Misfits (#2)

59.

Everest.

I've never truly celebrated Christmas. Most years, I'd get more drunk than usual and black myself out so I didn't have to accept that the holidays made me feel more lonely than usual.

It's our first Christmas at the apartment together. It hasn't snowed today but it had a few days ago, the remnants of snowfall lingering on the streets outside. I'm on the balcony as the sun starts to rise.

Manhattan's starting to wake up, the bustle of cars a gentle sound a long way down below. I've been finding peace in this sort of quiet, each morning. I watch sunrises now. They're cool. Cooler than I'd ever appreciated, before her.

I turn back inside my room and pull on some sweatpants. Leaving my upper half bare, I walk out and into the lounge room. I don't expect anyone to be awake, most of the lights still off and the sunrise's orange haze creeping onto the wooden floors.

Until I get into the lounge room. I probably should've expected her to be awake. I lean against the doorway silently and watch Val, trying her hardest to reach up on her tiptoes to decorate the Christmas tree. Luca, Ria and Benji had picked the tree out a few weeks ago but none of us got around to decorating it.

It's five in the morning. Nobody else is awake. Tinsel covers the mantelpiece, stockings hang over the heater and the tree's covered in baubles, ornaments and other little decorations, stacks of wrapped presents beneath it. All of it's down to the girl with long blonde hair and big blue eyes, dressed in a red onesie.

"Did Santa and his reindeers take a massive shit or was that you?" I muse.

She jumps and promptly slips on one of the baubles, landing right on her ass. Shit. I wince and hurry over to her sprawled out on the floor, groaning.

"Fuck. Sorry, blondie." I grimace, reaching down to hold her hands and pull her up. She sits up straight now and rubs at her leg.

Then, she flits her blue doe eyes up at me and tries her hardest to smile through the pain, "It was Santa, for sure. Merry Christmas, Ev— ow."

"Here." I scoop her up by her arms so she's standing, "Does anything hurt too bad? You hit your head?"

"No. But I think I broke my ass." She says, "I was supposed to give you all Christmas hugs."

"You're a loser." I start to smile.

"A loser full of Christmas spirit. And I don't care how many times you douchebags call me stupid today. I'm making you love Christmas." She snaps, lifting her chin. She definitely prepared that little speech.

She's the most admirable of us all. I think all of us wish we were her. Wish we had an ounce of her light. She's taught us more homeliness, and care than most other people in our life and as much as us douchebags don't admit it, Val Emerson means more to us than she knows.

She makes us breakfast in the morning, cooks for us at night. She reprimands us and sort of pisses us off sometimes but without her, we'd be lost as fuck. One night, she'd gone out with her friends and me, Luca and Hudson just kinda sat at the island like confused fucking idiots with their tails between their legs. We had no food and we didn't want to eat anyone but hers.

We never admitted that to her though, or the fact that we'd kinda just slipped back into our rooms hungry that night.

So I sigh and wrap my arms around her because the other two aren't gonna be as happy with the idea of Christmas hugs. But I am. I kiss her head, "I love a Christmas hug. Merry Christmas, blondie."

She tightens her arms around me and once she pulls back, she squeals and throws her hands up in a ta da way, "What'd you think?"

"It..." I look around the room, and the explosion of green and reds. And then I look back to her expecting eyes, "It's perfect. Santa shits perfectly."