Behind The Mask

Chapter 21

"Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree. How lovely are thy branches. Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, How lovely are thy branches..."

I shut the window against the cold as well as the voices singing from below. Then I fall back on the bed, placing the pillow over my head and try to block out the remaining sounds of Christmas songs that I don't want to hear.

It's not the first time in my life that I haven't wanted to hear Christmas carols and wished Christmas away. I remember the first Christmas after my mom died. I didn't want to go into a shop. I didn't want to see the ice forming outside. I didn't want to think about how she would put up the Christmas tree, humming Christmas carols and making me hot chocolate to drink under the tree while she told me the reason our gifts arrived so early and that it was already under the tree was because Santa Clause had so many kids who didn't believe that he had to surprise on Christmas Eve, that he made sure I got mine first for believing, and off course it did free up his time. I believed this story until I was eleven years old. Well... Maybe I didn't quite believe until that age, but I wanted to believe so I did. But when I was eleven I heard my mom crying. Also the presents wasn't under the tree yet and it was only a few days before Christmas. I remember her arguing through the crying with Derrick, my stepdad. She wanted to know what he did with the money. All the Christmas money. He was drunk. I sneaked back up to my room and I knew that I could not pretend to believe anymore. The next morning I got up really early. I picked up pine cones and rocks. I painted the rocks and turned the pine cones into chickens with paper wings, and then I wrapped them in old newspaper, painting the paper so that they looked like presents. I left them under the tree that night when I was sure my mom was asleep. The next morning she asked me about them and I told her that Santa came by the previous night. That he hadn't forgotten us at all, he was just running a little bit late. She pretended to believe for me. Yet, Christmas morning as I expected only my wrapped rocks and pine cones were under the tree, but when I returned to my room when my mom told me to get dressed there was a huge present inside my cupboard. She told me that day that we should always pretend if we need to escape the real world. I wrote my first letter to Santa that year, thanking him for the best Christmas ever.

After my mom was gone there were no more Christmas trees, and no presents. Just Derrick sitting on the sofa, drunk off his ass, and me trying to make a bit of money from somewhere with an odd job.

My next Christmas was spent with foster parents. My face was still sore. I still couldn't touch it and everyone kept on looking at me. At least they got me a gift. Sunglasses and a hat. I took offence to it, believing they wanted me to hide my face so that they didn't have to look at it. I ran away from that foster home a week later. The Christmas after that was also with a foster family. The 'friendly' lady told me very carefully that she wasn't going to buy me a present because with what the state paid her to keep me she was already almost not making a profit. I ran from there as well. But I was sure this Christmas would be better when I ran away again. I knew that either by this time I would be spending the best Christmas of my life with E.J. or I will be dead by now. Turns out I was wrong on both guesses.

"This is utter fucktup," I mutter into the pillow over my face as I feel my own tears wetting the pillowcase.

For a moment I consider climbing onto the roof and just jumping. I will be on top of the world, or at least as far up as I can get at this moment, and then I can jump and then end it all. I might be able to see my mom again if I believed some people, which I don't, but still... She taught me well. Sometimes when the reality becomes too much you just need to pretend, so many if I pretend that everything will be okay and that I will go up to some pearly gates and see her again, everything will be okay. Maybe then I will be able to not be afraid. Maybe I will then never be afraid of the future again, because god dammit, I am afraid all the time. I am afraid that I will lose E.J. as a friend, which is looking more likely by the minute. I am afraid that nobody will ever be able to look at me and see me, but that they would rather see the monster that I see when I look in the mirror. Most of all, I am afraid that maybe something inside me is really in love with E.J... That I have been pretending my whole life because I have been afraid. That nobody, not even me have ever met the real me. And to add insult to injury I don't even know if I want to meet this new Brody either. The current one is pretty fucktup, so how bad would the one I pretended so hard not to be, be like?