Wonderland {h.s}

Fifteen

I'm four and the baby won't stop crying. I lay under the bed on the other side of the room I share with my brother. Part of me wants to move, to toughen up and stop hiding and hold him like I want someone to hold me. I stay put.

I'm ten and a few minutes ago the house smelled like baking and Christmas but now it's only burnt cookies and my mother speaking like every word is being ripped from her throat. "Stay here," she says. "Be good." Damien and I hide under the bed together.

I'm thirteen and this time he hits her in front of me. My fingertips feel the same butterflies as my stomach but I just watch. I grit my teeth and for a moment I try to convince myself I'm only imagining this. But I'm not. He hits her again and my feet move before I can stop them. He laughs at my attempt to help her and he laughs until he leaves.

He brings her flowers.

-

"What the fook're you doing?" I grumble as I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. It's barely eight in the morning and way too cold for me to be woken up by loud grunts and thumping from downstairs.

Imagine my shock when I find Juliette lugging a tree two times too big through the front door. She looks in my direction and huffs.

"It won't fit."

"I can see that," I nod. "Why are you doing this at the ass crack of dawn? Why are you doing this at all?"

"Couldn't sleep," she mumbles. "Now will you stop staring and help me?"

Together we drag the enormous tree through the door and into my living room, leaving needles in our path. Juliette looks at it with pure glee in her eyes once it's upright. The tree almost touches the ceiling, so close that a star probably won't even fit on top. But I don't think she cares.

"I've always loved Christmas," Juliette smiles.

"Never liked it much myself." I sigh as I flop tiredly onto the couch. Juliette glares at me, but her menacing look quickly turns into a smirk.

"Then I guess it's time to get you in the spirit."

-

"Y'know, I'd much rather be tying you up, love."

Juliette blushes instantly and mutters a quiet "shut up" under her breath. She finishes wrapping a string of Christmas lights we found in with decorations I didn't know I had around my body and ushers me toward an outlet on the wall near the telly. A bright rainbow of colors lights up when she plugs it in.

She was decorating the tree, leaving me to watch Rudolph in an attempt to turn me jolly. Then she got bored and decided decorating me was a better idea.

"We should've decorated outside. You've the perfect house for it," she says with her eyebrows slightly furrowed, like she can't believe she didn't think of it earlier.

I shift around beneath the bright lights that are constricting parts of me I'd rather not be constricted. "It's Christmas Eve. I think it's a little late for that."

"It's never too late."

"Jules, no. Christmas has already thrown up inside my house; we don't need it anywhere else."

Juliette pouts almost comically. "Why are you so cranky?"

"Why are you so jolly?" I counter.

"I just like Christmas. Is that a crime?"

"It is in my house, babe."

"Well good thing it's our house."

Her face goes red as soon as she says it, and I have to admit, I'm a little surprised too. It's not that I don't want her to stay here permanently, it's that neither one of ever brought it up. I never know what Juliette really wants.