*The picture is the closest thing I could find of what I want Anna's tiara (given to her in a box on her birthday in chapter 10*
“Anna!” The twins screech from downstairs. Truth be told I would much rather have my iPod wake me up than their annoying voices. I wince and draw the covers over my head, mumbling curses under my breath.
“Anna!” They repeat. I hear their noisy footsteps running up the stairs and brace myself for their usual greeting. They’ve been doing this to me since… well since I can remember.
Every Christmas Eve morning and Christmas Morning they (including Adrian up until now) have run into my room (since I’m always the last one up out of bed) and jumped on me with all their force. It’s amazing they haven’t killed me by now. Though, the past three years they’ve opted more for ripping the covers off of me and yanking me out of bed—and in one case rolling me down the stairs. Let’s not mention that…
“Wake up!” Alec yells, ripping the covers off of me. I grumble and flinch at the sudden dim lighting. Adam laughs, “Come on, Anna!”
I huff and throw a throw pillow at them. They go running out the door yelling about the food for tonight. I sit up in bed and realize Ben’s sweater is lying there with my other blankets on my bed. I stare at it for a good five seconds before picking the soft material up and holding it close to me. It’s warm. It smells like him and feels like him. It’s not like any of my past boyfriends’ shirts or sweatshirts. It… means something… it means something more than (like Brian) him wanting to show me off wearing his clothes. He genuinely just wanted to comfort me.
My mom suddenly appears in the doorway and I loosen my grip on the sweater. She smiles, almost sentimentally. “I used to do that with your father’s shirts all the time. Sometimes I would sit there for hours just thinking about him…”
Silence. She leans against the doorway and stares. I gaze down at the material in my hands.
“Ben cares about you, Anna. Much more than you think”
I sigh and push off my bed, deciding to put on his sweater. She grins, her blue eyes bright with a joyfulness that only Christmas can bring.
I simply say, “I can at least try to make him feel like my depression isn’t his fault.”
She clears her throat. “The ring…”
I scrunch my eyebrows together. “I’ll be cooking, mom.”
“Well not baking. We did all of that two days ago, remember? So there’s no risk of you getting it ruined. Trust me, sweetie, I wouldn’t let you ruin a two-million-euro ring.”
My heart skips a beat as I remember how expensive that thing is. It’s like wearing a mansion on my finger. I hesitantly reach over and slip it on my left ring finger. It’s nice and snug. My perfect ring size.
I hear my mom chuckling and look up. She lifts her left finger up and says, “Now we match.”
I follow her down the stairs to find Ben and Victor already chilling on my sofa. It doesn’t even phase me anymore… and I thank god I had enough decency and sense to put on a bra.
Ben greets me with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face. I plop down on the couch beside him.
“Good Morning,” he says brightly.
“Morning,” I mumble, almost incoherently before yawning.
His father chuckles as the twins fight to see who gets to taste the macaroni my mom is preparing for one of the main trays for tonight.
YOU ARE READING
Suddenly Princess
Teen FictionAnnaMaria Romanoff grows up with an adoptive family, thinking that her biological parents were working class citizens of the country of Chirnova, who died tragically in a car crash when she was just a year old. It's her senior year in high school no...
