Sweetened || HS AU

• thirty-four •

Surprise!!!

||

| Jailen |

The sun had risen which meant that it was officially Christmas Eve.

Which also meant that I had been staring at the ceiling for the past eight hours.

My eyes burned when I blinked and a tear slid down into my ear. It's just from not blinking. I tried to assure myself.

My body was stiff from not moving for the past couple of hours and I was tired but I just couldn't bring myself to fall asleep. Hayden fell asleep earlier than normal last night and I took that opportunity to wrap a few of her presents. I only wrapped a few because it would give away the whole "Santa actually came" aspect of Christmas.

And then, I showered, in hopes that it would help me tire down faster but it didn't. I tossed and turned for the first hour or so until I started thinking. It was normal at first, little thoughts about Hayden and if she'd like the gift that I got her.

Then it was about Jason and his family. We weren't spending Christmas together this year because they were visiting Nick's family's house. Which then turned into another thought; I was spending Christmas without any family for the first time in years.

When Jason and I were younger, it was always the two of us excited over the holidays. My mom was never a fan of them and projected that onto my older sisters. So by the time Jason and I were born, it had already been engraved in their minds that holidays were stupid.

But we were always interested in them. Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day - we celebrated, even if it was by doing something as small as coloring a themed picture or looking at the decorations.

My dad would join in because at first, we were too young to wander about by ourselves and our mom just didn't seem to have any interest in our hobbies. She was always too busy. But even as we got old enough to go out by ourselves, my dad would join and eventually, he started picking out decorations for the house. Even after I moved away, I would go home for almost every holiday because it had become a tradition between the three of us up until four years ago...

I spent four years without my parents for the holidays, but I had Jason, so I was content, he was my family for those four years. He, Nick, and their kids.

I made the mistake of going through my contacts out of boredom. For some reason, even after I changed my number, I hadn't deleted my dad's number. In fact, I made sure that he was the first number I saved to my new phone. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it was because deep down I knew that I was eventually going to reach out to him. He might not have known my whereabouts but I knew he was still at home.

But as I clicked on his contact and went to press the call button, realization struck me. He was dead.

I sat my phone down immediately after and haven't picked it up since. If I was being honest, I was afraid to. I was doing a pretty good job at keeping the tears at bay, even if a few did slip out, but I knew if I picked up my phone again, the first thing I was going to see was his contact photo. So, I decided against it and I was now going on hour 9 of staring at the ceiling.

I think I was starting to hallucinate. I could've sworn I heard my front door open, but that was impossible. I triple-checked my locks last night, as I have ever since I swore off speaking to my mother. I wasn't sure what she would do to try and get me to speak to her again. I scoffed, as if she cared that much. If anything. I'm sure I was doing her a favor by vowing to never speak to her again. I'm sure it was easier to still consider herself a great parent because she wasn't the one to cut ties between us.