. I know it wasn't very nice when I just barged in on everyone's breakfast and had to rush to the sink to start to vomit in the middle of it all."
"You didn't barge in on anything. And we know you can't help it, both I and Alice have been through it too and that I can promise you. But I'm making a Christmas Eve breakfast with pancakes and maple syrup. So if you want to I can bring some up here for you." I shook my head. "Or maybe you would rather have tea or something lighter like it."
"I think pancakes and maple syrup would be taking too much of a risk. But the kids will love it for sure… I know Eric would if he was here… I'll come downstairs to the kitchen in just a bit. I just have to be alone for a few minutes and then I'll be there."
"Point taken." Cassie smiled- whenever did she not? "Let me know if you need anything else."
Cassie left the room in silence. And right now I hated the deal I made with my parents that I wouldn't want to video chat by the computer all Christmas Eve. Because a few minutes turned into closer than an hour when I laid wrapped in my blanket feeling lonelier than ever.
And I felt more than ever that no way was I doing this for the rest of my life if it would mean leaving everything I knew behind.
At last, when the clock drew closer and closer to eight in the morning here, and it was getting closer and closer to three in the afternoon back at home and the time with Donald Duck and his friends. I dragged myself out of bed and to the bathroom. Where I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a big, comfortable T-shirt.
"Good morning." All of the Moore- siblings, except for the oldest were by the kitchen table, in a line and eating the promised pancaked with maple syrup and chocolate. "Can I… can I just have some tea please? And maybe just toast with but…ter."
I knew breakfast was very much the most important meal of the day. And any other time I would have gladly eaten pancakes and everything Cassie had put out in shape of fruits and bread and yoghurts.
"Of course." Somehow she knew, and was already holding me what I had asked for. "I put a piece of fruit on the plate there as you can see. But you just manage to eat slowly… do you feel as nauseas as you did earlier or did the popsicles help?"
"They helped… Thanks for the banana."
"Now. We actually have a surprise for you." I couldn't help the sigh that escaped me. "We know we can't bring your family here and none of us speak Swedish. But Nick managed to get some Swedish TV-channels to work. So if you're still wanting to watch Donald Duck and his friends…"
It still didn't feel right that I didn't have Eric, Thomas and my parents with me here. But at least…
I went to sit by the TV just as Donald Duck started and it showed Santa's workshop with that chess-paint which everyone loved more than anything else to watch today, Ferdinand and Lady and the Tramp and Mickey Mouse. At last with Jeremy Cricket came on the screen by the end I could even believe this was hoping for just another little piece of my life.
As "can you whistle Johanna" was reaching towards its end and Berra and Ulf were planning on what they were doing next. I realized that tears were streaming down my cheeks and they probably had been for a while, long enough for lots of people to see them all around me anyway. And, while the lump in my throat was too big for me to speak it didn't seem as if anyone else knew what to say neither.
I should have gone upstairs and hidden in my room, but something kept me frozen where I sat trembling with sobs.
"You are really sad." I didn't even realize Cammie Moore was next to me until he was speaking to me. "Why are you so sad?"
"I…" I tried to squeeze something through my thick throat. "I really, really miss my home. And I would have liked to spend Christmas at home where I could have spent time with my little boy."
Cammie looked so thoughtful that in a way that only a toddler could.
"What's your little boy's name?"
"Eric."
And if Cammie kept asking questions I wasn't sure if I could keep answering them.
"How old is he?"
"He's three."
But something made Cammie shine, and I knew there were no limits to what kinds of imagination could be underneath his thatch of blonde hair- just like the one Eric had.
"I'm three too. So I can be your little boy while we're here." I couldn't help but laugh. A short, sad kind of laughter while we hugged and Cammie's stroke my back. "It's okay. It will be okay." Tears kept streaming but Cammie did have a point…
This just couldn't be the way Christmas was about to end up!
Alice POV
Wasn't it just something special going on in a toddler's mind? While so many of us sat around the TV, Sarah who kept on crying and a movie we couldn't understand a word of, it was Cammie who at last figured something to do.
""I'm three too. So I can be your little boy while we're here."
Well, Cammie and all of the girls were away from their parents. And of course, I and William had our parents full. But a toddler like Cammie- or Sarah's Eric, needed their own kind of spare attention.
Still, three years or not. Wasn't that just something that no adult would ever think of saying?
But as he hugged Sarah and she cried as much as ever. Cammie stroke her back and mumbled soothing words, I couldn't hear the ones he chose but I knew the kind and my grandmother heart was beaming with pride. He was just the kindest little soul there was!
"Will you be okay?" I asked, when Sarah dried the last tears with her hands and lifted Cammie down from her lap. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No." She answered a bit shakingly. But her voice wasn't breaking now. "Well… I guess I've just had enough of feeling sorry for myself… do you have a way for these coming days? In Swedish we call them mellandagarna. The in-between-days." I had to think for a little bit.
"No. I don't think there's a word for them. They're just days in between Christmas and New Year's Eve."
The day before Christmas was always just such a small day. When one didn't have anything planned except for the most important- what to watch on the TV, and have meals and everything- such as going to the bathroom or taking the dishes.
"There's another Swedish movie now." Sarah told us all at the time we just finished our lunch. "I can't sort out any English text on this one either. But it's the story of Carl-Bertil's Christmas Eve." She left and we heard her turning the TV on. So of course Remi and Cammie were on it right away- they would be at the noise of something on the TV.
But just as Sarah had already noted, there wasn't any English text and we didn't know a word of Swedish. So we lost concentration of the story a bit when Remi pointed to the screen and looked to William.
"What flags are those?"
My stomach twisted when I saw the flags Remi was pointing at, and in between all the different countries' flags.
This must be an old movie!
"Those are flags from a lot of different countries." William explained. "Except that red one with a black cross… it's a… special one that… soldiers used during the second world war. They used it for themselves and their things to show what they thought belonged to them."
That was probably the easiest way of saying it.
"I'll Google it when we come home and show you, then you can understand it better."
Remi seemed satisfied with the answer. But hopefully she would forget it so William wouldn't have to show her anywhere of the terrible Nazi had done during the 1940's.
"It's just so strange." Sarah said while the movie stopped and she turned the TV off. "There are so many traditions. It's from everything from what to watch on TV, to what you eat, to what time you open your gifts… There's so much. And I didn't even think about it until now."
"Don't start crying again" Cammie begged her. "Please. I don't like it when you're crying."
"I won't cry… I'm just a bit homesick."
I brainstormed for a bit, there must be something I could wonder about. Around all of the traditions…
"What do you eat for Christmas? In Sweden?"
"Since we're close to the borderline and my mum's actually half Norwegian. We have a bit of a mix in between different kinds of Christmas food. But the main meals- ham during all of December. Meatballs on Christmas Eve, ribs on Christmas Day and then Stockfish on Boxing day. Then, on Christmas Eve we always have a big breakfast with eggs and all kinds of different sandwich breads and toppings. And it's probably the only time of the year when everyone drinks hot chocolate with whipped cream rather than tea or coffee. Then there's beetroot salad and something called mimosa salad… By the time it's January first we all feel like we're this size." She moved her arms out to the sides to show the size of a ball and blew her cheeks out.
No one said anything for a little while. I would have expected at least Charlie or Jason to say something or go to their rooms, they seemed close.
But at last, Tori was the one who told everyone about her traditions while she came home from walking Pearl.
"Right before Christmas. Or the day before my birthday in June it always feels like time is standing still. Do you guys know what I always do to make time pass by?" She didn't get any answer. "I clean- like, clean. Vaccum, do the dishes- the lot!"
"Where's the fun in that?"
That was Remi's usual comment on something she didn't want to do but Tori just shrugged.
"I don't know. But it made my house clean at least twice a year- and for Christmas and my birthday it felt nice not to have to worry about all of that. So… Maybe it won't take too long to just sort out our things in a hotel room. But maybe Cassie has got something for each of us to do. And then, for Christmas I always end it with taking the tree in and go to bed. And then, when I wake up in the Christmas Day morning. My par… I mean Santa will have been there with gifts that he's put under the tree… And well.. It makes time pass by faster than if I just sit all day and wait for time to pass by." Tori looked over the whole group of the people in the room. Meeting Remi's and then mine, then Daniel who sat by my other side shrugged.
"Like… unless someone feels like going through my stuff I'm on it."
"Me too." His sister would probably agreed with anything Daniel did. "As long as no one goes through my own bags of course."
"I want too. I want too. I want too."
"What's up with you Cammie?" Remi asked- but I could tell she wanted to join too. "You never clean up even after yourself."
"I want too!"
"Mhmph."
Mr. James made it very obvious he didn't like any of this. But other than that it seemed everyone had joined and Cassie as well. It was time for her to start the dinner she said she needed for someone to do the dishes afterwards. And if we all started now. In about an hour she'd have it for everyone to get a break.
I joined Cammie in sorting out things that ended up exactly everywhere except for where they were to be. Because if I knew him right he could place exactly everything wrong and where someone could trip on it (I was right!).
I could see the two teen boys- Daniel and Jason starting to clean the windows, or at least the insides. With a smirk and a laugh Jason said that they'd might have to come back in the spring and finish the job. Remi followed George. I could see that's what gave her the most breaks when they filled up the laundry machine and went outside for anywhere they would be able to find a tree.
Find a tree through this weather? I didn't envy them for sure. But if George felt like he could stay safely on the roads!
The three younger women of this place- Sarah, Charlie and Tori, were split up. Charlie washing the floors that Sarah vacuumed first. Tori found exactly all of the floor carpets in the house, cleaned them and then switched to change all bed linens.
Even I- as the grandmother of this place, could promise that I had never been as filled with a place smelling as much of soap as Grey House. Because, even that Cassie had found one to use all around.
In the middle of it all, someone played a playlist with Christmas songs and for once no one was fighting about what songs were good and not. Even Cassie and Dr. Radford seemed fascinated when they walked, crossing in between people dusting or wiping.
Then at last, at the end of the day while I and William had helped three of the kids getting baths (Taylor could have one when she wouldn't risk falling asleep in the tub). We were all standing around the tree George and Remi had gotten, and all the kids placed ornaments on each all possible and impossible places.
And then Dr. Radford lifted Cammie up to put the star on top. Even Taylor had come (wearing gloves and a facemask) and watched. If this feeling stuck then we wouldn't be missing anything. We even had a smell of Christmas cookies running through the whole house!
"This reminds me of a story I read." Remi told the rest of us. "About a town where people forgot everything. And then, the worst time. They forgot it would be Christmas until the last day before. When the whole town have to fix for Christmas the last day."
"Well then." We moved into the kitchen where I and William had already made sandwiches for the end of a very interesting Christmas Eve. "You know! It's only if you two go to bed now that Santa will come. Then he will have been here and you will have gifts to open. "
I knew for certain I and William had left all the children's gifts at home, since we had still believed we'd be coming home before Christmas and not be stuck here. But I could have sworn I saw Cassie with some rolls of wrapping paper earlier today and some wrapped gifts to put underneath the tree.
"Yeah. That's right." Remi said, smirked and ate the last bit of her ham sandwich quickly. "Come on now, Cammie. We have to go to bed fast or Santa will never be here quickly enough. Come on. Eat faster!"
"Calm down." I told them before anyone choke on something. "Santa's not coming any quicker when you three might get choked… are you okay Taylor?" She had finished her meal, pulled her face mask back over her nose and mouth, now she sat with her head in her hand and seemed in deep thought. "You should probably go to bed too before you fall asleep here by the table? And you can't wait for Santa either if I know you right."
"But the weather is still this bad." She said- half in distress and her voice still raspy from the mono. "Do you think Santa will have been here when we get up in the mornings? And maybe he will have brought have a lot of gifts even through all of this."
"Of course." I agreed- despite that we had barely brought any gifts here to Grey House and the rest would have to wait until we came back home. "Santa's magic. And this kind of weather is exactly what he needs Rudolph for."
It was only quiet for a second, yet I had a feeling someone would be saying something.
And maybe I should have shut him up before he did.
"Wait?" Mr. James just sounded so snorting I could hear it in his voice. "Do you still believe in Santa Claus? Because by your age, kids have started to get that Santa is just an excuse to make children behave."
"What?"
Something went out in Taylor's eyes. I think I had seen it for a long time, but tried and tried to hold on while everyone else saw it as more important to teach a person, even a little child what in their dreams and hearts was real and not?
"I'm just saying kids…"
"Stop!"
It was Will who had put an end to whatever Mr. James was trying to admit before I had the time. I seemed frozen and just didn't have the words to speak while I saw Taylor's eyes above her mouth protection fill with tears. I knew as well as anyone that Mr. James was right but how could he be doing this to any child? Let alone my grandchild?
"What does it matter to you?" I and Will had been together for forty years. I knew there was no fighting him when his voice sounded like this. "What… what are you gaining from crushing her? Her Christmas Spirit?"
"Christmas Spirit you say? I just think it's a stupid way for parents to try and keep their kids well-behaved."
Tears had come rising more and more often in Taylor's eyes, but I still just didn't have anything to say. Either way I wouldn't have any words of what I was about to say and Taylor got up from the table and we heard her as she ran up the stairs and into her room where she slammed the door after her.
"I don't think a child who can slam the door like that is a very well-behaved one!"
"What?" I finally found my words. "What gives you the… the allowance of speaking to, and about a child- our granddaughter like that?" I looked around the kitchen, everyone were so quiet… Even the roaring of the wind outside seemed to have gone all silent. "I'll…" My voice calmed down again. "…I'll go and talk to her. And if I ever see you as much as near her again… Well Lord knows what I'm going to do with you… Goodnight everyone."
I could hear Mr. James snorting and belly laughing loudly behind me while I left the kitchen and continued up the stairs. My old legs weren't what they had been and I had never wished so hard I could close my eyes and when I opened them again I would be with Taylor. She was only at the bottom of the hallway but it felt like a million years before I reached the door and opened it without caring to knock.
"Taylor?" I asked- ever so carefully. As if if I spoke to harshly I'd break her where she laid under her blanket- Turned with her back against me, and shivering half from crying and half from the temperature running through her body. "Can you at least lower your blanket so I can look at you?" There were a few seconds and I sat down on the edge of her bed while she moved the blanket and uncovered her face- her cheeks already red and swollen from crying. "Oh Taylor."
I laid my arm around her shoulders. I took her in my arms while she leaned towards me and cried and cried and cried…
"It's okay." I whispered and kissed the top of her brown hair. "It will be okay."
I couldn't imagine how her throat must be burning now. With the mono and now all the crying. Every second felt like a million years as the house went quieter and quieter. Taylor, my oldest granddaughter kept on crying and if I only could- if there was any way for me to take away all of her pain…
"I never wanted the magic to die."
Everything had just gone too well during a while.
This just couldn't be the way Christmas was about to end up!
Tyler POV
…."Mum…" Kylie's voice sounded so teasing. "Tyler and Haydin sitting in a tree."
"Shush Kylie." I couldn't help but laugh. "Only because you walked in on me and my boy…friend…. Kiss…"
There certainly wasn't anything to laugh about when the kitchen door swung opened and my dad stood there. And already before he said anything I knew that he had heard. Something about his oldest son having a boyfriend.
And I knew exactly what my dad would think about that.
With a few long steps he was across the whole kitchen floor and grabbed me by the shirt. He then grabbed me by the shirt, he held my face so close to his I almost gagged by the smell of tobacco.
"Please Leif." Mum begged and tried to pull him away from me as if there was any way for her to stand up against my dad. "Please. Can we at least talk about this. Please…"
Maybe mum at least wanted to say something- something about how they had found me at an orphanage and so made a quiet promise to care me for the rest of our lives no matter how they turned out.
"Talk?" Dad wheezed and shook me. "Haven't we done enough of talking? Enough but still not enough? Right? I want you out of this house. I don't want you anywhere near your sister. She's ten."
"I'd never hurt her."
"Shush." Dad shook me again. "I'll take her outside for an hour. And if you… and all your things aren't gone by the time I come back… well I don't know what I'll do with you. Come here Kylie love..." Kylie looked in confusion from dad, to me, back to dad- she was my little girl. But how was I supposed to explain all of this in less than an hour. "NOW!"
"I don't understand."
She more or less squeaked, I couldn't say I did neither. Despite her being my parents' biological child, and I the adoptive one there just hadn't ever been a world of her life where she wasn't my sister. And mum- who looked so given up as I felt before she went to get my camping backpack. She knew just as well as I did there was no way talking against dad, for anyone.
"Come with me now. Kylie." Dad roared, she wasn't about to go with him but he grabbed her and pulled her with him. "And you! You know I keep my promises." Dad kept mumbling to Kylie, I didn't hear what was said but it was something about p'dophile.
"Where's Shane?" I asked, I knew already but I just had to talk somehow while mum got clothes that I could have to bring with me.
"At a sleepover." Mum said sadly, and her voice was shaking. "Is there any chance you could go and stay at Haidyn's?" I shook my head.
"No. His family is out of town for the holidays."
After getting what I needed mum just sat down on my bed. She held tears rolling down her cheeks and I hated dad more than ever for what he was doing. He could have hurt me all he wanted but he was hurting mum, and Kylie. And whenever Shane came home in the morning he would be wondering where I had gone and when I would come back.
What would Shane say, and Kylie too when they had to understand that I wasn't coming back…
By the time dad promised he'd come back he was too. And of course I thought of something I'd forgotten. I sent mum a meaning glance, she ran to the hallway to keep dad occupied and Kylie came running back to me.
"Don't leave Tyler." She begged me. "Don't leave, please don't leave. Please don't leave. It's almost Christmas. It's Christmas Eve tomorrow and the next day is Christmas. Please don't leave…"
I just wanted to cry. She didn't understand, and I wasn't sure I did neither. With it I took my big backpack and my warmest coat- not that it would do much good in this weather that had hit the last few days.
"Please don't leave…"
But I could hear it as dad came towards the room and I didn't know what he would do if he found me hugging Kylie I gave her a quick hug at the last chance.
"Take this." She pushed a my little pony into my hand. "She's my favourite. Her name is Rainbow Flash. Take care of her."
I forced a smile and put Rainbow Flash in my pocket. Then I had to leave while Kylie stopped by the windows right by our front door. Dad tried to say something else but it probably wasn't worth listening to, and at last- when Kylie tugged my hand one more time I leaned down and made sure I heard what she had said.
"What?"
"Is this my fault?"
"No." The lump in my throat grew bigger. I didn't know what dad had said to her earlier but certainly it wasn't. "No, don't you believe that. Ever. Because it isn't." Kylie started sobbing but if dad found me hugging her I still didn't know what would happen. "I have to go now."
"NO." Kylie stopped in the door and dad came to hold her. "NO DON'T GO DON'T GO. YOU'RE THE BEST AND I LOVE YOU. TYLER PLEASE DON'T GO."
I couldn't stand it…
I went out the door, but there were windows in the hallway and when I turned back, as if there would be a chance dad changed his mind when he saw me leaving in this winter blizzard…
Ha! As if!
But through the snow and the glass, I could see Kylie and the tears streaming down her cheeks. And for my own heart's sake. I took a harder grip of my backpack and left that one house that had been my home since I was eight months and came to America from China.
And that was now about twenty-four hours ago…
I had pretty much known for certain that by the time he found out about my sexuality he'd kick me out. But why would it have to happen the evening before Christmas Eve and in the middle of the worst blizzard this part of the world had ever seen?
Maybe if I hadn't been kicked out in this storm I hadn't thought I'd freeze to death during the first night, I wouldn't have spent the whole first day at a café that was opened on Christmas eve and dreaded the moment they closed. 24 hours wouldn't have passed since the minute I was kicked out when I was on a bus, an evening bus towards my school that was the only warm place I could think of an evening like this.
At least this bus took me from the bus stop nearest to my "home" to the one nearest my school…
"Hey." When the bus stopped by the school I took my bus pass, bank card and went forward. "This is as long as my bus pass takes me. Maybe I can pay for another while and I can stay until the ending station… in Blairsville- right?"
The bus driver seemed mildly amused by me at this point, I couldn't blame him. It was Christmas Eve and I was the only one here except for himself. But he did gesture for me to pay. And there went my hope of him being one of them drivers who let anyone keep riding.
And then my card was declided…
"Oh…" I said in surprise. "…There is money there. I swear to you, it is…"
I didn't even know why I kept on talking. This man didn't exactly have anything to do with my whole life story but I knew I could have told him it all.
"I… I… I'm sorry."
My dad couldn't already have called the bank could he?
I knew very well he could have. And he had cancelled my card by the same time I left the house last night. When I was at a café this morning I hadn't noticed since I paid cash. But I had no more of that and it didn't matter- buses didn't take cash anyway!
"Please. Sir." I just had to beg even though it was embarrassing. "It's Christmas."
The driver only glared at me the fourth time I tried my card as if it could work any better if I tried it enough of times. He then opened the doors.
"Get out before I call the police."
"Please."
"GET OUT."
I went to get my big backpack and my coat, made sure I had everything- including Rainbow Flash in my pockets and then hurried out onto the pavement outside where the wind and cold hit me like a wall.
So right then, without home, without money. Without any family or friends and in the middle of a Christmas blizzard… What was I supposed to do now?
It had been about twenty four hours since I was kicked out. And I felt colder and colder by the second.
Suddenly my feet started moving. I didn't know where to- I didn't have any plan of what to do but my legs kept steering me towards Grey House. That I had barely even known was in this part of town, up the driveway and opened the door. I had half expected everything inside to be dark and everyone asleep, but the hallway was lit up and a dark- haired woman was standing by a desk having the time to tell me her name before I figured what to do.
"Welcome to Grey House. I'm Cassie, Cassie Nightingale."
"Hey…" I knew I should have went out, but feeling the warmth and the warm colors around me stopped me. "It's so warm in here."
"Well I do run a bed and breakfast. How about a room to stay in?"
I silent, once again not sure what to say, But I guessed lying would be a bad idea. So I mumbled about being broke, as if it saying it too loud would make it more true. Or that I had any idea.
"Grey House has a place for anyone who steps over the threshold…"
Despite the meaning of what she said I would have turned around and went outside. But something was still telling me from inside that I wasn't due to leave this house for a long while…
I must have been standing with my back against her for a whole minute, then turned again.
"Start over?" She just smiled back at me. "I'm Tyler. Tyler Martin."
I was about to continue. But what was I supposed to say that wasn't too private…
"I'm Cassie… Welcome to Grey House… You're welcome to stay as long as you need. And I have just the room for you." She took a key from a shelf I couldn't see. "Up these stairs, to the left- second on the right."
"Thank you."
"If you need anything you can just ask George." Just as she said that an old, white- haired man came down the hallway. "Do you need any help carrying?"
"No." I fixed the shoulder strap of my backpack to show her that was everything I owned and had. "But I think… I think I'll just go to my room now. I need some time of my own without people bothering me." I could hear some kids upstairs, and I missed my sister as much as ever- but my head was pounding and spinning and I just couldn't even stand the thought about having to keep upright. "Sorry. I don't mean to be rude."
"You do look like you could need some rest. I'll make sure none of the kids here bother you…. But tomorrow is Christmas after all."
I couldn't help but see in front of me the way my sister, then nine years old had been when she came downstairs last year. When we found a mountain of gifts as we got out of bed at six in the morning. No way was she letting any member of the family sleep any longer than that so "Santa" had been around by midnight….
What was Christmas going to be like now? After all I had planned with my boyfriend and my sister?
Clearer than any picture was Kylie's the minute I left- or when dad forced me to leave and I turned back to at least try and let me stay.
That was the evening until the 23d. And for every second Christmas Eve had come closer. Kylie had wished for a big certain pack of rainbow loom bands and Shane for a 22-inch Skateboard. But knowing dad would only give only books, and mum some other books and a helmet and pads for Shane. I had gotten them both and just seen in front of me, how their faces would lit up when Santa arrived with what they wished for the most. Would our dad even let them have their presents from me now?
Would I ever know?
Here I was, I laid down on this random bed in an unknown house, rolled over so I could see the clock and counted the seconds until the one day everyone looked forward to all year.
Then, just as the clock reached midnight somewhere far away I could hear a clock's clinging. And while listening to it- I couldn't help it when tears came streaming down from my eyes and into the pillow while I cried myself to sleep.
This just couldn't be the way Christmas was about to end up!
Random fact
When I wrote a POV story called dancing in the rain, the way it was was that there usually was a theme through the chapter. Or there was a line that each of the pov's in the chapter ended with. So well… doing it here too but it was too long to make it the title of a chapter.