Meara-red hair with dye still at the edges from Halloween and just about as curvy as a squeezed can- is not very happy with her parents. She didn't know why they would leave, but not even being home with her for Christmas? That was a new level of low. Especially since they'd left her alone.

A cute boy holding two lattes and a sweet smile might make her stop caring, though.

I read somewhere that gifts always effect us. That weather we're jumping up and down with joy or groaning internaly, we get gifts for a reason. Call it fate, destiny, whatever the heck you religion says, but gifts are something we don't have to work for.

Now, I've never been one for asking for nice gifts,but sometimes when people ask I give them a title before they've taken another breath. THat's just what I  like, books. Last yeah, I got a grand total of fifteen and a fifty dollar barnes and noble gift card. My dad would tease me that by the time I was eighteen he could turn my room into a library for the local kids, which wouldn't have been very off the bat.

Every week a new little kid cames to me asking for a book, fairytales or science fiction, so many I went to the used bookstore when I could to find ninety nine cent one they'd pay me a quarter for.

Back to the gift thing, it was my first Christmas alolne, because my parents decided to take a third honeymoon in the Bahammas. My parents had been married for twenty years, and still wanted to just be newly weds. On her way out, my mother had dropped with a flip of her  dyed blonde hair that my presents were in the hall closet, and not to eat all of her kale. My mother was always on some diet, desperate to still be the skinniest in the house despite having a teenage daughter who barely ate broccoli, much less being just as healthy. I'm not saying i was obeese or anything, I just don't wake up at five, drink a powershake, exersize for two hours, drop your kid off, go to the gym, and exersize another four.    It's not like my dad does the same, he just keeps weights at his desk and sometimes is on the tredmill just down the hall from his office.

So there I was, alone in my own home and Christmas was in three days. I would still be alone for two weeks after anyway, but the fact they couldn't at least stay for the biggest holiday of the year really didn't help.

But at least I got all the eggnog.

I was so disgusted I just sat there for a second, looking dumbly at the door even after they had driven away. I had my hair in tangles, clad in my old black tank top and decorative pajama pants, that had little elves making toys and random Santa hats everywhere printed on them. After the indtial shock wore off, I blinked for a second, half expecting tears, but none came. I don't know why I hadn't been expection it-my mother and father did this often. JUst left and didn't tell me until day of. I dragged myself to the fridge, pulled out the large carton of holiday eggnog, grabbed a giant straw I'd bought at the fair three years ago, and made my way to the couch, and opening the one thing that I loved more than the world-Netflix.

Selecting a random Austen-esque movie, I curled in on myself and stuck the straw in the carton. I'd bought three yesterday, all of which ended the day before my parents came home, in case we had another round of people from their high school coming over and feeding my mother's ego of her youthfulness. They always drank the last bit of whatever we had, being hydrated and all that. I thought being a gracious host and offering eggnog would have been the right thing to do-

But it seemed like a waste now. I feel asleep halfway through the movie, right when the heroine made a great decision of leaving her home to find the man she loved out there in the war hospitals. I had already set the eggnog on the coffee table, and was sleeping in my nest of red hair and green blankets.

I was woken by a knock on the door, soft and polite against the oak. I shot up into a sitting position, trying to comb quickly as possible through my hair, hopefully not looking like I was feeling. I made my way to the door, opening it and seeing a stringy blonde delievry  boy who's wide, embarressed eyes told me was new at this job.

"Yes?" I tried my best to smile, blinking rapidly as though to batt my lashes. He just cleared his trhoat, adjusting the package under his arm. "Are you Moira Lankon?"

"Yeah." I mentally slapped my forehead with my palm, my answers sounding grunted and like a nethandrial.

"Package." Was all he said, holding it out to me. I took it carefully, though it wasn't very heavy. I grimaced, mumbled a "thank you." and closed the door. It took me a minute to realize that I still hadn't turned on any of the lights yet, and on the tv the herione was sharing a passionte fight with her lover. Trouble in paradise, I guess. I flicked on the kitchen counter's overhead lamps, setting the mystery package there.  I was reaching for the letter opener whenthe doorbell sounded, making me jump and nick my finger.

"Dammit." I muttered, rubbing it off on my shirt and going across the hall to the door again. My feet were starting to lose feeling from the cold wood and tile.

"Hello?" I opened the door cautiously, a little annoyed, before seeing the person on my doorstep was no one I could be annoyed with for visiting.

At highschool, there's this weird thing where you meet people in class and barley ever talk to them again, or else it feels so awkward and you barely remember their name if they weren't particuly memorible. Last month, in choir, I'd been teamed with the cutest boy there, Flynn Dengrom,with his brown hair and blue eyes who was almost a foot taller that me so it didn't make much sense. He was the kind of boy who girls like that blonde soprano Brittinay Panders with her blue eyes and perfect figure went out with. Not dyed hair, hourglass as a squeezed can short girl like me.

We'd been in position, his hand on my waist, mine on his shoulder and our others holding one another. It would have been sweet until he whispered the most hilarious pun, and I couldn't help but let out a half laugh before coughing under our choreographers strict glare, her hazel eyes almost burning red. He'd smiled at me then, and my stomache dropped to my toes, but we hadn't talked since, because it was the last class before winter break.

Now he was standing on my doorstep with two lattes and a ugly Christmas sweater covered in tacky decorations.

"You up for caroling?"