Kate spends Christmas with her sisters
Winter break had been terribly uncomfortable. Kate hated to admit it, but she thought she might actually prefer Blackwell, filled as it was with monsters and saints, than the stifling house filled with people who didn’t know how to talk to her. There was less chaos here, sure, but she often found herself with too much time to ruminate. Loneliness was something she had cherished more before she attended Blackwell, as she had always enjoyed long, interrupted sessions of reading, playing the violin, painting watercolor, or binge-watching Netflix. She had always been actively involved in the community, but she often found that such activities left her socially depleted.
And that had been okay. But now, no one was really comfortable with displays of independence from her. Nobody wanted to drop her off for volunteer work. Everyone seemed uncomfortable when she played her violin, and honestly, she had been devoting too much time trying to perfect her children’s story to really focus on it.
Kate was not suicidal. The way in which the school had rallied, at least to her face, had been a great comfort, though a lot of the friendship thrown at her in the first week of her return had been depleted rapidly. She still texted Max often, and Stella and Alyssa maintained a lukewarm contact with her. In addition, an experimental, periodically-initiated texting session was underway with Chloe Price, and Kate had noticed that Taylor and Victoria had both started liking and leaving comments on her SoundCloud, though she hadn’t added anything since two weeks after … well, you know.
Today was a little different, though. She wasn’t sure what she expected, exactly, but she had not expected to be woken up at 6am by a quiet knock on the door. Followed by a small voice: “Kate? Katie, you awake?” the quiet knocking came again, and Kate dragged herself out of bed. She slept light ever since that day she had woken up on the bench outside of the girls’ dorms.
She opened the door quietly, and found her youngest sister, Lynn, standing there in her pajamas.
“Merry Christmas, Katie,” Lynn said, and with a small step forward, wrapped her arms around her older sister. Kate’s arms were quick around her small shoulders, a little surprised. Oh right, it was Christmas… Kate knew that.
“Hey there - merry Christmas, Lynn. What are you doing up so early?” Kate stepped back to let Lynn into her room, which was a practice she had not used to extend. She had always kept her room so neat, and was nervous to have others in it, especially her mother, who was often careless about moving things around.
Kate moved back to her bed and sat down, pushing back until her back was against the wall, keeping herself uncomfortable enough that she wouldn’t just slip back into unconsciousness. Lynn followed, not speaking until she was sitting cross-legged on the foot of Kate’s bed. She tucked messy hair behind her ears. “I don’t know, I just … I wanted to see you before mom was up, you know?”
Kate nodded, though she remained silent. Their mom was always up early, though she tended to not get everyone up for a while. If it was Christmas, she would probably wait until 7:00am to wake everyone up. They would sit together and read the Bible for maybe twenty minutes, and then the girls would open gifts from each other and their mom while Mom made them cocoa and breakfast, then come back for whatever gift her daughters had gotten her. They would have breakfast together and do little more than lounge about until 9 or 10, maybe, when Dad would come to pick them up.
“Do you just want to hang out until mom gets up?” Lynn inquired, and Kate replied quietly with a ‘yeah’.
They sat for a moment, trying to think of something tension-breaking to occupy their time. Finally, Kate remembered what she thought was a brilliant idea, and leaned forward a little as she asked, “How about the Christmas special of How to Train your Dragon? I think it’s on Netflix,” she assured, and moved towards the edge of her bed.
Lynn loved How to Train your Dragon, so that was an easy agreement. Kate went to grab her computer, and Lynn suggested, “Hey, why don’t we try and get Katrina too?”
Kate agreed, and she lifted up her laptop and unplugged her charger while Lynn crept over to Katrina’s door. They knocked a few times, but there was no response. Katrina slept much more heavily than her sisters. Kate called out softly, “Hey, Kat?” but still, no response.
Frustrated, Lynn just opened the door, and Kate moved into the room that had previously been hers. It had been heavily re-decorated to emphasize several of Katrina’s powerful loves, including Harry Potter and One Direction - two facts that were a near-endless source of discomfort for their mother, who viewed her fascination as nearing on idolatry (it’s a good thing that she had no idea that Katrina had written a 36,000 word fan fiction consisting of the five band members attending Hogwarts with some 1,200 readers).
Kate sat her laptop on the foot of Katrina’s bed while Lynn placed her hand on her older sister’s shoulder and shook her slightly, producing a fair bit of groaning from her before she apparently snapped awake, actually whacking Lynn’s hand away from her as she gave the sharp inhale of someone rising to consciousness. When she saw that the intruders were just her sisters, she groaned again, and sunk down into her bed.
“Whaddu guys want? It’s 6a eeeemmmmm.”
“Come on, Kat,” Kate insisted, opening up her laptop. “We’re watching How to Train your Dragon.”
Katrina continued her low groan as Kate tapped through several pages, getting the short film to load while she plugged the laptop in. Nevertheless, she scooted over and allowed Lynn into the center of the bed, letting Kate sit on the edge of the bed as it began.
Katrina was back asleep within ten minutes, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. Kate sat up, her little sister leaning against her shoulder, and let the slow, cute drama unfold for the next half hour. There was virtually no interruption during this whole time, except during the credits, when Lynn finally said, “I’m really glad you’re alive today, Kate.”
Kate turned her head slightly, bringing her sister’s eyes into her field of view. They were still staring ahead at the screen, but Kate could tell there was still a rigidity in her body, indicating that she was focusing on what she just said than the scrolling credits.
“Yeah,” Kate responded after several seconds, and raised her arm, bringing her sister from her shoulder down to her chest and wrapping her tightly with her arm. She kissed her hair gently. “Me too, sis, me too. Thanks for this morning.”
“Mmhmm,” her sister assured her, relaxing, aiming to join her older sister in sleep.
Soon, she was out in Kate’s arms, and a row of suggested movies sat on the idle screen. Remembering a gesture from a friend, she pet her sister’s hair with her freer left hand.
“Thank you,” Kate said again, to no one in particular.