.•°¤* ꜱᴛᴏᴘ ᴀᴄᴛɪɴɢ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ *¤°•.

~14~

// disclaimer // another long chapter :)) get comfy + //tw// homophobia, mild aggression/violence

I stared at my reflection one last time. Nothing had changed, but I still believed it would alter my appearance in some way if I did so. To no surprise, my hair was still ruffled with ends sticking up in some places that refused to be pat down. The circles under my eyes hadn’t vanished, nor did the blotchiness in my face. My lips were chapped and red and grossly feminine. Even with the old Christmas sweater that used to fit me well, I looked sickly and frail. There wasn’t anything I could change now that I had to get going to Dream’s flat for the party. 

I had been dreading this day the moment I was invited. The anxiety I had felt before the Friendsgiving was barely comparable to how I felt about the Christmas party. It was a totally different holiday with a totally different context to me. Of course, no one was aware of why I hated celebrating it which was what made trying to cope worse. For the last several years I had no reason to celebrate or even think of Christmas as something apart from any other day in December and I felt so lost and vulnerable because of that. But I had agreed to it and willingly put myself in this situation, it was on my own call that I made this year be the year I actually do something out of my comfort zone. And it was for Dream.

It’s for Dream.

Dragging myself out of my room, I gathered my essentials and the bag of gifts I had prepared for everyone. Dream’s gift was his commission, obviously, and it was packaged in a box decorated in wrapping paper and a bow. I decided on gift cards for everyone else as they were easy to get my hands on since I didn’t know them like I knew Dream. It would’ve been rude not to get them gifts, but I still worried if it was enough. Feeling my stomach churn with anxiousness, I finally made my way out of my house and onto the sidewalk.

Everything was covered in white, people’s lawns were decorated and a few houses had one or two more cars parked outside than usual. Snow delicately fell from the sky above as if mother nature was giving us a little mercy for the holiday as opposed to the blizzards she had been angry at us with. I wanted to gag at the sight of all the houses on my block shimmering with lights and displaying a beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the windows. It wasn’t right for me to be envious of those who had the privilege of enjoying a holiday without some type of dark undertone, but it was a hard feeling to push away. 

I just wanted this year to be different. No, this year would be different. That was all to it. I hadn’t had a nice Christmas celebration in years, not since I was young. I had to keep reminding myself that I was invited to Dream’s place to celebrate with his friends who apparently wanted to meet me and not my family. It wasn’t with my relatives who were oblivious to the negative impact they had on me, it wasn’t with my parents who believed they didn’t have to watch what they said when I was a teen. No, it was with Dream and his friends. And Stacy, unfortunately. 

I shivered at the reminder of her existence. She had just as much venom in her words and fierceness in her eyes to put her in the category of people associated with holidays who I hated most. It wasn’t like I was obligated to talk to her, but it wouldn’t be very nice of me to just ignore her in front of other people, no matter how much I wanted to. Every look she gave me made me feel like her greatest desire was to slit my throat and watch the blood pool under her feet. I knew it would be difficult to talk to her and meet new people at the same time, but I’d just have to get through it. 

That was all I had to do. Survive. Maybe I could stick to Sapnap but he would probably be more occupied with the other people there. Being near Dream was a death wish and a half, so that was out of the question. I gripped the bag tighter in my left hand as I thought about him. I was angry with him but I couldn’t express it to anyone other than my own reflection in the mirror, making it so much harder to keep it from boiling over. The most I wanted was for him to just catch on to Stacy’s threatening glances whenever I was around or her passive aggressive words spat at me. But that was just a daydream as he couldn’t even tell when she was being intrusive and rude to his own friends.