Xerox

Ch. 22

"Wake up! Wake up! It's Christmas!" I hear a little girl's voice say as I open my eyes and look around. There's no one to be seen except for Vivi, asleep on the bunk bed across from me. I look up on the bunk on top of Vivi's and Graisen's little sister is hanging off of her bunk, about to slip off.

"Rosie!" I yell getting out of bed and snatching her up, the quickest I've ever done anything.

"You can't do that. You'll get hurt." I say calmly.

"Mom instincts on 10." Graisen says rubbing her eyes. I chuckle and put her down on the ground.

"Come on, Grai! Let's go open gifts, everyone else is in the living room." she says jumping up and down.

"5 more minutes, Rosie. Okay?"

"No, now!" she says dragging my arm. "Come on Sofia!"

"Okay, okay. Let's go." I say grabbing my robe and putting on my slippers as she drags me out of the room.

"Good morning, sleepy head." my mom says rubbing my head.

"Hi," I say sleepily. I look around and everyone really is in the living room; waiting on everyone else to get out of bed. River and his family ended up spending the night, after my parents convinced them to. River smiles at me and wiggles his fingers at me. I smile and sit right next to him on the floor.

"Merry Christmas." I moan, sitting down.

"Merry Christmas." he says grinning. "Where's everyone else?"

"They said they wanted 5 more minutes, but knowing them, that probably means another 15." I say. He chuckles, as Vivi and the other girls walk out of the room. 

"Wow, they actually got up." I say, shocked. I scoot over and Vivi smiles, sitting in between me and River.

"How'd you sleep?" he asks her.

"Good. How about you?" she asks softly.

"Pretty good, I mean the couch is actually really comfortable." he says.

"Oh my god, I had no idea you had to sleep on the couch. If I would've known that I would've let you sleep with me." she says, obviously flirting with him. He smirks at her and turns away, trying not to lead into temptation while other people are around.

"Alright, now that everyone is awake," my dad starts to say looking at all of the girls who were still asleep. Everyone in the room laughs as he continues his speech. "We're going to start opening gifts. We've already sorted out everyone's gifts, so once you find a gift with your name on it, all of your other gifts shouldn't be far. Unless, of course, someone were to be so kind and got me a Lambo, then it would be in the driveway." Everyone laughs again. "Let's go ahead and get started!"

 I get up to find my gifts by the tree, and I find one and smile. It's from my mom, and it's a new pair of sunglasses I've been asking for. I smile and thank her and start opening my stack of gifts. After a few minutes of opening gifts, I find a small gift with my name on it, from Lucas. I smile ear to ear and rip off the wrapping paper. It's a red velvet jewelry box. I open it and see a gold necklace with a small pendant on it. I look closely at the pendant and it has a small Amethyst stone, which happens to be my birthstone; and a Peridot, which happens to be his. I smile and flip it over and it has the letters 'S' & 'L'.

"What's that?" my mom asks walking over to me, smirking.

"Lucas got me this." I say, holding back my tears. She smiles as I look up at her.

"Did you know about this?" I ask.

"He gave it to me to give to you before we left." she says as I start to cry of joy. "Oh," she says reaching into her robe pocket. She pulls out an envelope with my name on it, I'm guessing from him as well. She hands it to me and I continue to smile. I open it and on the inside it's a handwritten letter.