In the arms of no one (Completed)

Chapter 10.

Vallon's POV

 I'm sitting in a room full of people I barely know, in a house that smells like pine and expensive candles, in a country that still feels like it's wearing someone else's skin.

Everyone's laughing, drinking, eating, shouting — and yet all I can think about is how loud my heart feels in my own chest.

To say the traditions here are different is the understatement of the year. Back home, Christmas meant melting heat, sunscreen, and chlorine. Mornings by the pool, a swim before breakfast, Lucas pretending not to care when I splashed him with cold water. Then everyone crowding around the big outdoor table with bacon, eggs, and toast, and the kind of laughter that always started too early in the morning.

I'd usually sneak gifts into everyone's hands before they even finished eating. There'd be hugs and teasing and that kind of warm chaos that wraps around you like sunlight.

Here, though? There's snow outside. White, silent, unrelenting. It's beautiful — but it's the kind of beautiful that makes you ache.

This morning I woke up alone in a room that doesn't feel like mine, in a house that still smells like strangers, and I stared at my phone wondering if Lucas had stuck to tradition — breakfast with everyone, opening gifts with the workers, the music playing in the background.

I could almost hear it.

Almost.

Then the silence came back, swallowing it all.

So yeah, I caved. I went to the mall. I told myself I was shopping for Christmas presents — for my family, for Storm's friends, for Gladys — but really, I think I just wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere.

Turns out, it's hard buying gifts for people you barely know. But somehow, I managed. Maybe the universe took pity on me. Or maybe the Christmas fairy decided I wasn't completely hopeless.

Not that I believe in fairies or Santa or any of that crap. If I did, my life wouldn't look like a series of disasters dressed up as life lessons. If there was a genie in a lamp, I'd have rubbed it raw by now.

This morning's "family gift exchange" was... well, awkward doesn't quite cut it. It was the kind of scene that makes you want to melt into the carpet. Everyone smiling too much, voices too polite, laughter too careful. I'm not ungrateful — not at all — but the whole thing felt like someone else's family movie that I got cast into halfway through filming.

Still, they tried. And I tried.

I was given the choice between a room in the main house or the apartment above the garage. Two bedrooms, fully furnished, self-contained — basically a luxury flat. Storm told me they used it as a hangout spot sometimes. I could tell by the hesitation in his voice that they hadn't expected me to choose it.

But I did. Because honestly? I don't know how to live around people who already belong to each other.

I'm used to my own space. My own air. My own noise.

Storm tried to reassure me. "We'll still come by," he'd said with that easy grin of his. "We use the place all the time — for movie nights or crashing after a late one."

I'd smiled back. "Sure, cuz. That's fine by me."

It was, too. I didn't want to be the reason anyone's routine changed.

But the truth? Every time they invite me to hang out — to play cards, watch a movie, eat junk food — I say yes. And every time I sit there on the armchair with my blanket and popcorn, pretending to focus on the screen while trying not to notice Tiernan watching me.