The Thorned Rose

43

When I got into my room, I locked the door, then put on the deadbolt, and the chain that I had installed before, when people kept bursting into my room, and it pissed me off. I even moved the chest of drawers in front of the door. I shut the curtains, making sure the windows were locked, and then I went and ran myself a bath. I did a nice skincare routine and I had already felt myself calming down. I heard various shuffling behind my door, but no one actually knocked. I know everyone wanted to knock, but I knew they wouldn't dare because they knew, and if they didn't know Nadia would tell them, that if I was pushed any further that was it, and I genuinely would leave and never come back. I've done it before. Nadia pushed me once too far, and I didn't see her for two years, and in the end, she found me, I never even went back to her, she dragged me back to England.

I turned on my speaker, and blasted music through my room, getting frustrated by the shuffling I could hear. I sat on my bed and opened my laptop. I looked at the CCTV, and saw that it was Fabricio outside of my room. Every so often he would lift his hand as if he was about to knock, then pull his hand away, then do it again, until eventually he walked off. I felt sad seeing him like that, but I still needed my space. At about 3am, when I could see there was no one in the corridors or any of the rooms, I snuck downstairs and grabbed a crap-tonne of food, and then I went back upstairs, locking the door and putting the chest of drawers in front of it again. With the amount of food I had, I wouldn't need to leave my room at all for the next two days, at least, although the second room was Christmas day...

There was a knock on my door at about lunchtime of Christmas Eve, but it was just a maid, announcing she had brought me up some lunch. I was about to tell her to go away, but then I smelt it, and I pushed the chest of drawers out of the way, unlocked the door, grabbed the food and shut the door again quickly. There was another knock on my door at dinner time, and it was a maid again, announcing she had brought me food, but I said I didn't want anyway, and I heard her walk off.

I fell asleep pretty quickly that night, and woke up pretty late. I could hear loads of bustling around; everyone was getting ready for Christmas lunch. I couldn't tell if anyone had knocked on the door as of yet, but no one was knocking on it right now, and that was totally okay with me. I looked at the CCTV, and saw everyone was in the main lounge drinking and laughing at eachother, and I looked at the huge Christmas tree that had been erected, and was a multitude of colours, with a star on the top and hundreds of beautifully-wrapped presents underneath. That wasn't me. The gathering I saw there wasn't me. I was not the kind of person to sit around a tree drinking, laughing with the family, playing charades, wearing a shitty Christmas jumper, or saying crappy jokes that come out of a cheap Christmas cracker. None of that was me, and I don't know if it ever would be me. I didn't feel sad as I watched, I felt glad I wasn't there, because I was still very unsettled, and that would throw me over. I wanted to be there for lunch though, and I wanted to give out my presents to everyone, so I hopped in the shower and got dressed into a red jumper (festive colour at least), and some jeans. I went downstairs into the main dining room, where everyone was sat at a beautifully laid table, digging into their food.

"Sav, I'm sorry, we didn't know you were coming so we started," said Donna, looking very guilty and apologetic.

"I just came down to give out my presents, don't worry about dinner," I smiled at her. I handed everyone sat at the table a present, and they opened them one by one. For Donna, I got her a beautiful set of diamond earrings. For Loretta, I got her some lessons at a shooting range, because I know that's what she wanted. I got each of the capos knives that matched, but had slightly different patterns of engraving, and their names engraved in them too. For Dimitri I got him a hip flask, with his name engraved, as well as an otter, "because they're loyal, and sweet." For Nadia I just got her the latest Chanel bag, because I know she would like it. I got the twins matching ties from Hermes. I got Haris a book on a certain type of fighting style I thought he would be interested in. I got Nasir some baby stuff for his daughter's child. I got Aleksander a watch, that he really liked. Finally, I got Fabricio a dog collar. He held it up and looked at me confused.