Intro is going to be very short; I'm uploading the next part of 'A Merry Little Christmas' today. Hope you enjoy. End of story.
;)
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Chapter 2
'Well...' I say, looking into Julie's baby blue eyes, 'I would love to go on a London adventure.'
'Yeah duh, genius, but what kind of adventure? Do you want to go-'
'We're not going shopping, Jules, no way.'
'I wasn't going to say shopping.' She smirks. I smirk back.
'Then what were you going to say?'
'I was going to suggest we take a trip to Sarah, Emilia and Cara. I heard they were having a sleepover this weekend at Emilia's.'
'Did they not invite you?'
'They did, but I said I couldn't come because my grandma was coming over.'
'Oh, so now I'm your grandma?' There is a short pause and then we both burst into laughter.
'No,' Julie says, tears in her eyes, 'but I thought you wanted to surprise them.'
'Did I? When did I say that, I don't recall any conversation on the topic at all.'
'Liar! Remember that weekend you called me up crying because your mum yelled at you? I tried to cheer you up by making future plans!'
I do remember that day. There have been a few occasions where I called Julie, crying my eyes out because my mum had been angry with me. Those days have been happening more often the last month, ever since I told her I was going back to London for a week. When my parents got divorced and me, my mum and my little brother Jake moved to Brighton, I grew to hate my mum for deciding on the divorce and destroying our family. We were so happy before that day, and she had to go and ruin all of it. I decided I had my own personal war to fight, and stood up to my mum lots more, even about the tiniest little things. If it bothered me, I'd say so. She thought I was being a lowsy daughter and I thought she was being a mean mother. Our relationship deteriorated quickly, and at one point all the conversations we had were heated discussions. I felt terrible, but kept blaming my mum for the divore. At one point, right before Halloween, I called Julie, crying once again, and told her I couldn't do this for much longer. Me and my mum had been battling for such a long time, and one of us had to break. She suggested I'd come to London to stay with her for a few days, until I had cleared my head again. The idea of that possibility instantly made me feel better, but it didn't last long. I remembered my strict mother and my growing pile of homework, and started crying again. That night, lying in bed, once more in for a sleepless night, I realised that I didn't care. My mum would not agree with me going to London, not even if I went to take a Spanish class or whatsoever. The homework was a different thing, but we had the Christmas break coming up, didn't we? The next day, I called Julie and asked her if I could come to stay with her in the first week of the Christmas break, and she immediately said yes. I was over my head, and started counting down the days until the third of December, the day I'd see Julie again. Of course, my mum wasn't too happy about it, and that's an understatement, but I told her she couldn't stop me from going and walked out. She seemed to understand, because in the following days, she didn't mention my upcoming trip to London once. But I also got the feeling that she did some things just to annoy me, which only made me look forward to the third of December more and more.
And now I'm sitting here, on the couch, next to my best friend, whom I haven't seen in quite some time, dipping crumbly gingerbread cookies in my hot chocolate.
'Sure,' I say.
'What?' Julie looks up from her Father Christmas mug, confused at my sudden response.
'Let's go to Emilia's.'
'Now?'
'Yeah why not? It's not like we have that many opportunities so see them this week,' I say, and Julie starts laughing.
'Alright, Em, whatever you say. It's your week.'
'OUR week,' I correct her, as I tie my Converse' shoelaces.
'Do you remember where she lives?' Julie asks.
'Of course I do, how could I forget? That route is imprinted in my memory, I'll never forget it.'
'Neither will I, and that worries me.'
'How so?'
'I don't know if I want my main memory of Emilia to be the one where she was absolutely car-parked and we had to carry her all the way from my house to hers because our phones didn't work.'
'Cara probably still thinks that was all one big conspiracy to get us all kidnapped and killed.'
'To be fair, it was quite freaky that all of our phones were out of juice at the same time, and that the landline didn't work that day either.' Julie grabs her keys and her Oyster card from the side table in the hallway, seizes her coat from the peg and opens the door. The cold winter air hits our faces and by the time we have reached the street, my eyes have started to water.
'Oh, stop it. We were just unlucky. That's all. Do we walk or do we take the tube?'
'Let's walk. As it turns out, it's a lot closer when you don't have an unconscious friend to drag along with you.'
'I'm quite sure it is,' I say, wiping my cheeks to keep the tears on them from freezing. The air is cold and crisp, but the sky is blue and the sun is shining. These are my favourite winter days. The leaves have already fallen off the trees, most of them are rotting away on the side of the road. It smells of Christmas. Most of the houses and streets are decorated with fairy lights, and every shop window is loaded with fake snow and Christmas trees. London is so different from Brighton. In Brighton, everyone celebrates Christmas inside, and the streets are nowhere near as festive as the ones in London. When we have reached Emilia's house, my finger hovers above the doorbell for a second or two. "The Beime Family" it says, in elegant cursive letters.
'What are you waiting for? I'm freezing, please can we just go inside?' Julie asks cogently.
'Yeah, sorry,' I answer, and press the golden doorbell.
A few seconds later, Emilia's voice sounds through the golden answergrid.
'Hello?'
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Weeeeeeeeeeeh, I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it, if you did, please leave a comment telling me what ya think and I'll see y'all tomorrow with another day of blogmas.
:)
Love,
Rosaly
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