Mended Hearts

Part XII

To say that Wendy had always loved the month of December would be an understatement.

Not only it was her birthday month, but she also loved the Christmas season and everything good that came with it – well, maybe not the sometimes overly excessive consumerism that always seemed to trap a great majority of residents of the small podunk mountain town in it each and every holiday season, so the teenage girl thought it would be absolutely ridiculous not to acknowledge the fact that even she fell into the trap of excessive consumerism more often than she actually intended or wanted to.

And for the first time since moving back to South Park, Wendy truly felt like things in her life had managed to fall somewhat into place – school and a part-time job at Tweek Bros coffee shop had been going reasonably well, she had managed to save up just enough money to buy herself a decent car without needing her parents' help to cover all the costs, and her newly formed relationship with David had been going relatively smoothly as well.

Wendy and David had been dating for nearly a month and a half now, with the two of them even having their own routine that consisted of them taking turns driving each other to school every week and stopping at the coffee place she worked at to pick their daily shot of caffeine together.

Apart from having some tiffs here and there, things had been going pretty damn well between them, with even their respective groups of friends noticing just how happy both Wendy and David seemed to be with each other in what was still a relatively fresh relationship.

The dark haired girl thought she would be damned if she didn't admit that David had certainly made her last several months of living again in South Park easier and made her feel more settled back. While he might've been only the third boyfriend she had had in her almost seventeen years of life, he was definitely the one who made her new-old life in South Park better about tenfold.

Her blossoming relationship with David also hadn't gone unnoticed by both Sean and Vanessa, who managed to easily piece everything together when the teenage boy had dropped Wendy off from school last week, with her acting all nervous around him and taking a suspiciously long amount of time to walk him out of the house.

With almost half of December now come and gone, the topic of where the Testaburgers would spend their Christmas holidays had often been brought up in their day-to-day conversations, although both Wendy and her parents knew that they wouldn't stray away from their usual destination of Tampa – since they had had a long-time tradition of visiting Vanessa's side of the family in Florida during the holidays, with Wendy happily tagging along with her parents and spending time with her dear cousins and other relatives.

And frankly, after what had been a really stressful day of her taking two final exams of winter semester, Wendy just hoped she could have a quiet dinner with her parents and catch up on what had been going on in their lives that week, as well as to further discuss their upcoming trip to Florida.

However, her parents clearly had way, way better things to talk about with their only child.

''So, a new boyfriend, huh?''

Wendy nearly choked on her food as her father brought up the topic of her having a new boyfriend, with the noirette suddenly becoming very flustered over the whole ordeal and not really being in the mood to talk about it.

Burying her head into her hands, she let out a muffled groan, not wanting to be subjected to her parents' merciless teasing about her new love interest. Although she knew that they meant nothing but the best for her, she still sincerely hoped that they wouldn't tell her extended family members about her having a new boyfriend and then force her to be subjected to even more unnecessary teasing.