Finally, it's Christmas Eve. This past week I spent time with the family learning more about them. Reed is not acting cold to me anymore. He makes small talk here and there. I would not call us friends yet but, it is progress. I also spend a lot of time with Ryder. We watch horror movies, I play sports with him, and sometimes Reed joins us.
I will meet Andrew again today when I go to church. I can't wait to give him the presents I got for him. But I am also scared. What if he doesn't accept? What if he thinks that I am doing it out of pity? I am doing it because I have been through what he is going through. But, I at least had Keith, but he has a stepfather who hates him.
I take a shower and straighten my hair. I wear a hoodie and legging.
I go downstairs, and a beautiful aroma fills my senses pancakes. Yum. I greet everyone and take a seat beside Ryder. I ruffle his hair a bit, he swats my hands and glares at me. I put my hands up in surrender while he fixes his hair. I really don't know what's up with boys and hair. Raven sets a plate full of pancakes. I shower it with syrup and start digging in.
I finish breakfast, and help Raven with the dishes and go to my room to wrap the rest of the present, including Andrew's. Soon it's time for church, and I wear a pink full-sleeved top with black jeans and pair it up with brown boots. I also take a jacket with me just in case it gets too cold.
I take my present for Andrew. I bought him a proper set of winter clothes with gloves and a beanie. Also, a pair of good sneakers. I also got him a cool backpack for school.
I go downstairs and find Raven waiting for me with hands full of food. We both head to the church, and before I get down, Raven stops me.
"Give this to Andrew Kia. It's just food and some sweets." She tells me with a smile.
I take it with a nod and ask Raven to meet me here after an hour. I go inside, and it's filled, as parents or relatives are here to see their children sing, as a choir is placed in the front that is currently singing Silent Night.
I look around for Andrew and find him in his usual place I go and sit near his, and his body stiffens. I let out a quiet sigh. I see John, and we lock eyes. He sees me sitting with Andrew and shakes his head, giving me a disapproving look. I simply smile at him and look away. After some time, the choir finishes with their last song, 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year' and people start leaving. I do a small prayer for my family and also for Andrew.
I look at Andrew, and he is silent with his eyes closed. I take my present for him and place it in his lap. His eyes fly open, and he looks at the present and then finally looks at me. This is the first time I am looking at him properly. He has black hair with black eyes and a scar that runs from his left eye to his lips.
"Hey Andrew, Merry Christmas." I greet him with a smile. When he doesn't say anything, I continue.
"My name is kiara Tennyson. It's nice to meet you." he doesn't say anything. Instead, he takes the present from his lap and hands it back to me and gets up to leave. I instantly catch his wrists to stop him from leaving. He looks taken back, and I let go of his hand.
"Andrew, please accept it. I know you are thinking that I am doing it out of pity, but I am not. I have gone through what you are going through." He gives me a look which says 'how do you know?' but I continue,
"I lost my parents two years ago due to a car crash, and I miss them the most during Christmas. So, I think I know what you are going through. Maybe not all of it, but some. I am not doing this out of pity, and also, nobody should be unhappy during Christmas." I finish and hand him back the present.
"And this is from Raven Scott. She asked me to give this to you." I hand him the food. He looks at me and gives a small smile. I smile back happily.
"Merry Christmas Kiara." he wishes me and leaves. I can't stop the smile that forms on my face. I continue smiling and go outside and see Reed instead of Raven. I get inside the car, and he looks at me weirdly.
"Why are you smiling like a creep?" he asks me, and I grin wider at his question. He shakes his head with a chuckle and starts the car. We hear Christmas songs on the way to his house.
Once we reach home, I go upstairs to change into my Christmas PJs that consists of a white t-shirt that says 'have yourself a merry Christmas' and red shorts with black stripes.
I go downstairs to see the whole family waiting for me to start the Christmas eve dinner. I lick my lips, looking at the table with the food. We say a small prayer and start eating, making small talk. Soon we finish dinner, and all of us go to the living room to put presents and help decorate the Christmas tree.
At the top of the tree, there is a gold star that extends towards the ceiling. There are small, twinkling lights on the tree in shades of red, green, and blue that rest on a white garland that wraps around the tree. It is beautifully decorated with small Santa's, Reindeer, candy canes, and snowflakes. The tree looks so beautiful. Raven tells me about the boys when they were kids, once we finish decorating.
"You really won't believe it. When Reed was nine, it was the first day of school, and I had gotten him a new set of fragrant erasers. He loved the smell so much that he kept on smelling it. Soon, his hands started aching, and he put the eraser inside his nose so that he could smell it all day. Well, let's just say that later he was admitted to the hospital to take out the eraser."
I laugh so hard imagining little Reed smelling his eraser, getting tired and putting it inside his nose.
Reed was pouting like a small child that his mom was embarrassing him.
"Mom, why don't you say something about Ryder too? Why am I the one getting embarrassed?" Reed says looking, at Ryder, who was laughing at his big brother.
Ryder stops laughing when he heard this. He gives out a war cry and starts chasing reed around the house. Reed's eyes widen, and he starts running. He goes behind the counter to escape Ryder. Reed comes back to the living room, and before he could escape, I put my foot in front so Reed would trip and fall.
Reed trips and faceplants. Ryder jumps on his brother and sits on his legs, and starts tickling the inside of his feet. Reed starts laughing and begs his brother to stop. But soon, Reed and Ryder both look at me at the same time. A shiver runs down my spine. Both of them smirk, and I start taking a step backwards, having an idea of what they are planning to do.
Soon I start running. I hear the both of them laughing as they chase me. This time Raven sticks her foot, but I jump over her feet. I was too busy jumping that I didn't see reed standing before me I hit him at full speed and fall on my back. Ryder catches up to me and starts tickling me while Reed holds my hands so I won't escape.
"Guys, please .. st.. stop I can't take it anymore ..i ..wi..will do any..thing, please stop." I manage to say in between my laughter. Soon they both stop.
"Anything?" Ryder questions.
Now I am sitting in the movie room watching the walking dead. They know that zombies give me the creeps so, they forced me to watch it.
"You guys are terrible, do you know that?" I tell them.
"We know." they both answer in unison clearly, freaking me out. They are brothers, all right.
Ryder soon falls asleep, and I help Reed put him to bed. I wish Reed goodnight and head to bed.
I am so grateful for this family. Finally, tired from the day's activities, darkness consumes me, and I fall asleep with a smile on my face.
"KIARA ...KIARA WAKE UP IT'S CHRISTMAS," Ryder shouts in my ear, effectively waking me up.I get up so fast that I fall out of my bed with a loud thud, and I groan."Ugh, I am up, I am up." I say, rubbing my butt.When my eyes adjust to the bright light, I see Ryder jumping on my bed shouting, "It's Christmas.","I am gonna wake up Reed," he shouts and runs out of my room.I really don't know where he gets his energy from. That kid's hyperactive even without sugar. I glance at my clock and see it's five minutes past seven. That's early.I hear a loud 'It's Christmas', which is followed by a loud thud. Looks like Reed fell out of bed too.I go out to see an energetic Ryder pulling a sleepy Reed, who is rubbing his butt out of the room. I chuckle at the scene. While Ryder wakes everybody up, I quickly brush my teeth and comb my hair.I go downstairs to see Reed and Ryder sitting around the Christmas tree with presents. I look bac
It's New Year's eve, and currently, I am on a facetime call with my friends."So guys, how was your Christmas dinner with Keith?" I ask them with a smirk.Anna's cheeks go pink just like I expected. Anna has had a crush on him forever. She thinks that I don't know. But I found out a couple of years ago when Anna acted all shy and strange in his presence. Whenever they are together, you can see a faint tint of pink on her cheeks.I don't think Div has noticed it yet."Why are you blushing, Anna?" Div asks with a smirk..... okay, she knows."What I... I ..am..not blushing ..you..you are." Anna stutters, and I mentally facepalm. Nice save, Anna.Looks like we are gonna talk about my best friend's crush."You like him, Anna.""But I don'..""Don't even think about lying." I cut her off."Yeah, Anna. We know about your crush on Keith, so spill the beans." Divya tells her.She sighs, "Fine. What do you gu
There is only the weekend left before I start school. The near kiss that happened between Reed and I was never spoken. It was just a spur of the movement thing Reed will never go for a girl like me. I really don't know why he tried to kiss me. I am really thankful that things didn't get awkward between Reed and me. I pet aerial for a while and go downstairs to find only Blake and Raven having breakfast. I greet them morning and make myself cereal."I really wish the boys would wake up early as you do and not wake up at noon to eat breakfast as lunch," Raven complains. On that note, Reed comes down looking hot with his bed hair. Wow, I have gotta get these thoughts out of my head. After the near kiss, I can't stop but find Reed beautiful and handsome."Mom, can you please stop comparing us with Kiara. She wakes up early because she has all those makeup stuff to do before breakfast," Reed grumbles."Honey, if you know Kiara at all, you will know that she doesn't l
Today is my first day of school. I am excited, but I am also very nervous. I take a long shower and wear my outfit for the day. It consists of a white sleeveless shirt and a black skirt that reaches my knee and pair it with a jean jacket and a pair of black sandals and French braid my hair. I take a look at myself in the mirror and feel satisfied. I go downstairs and greet Raven, who is making breakfast. "You look amazing, Kiara. You will have boys at your feet." Raven tells me with a grin. I can't help but blush at her words. "Thanks, Raven." I answer her, and then I see Reed come down the stairs. Calling him hot right now would be an understatement. He is dressed in a tight white t-shirt with skinny black jeans and a black jean jacket. He has that whole bad boy look. He sees me, and his eyes take in my outfit, and he gives me a smirk. I realize that I am openly checking him out. Reed sits beside me, and Raven places a plate full of pancakes in front of him.
Oh no, why do I have such a big mouth? The whole room stares at me like I have grown two heads. I don't really think people in this school talk bad about the bad boy. Well looks like I am screwed. The girl previously sitting on Reed's lap approaches me along with two other girls. She comes to our table and stares right at me. "You know, for being the new girl, you have got some guts to blurt out stuff like that to my baby." She smirks, gesturing to Reed, who looks pretty amused at this situation. I mentally gag at that part. "I like you. Would you like to join my group and become popular? Because you are the only girl who had some guts to talk out loud like that." she offers. Can someone explain what is happening right now? Because this is not at all what I expected. I slowly get up
So you are an exchange student right, who are you living with?" Kate questions me. It's lunch now, and we are all sitting at our usual table. Shoot, not the question I was expecting. What do I do, what do I do? "Um.. uh.. so the thing is...you see.." "Hey, guys, whatcha doing?" Noah interrupts. I have never been more happier for the interruption. I could kiss you right now, Noah. "Oh, we were just simply asking Kiara who she is living with." Ava tells Noah. "Well, forget that. Do you know what happened in English class today?" Noah asks them. I roll my eyes at him. Let's just say that our class was interesting due to the class clown that is Noah. "Don't tell me you did one of your famous pranks on the teacher, and you cancelled English class." Ava says with fake enthusiasm while waving her hands. "Uh, how did you know? Are you stalking me? ohhhh don't tell me that Kiara is actually a spy working for you. Do you
It is another day in school. Noah and I are sitting in English class, we are waiting for Mr William to come. Sir comes inside after a few minutes, places a cup of coffee on the table and leaves, telling us that he will be back in five minutes.I turn to Noah and see him looking at the coffee cup with a grin that screams PRANK. Oh no, not again.“Noah, no, whatever you are thinking, don’t do it. You don’t want to add another detention to your record, do you?” I try to persuade him.He looks at me, the grin on his face never leaving. He simply gets up, goes to the table and does a 360-degree check to make sure no one is watching him. He lifts the coffee cup and takes a chewing gum out of his pocket, chews on it for a few seconds, and sticks the chewed gum on the table and places the cup on top of it and presses it firmly. He tries to move the cup, and it doesn’t even budge. I can actually see the steam from the coffee. Mr Willia
It is finally the weekend. I am so happy that the weekend has arrived. I don’t have much homework since it is only the first week of school. I would love to invite my friends over. But they don't know that I live with Reed.“Youngblood say you want itSay you want meSay you want meOut of your lifeAnd I am just a dead man walking tonight.”I was singing youngblood by 5 seconds of summer and dancing in my room with my hairbrush. Then I suddenly see a flash go off. I immediately stop my dancing and look towards my door to see Reed running away.I chase him, my concert forgot, and I hear him laugh while running down the stairs. I am going to kill him. I run down the stairs, and I see him running behind the counter. I thank God because I can run fast. I climb over the counter, and before he escapes, I jump on him to stop his running.Reed