Board Thread:Ships/@comment-4199666-20141208145311

After going to sleep in her room alone, staring over at the empty bed across from her, Blue didn’t feel much motivation to get up. It was weird to think that a year earlier, she was spending this day with her dad – not the best company, but company all the same. Now, she was here, blankets wrapped tightly around her body after she spent a good portion of the night trying to get herself to fall asleep and ignore the cold draught which swept across her toes and fingertips. She thought of all the other kids who were here, hoping that maybe one of them might have decided to make some sort of a Christmas meal for everyone. It was a low optimism, but she’d never been around here for Christmas before, and a few people did get excited for Easter and Thanksgiving, her roommate included.

Roommate was a strange term to use here. Juliette was rarely around anymore, practically moving out after her boyfriend got a new apartment, and although Blue missed her a lot, she couldn’t blame her for wanting to leave. She would too if she had a place to go; in fact, she already had left once, before finding her way back here. Still, parts of her did wish she at least had Juliette’s cheerful, smiling face around to help her get more enthused about the holiday. The most cheer she had was when Juliette convinced her to decorate the room with paper snowflakes while she stayed there one night. She’d also hung up a stocking for the both of them, but Blue took them down the night before, knowing it would only make her feel worse seeing them there in the morning.

She finally heard a knock on the door, and after a slight indecision of whether she should answer, one of the taller, bigger kids was opening her door. His name was Quentin, and he and Blue had spoken a few times, mainly while sharing cigarette lighters out on the front porch. “Blue,” he called over, noticing she was awake, “Everyone’s opening their presents. You gotta come out.” Blue laughed a little at the unexpected invitation, but Quentin did successfully pique her curiosity enough for her to get out of bed and walk out to the main living area. Sitting on the coffee table in front of the TV was an ordinary pot plant decorated with a little bit of tinsel that had been saved for this purpose. Blue looked around at the other kids surrounding her. None of them had bothered to change out of their pyjamas, a few of them still had mugs of coffee in hand while their blank stares kept them distant from everything. Blue still smiled at the amount of company that was around. Quentin went back to get one more person, Cait Adams, who was busy feeding her baby when Quentin invited himself in. They both laughed it off, with Cait deciding to take her three month old baby out with her. She sat down next to Blue, cradling Ricardo in her lap as she did.

Quentin made a big announcement, telling everyone that they could open their presents now. All of the more eager ones dug into the small pile of presents underneath the ‘tree’ while Blue sat back and laughed, also smiling at Ricardo’s adorable little Santa onesie while he tried to play with his first Christmas present, a stuffed dog wearing a Santa hat. “Aren’t you going to look for your presents?” Cait asked as she noticed Blue sitting still. Blue laughed lightly, commenting that she doubted anyone would have bought her a present. Unless Cait bought something for her, she hadn’t really befriended anyone else enough for them to buy her a thoughtful gift. As far as she knew, Cait hadn’t been here for a Christmas before this one either, but she could have been wrong.

Another kid, a girl with long, thick dreadlocks and a piercing in her nose was the next to divert Blue’s attention. She held up a small rectangular present, wrapped in shiny silver paper which she knew she’d seen before. She looked at the tag, a little confused, but laughed when she read who it was from. In Juliette’s very distinct handwriting, was a note scribbled ‘To Blue, from Santa’. Cait peeked over to see who it was from, even though she already knew exactly who gave that to Blue. Another present appeared, in the same silver paper, and then another, and another until she had seven in total. Blue decided to stack them all up before she opened them, contemplating whether she should wait until Juliette was there next to open them, or if Juliette left them there so that she could open them while she was away. It wasn’t until Cait insisted that she had to open them, just like everyone else had. The first one was a book, some strange one with yellowed pages that she had never even heard of before. It didn’t take much for her to guess what the other six parcels were. She unwrapped each one, balancing each book back in another stack until she’d opened them all.

Just as she thought she was done, she heard Quentin announce that there was one more present for everybody. There was a muffled sound of confusion from everyone who was sitting around, excited to have their own Christmas presents, or in some cases, coffee. “These are from Juliette,” he announced, “and she wanted to say sorry for not being here.” Everyone drew their attention to Quentin as he pulled out canvas-shopping bag and started throwing out presents, one by one, calling out names as he did. Cait got hers before Blue, catching it just inches away from hitting Ricardo’s foot. Blue peeked around as everyone opened up their presents to little candy bars inside. Blue suddenly remembered watching Juliette try to play off a candy bar sitting on her bed while she was wrapping presents. Juliette had told her that it was a snack to keep her motivated to wrap presents, but she now saw that same candy bar in the hand of the dreadlocked girl. Blue’s was the last to come out, and unlike everyone else’s present, this one wasn’t tiny and candy bar shaped. It was flatter and wider and broader. It was also harder. Quentin passed it across to Blue, instead of throwing it and as Blue opened it, she realised why. Inside was a framed photo of Blue and Juliette, taken from several months ago when they were still dating. They both looked so happy and carefree in that photo, and Blue didn’t even mind the fact that she had an obvious pimple in the centre of her forehead. She felt herself tearing up a little as she realised that she hadn’t got Juliette anything. She’d just been anticipating that she would sit in bed all day and do nothing until Juliette came over a few days later.

Cait leaned across and with her free arm, hugged Cait. Then Blue hugged the dreadlocked girl whose name she still didn’t know. Soon the room was full of everyone hugging and exchanging holiday greetings. Even the people who she never saw because they were trapped in their rooms not socialising had taken a break to wish people happy holidays. After Blue managed to sneak away from the collection of people, she decided to send Juliette a message, thanking her for the presents. She didn’t know whether Juliette had time for a call, nor did she have enough credit for it. She just wanted to let Juliette know that she was thankful for the presents and to wish her a merry Christmas. Juliette replied shortly after with another text.

Merry Christmas to you too but I only gave you one present.

Blue didn’t feel like arguing over that, but she did laugh. She started to wonder how Juliette managed to get those presents to appear under the tree and who else was in on it. For the first time in a long while, she finally felt like she’d enjoyed Christmas, and contrary to what she initially expected, she didn’t spend it alone. She spent it with her family; her very big, odd assortment of a family. 