With You┃Dylan O'Brien ⓵

Chapter Twenty-Six : Christmas Day

Heaps of crumpled up and shredded wrapping paper in various patterns and colors lay across the living room carpet, the jolly lights of the Christmas decor reflecting in their glossiness.

The smell of coffee laced with peppermint wafts through the air, mixing with that of pine needles as a man with a crystal clear voice sings of a Winter Wonderland. The atmosphere is warm thanks to both the fireplace and everyone's blissful attitude. I love Christmas.

The lengths of my legs lay spread on the couch next to me beneath the incredibly soft, fleece (and pink!) blanket that was sent to me from my Aunt Cara in New Jersey. A ridiculously large amount of candy from my cousin Avery sits inside a gorgeous black purse from him and his mother.

My parents had invested in a new pink bathrobe, three dresses, a new hair curler, and a massive Starbucks re-fill-able cup for me. A testimony to how well they know me.

Meanwhile, my father is wearing the Sounders Jersey I bought for him while inspecting with great curiosity the covers of the various murder-mystery novels my mother bought him. My mother looks happy wearing expensive diamond earrings from dad, and very pleased with the new camera lens and tripods the two of us picked out for her.

Besides the aforementioned gifts, there is one particular item that we as a family received an abundance of: wine. Bottles upon bottles of the stuff lay on numerous surfaces about the room. And though they are all wine, none of them are the same type.

My dad received close to twenty bottles while my mother opened eleven, and even I got three. Though I find it quite excessive, my father looks quite pleased about it. What can I expect?

After a fair amount of time admiring our newly owned items, my parents steal a glance at one another and exchange some sort of nod. They turn to grin at me.

"Are you ready for your final present?", dad asks me, his green eyes alight with amusement and eagerness.

"You mean there's another?!", I ask with slightly wide eyes. "But you already got me so much!"

"Well, this was the one we wanted to give you most," mom says now. "After a long time, we decided it was finally appropriate."

"'Finally appropriate'?", I echo. "What does that mean?"

"You'll find out soon!", dad says excitedly, standing up abruptly. He produces a silk scarf from behind him, "You need to be blindfolded!"

"Why?! Are you taking me somewhere?"

"For crying out loud, Anita, why do you ask so many questions?"

"Sorry, sorry, I'll put it on."

As I take the black scarf from my father's giant hands, my mother steals away and disappears somewhere else. Once I've tied it carefully so it doesn't pull out any of my hair, dad checks three times to make sure I can't see. All I see is eternal darkness, a great contrast to the bright and joyous living room I had been staring at just seconds before.

"Is she all ready?", mom calls from somewhere distant behind me.

"All good!", I hear dad reply loudly. I hear him start recording a video.

I don't think I should be nervous right now, but I am. I mean I'm blindfolded, waiting for some sort of surprise that I have no clue what it could be. Honestly, what could it be that they "finally decided was appropriate" and requires me to be blindfolded? And my dad is filming this?

My heart begins to hammer in my chest as these thoughts consume me, and before I cry out in nervousness, a sudden warmth is near my bare feet on the ground.