Please, Miss (GirlxGirl) ✔️

50 | december

                "I don't want to go."

Delilah looked up at me with her large blue eyes, her mouth turned southwards as she pulled her coat on. The nursery was closing its doors for two weeks for the Christmas holidays, and though I was relieved to have a break from work, I couldn't be rid of the pang of guilt in my stomach at the thought of many of the children going back to their foster homes, Delilah included. I knew she hated being in foster care and was particularly untrusting of her temporary parents, which only made me feel worse about saying goodbye.

I knelt down to her level, pulling the bottom of her pale pink coat together to zip it up to her chin. "I know you don't, but in two weeks I'll see you again, okay? And until then, you can look forward to Santa coming to pay you a visit. That's exciting, huh?"

Delilah shook her head sadly. "David told me that Santa won't be visiting me this year because I've not been good enough." She was referring to her foster father, a man I'd met just once but immediately took a strong disliking to. He was big and scary looking, with a scraggy beard and greasy hair that sat in tangles on his shoulders.

"Oh sweetie," I sighed, stroking her hair. "That's not true, Santa knows you've been good okay? He even told me himself. In fact, he gave me a very special gift to give to you. Wait here a second."

I hurried into the kitchen, pulling the wrapped gift out my bag and heading back into the hallway. I placed it into her small hands gently. "He told me that he knows this is your favourite story, and so he wanted to give you your own copy so you can read it when you're at home."

Delilah pulled the glittery red wrapping paper off hurriedly, exposing a hardback copy of The Magic Treehouse, her favourite book. It was the first story I'd read to her, and I knew how much she loved it. She wasn't the best at reading herself, but we'd read and reread the book so much by now that she knew the tale pretty much off by heart.

She gasped, stroking the cover before pulling it into her chest and cuddling it. "My favourite," she whispered.

I nodded with a smile. "It is indeed. Now when you go home you can read this whenever you want and before you know it, two weeks will have gone by and you can come back and see me, alright?"

Delilah nodded with a beaming smile, wrapping her little arms around me. I embraced her tightly.

"I'll see you soon sweetie," I said when we finally broke apart, and walked her out of the door and into the backseat of her foster mother's car. It was snowing heavily already, but I remained outside waving as the car pulled away.

I felt oddly sad as I watched her being driven into the distance. The past few months we'd grown such a close bond, I almost saw her as my own child now. I wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. She deserved that at the very least.

With a sigh I headed back inside, finishing cleaning up the mess from the older group before saying my final goodbyes to Melissa, Emily and Nat. They told me to have a good Christmas, and I wished them the same.

Alex and I were staying in England until the day before Christmas Eve, before she was flying out with me to Florida to spend the holidays with my family. I had offered for us to go and see her mother, but Alex had told me she was spending Christmas in some log cabin with her new boyfriend.

I hurried through the heavy snow towards my car, scrambling inside and shuddering with cold as I shut the door and blasted the heaters. Funnily enough, I wasn't driving back to my apartment this evening, but back to St Martha's to meet Alex. She'd asked me to meet her there, though wouldn't tell me why. I felt a sudden bout of excitement in the pit of my stomach at the thought of seeing the ancient building again, even if only from the outside. I'd truly missed it. Some of the best times of my life had been had within those very walls; it would be nice to see it again after all this time.