Silver Lining

31. Christmas Eve parties

21 days after

Theo and I were the first to arrive at Laurel and Matt's apartment for the Christmas party thing. We were all going to spend the day with families tomorrow, so all of our friends were getting together today.

"Hi Madison!" Laurel said, giving me a hug. "Could you please help me with my hair? It won't go right."

I laughed. "People are going to be here any minute, but yes, I'll help." I followed her to the bathroom, where what seemed like hundreds of hair products and tools covered the bathroom counter. "Wow. What style are you trying to do?"

"Well, I was trying to do a milkmaid braid thing, but I didn't realize that that was hard. So now I'm just trying to do something that'll look nice."

"I can do a milkmaid braid." Laurel had to sit on the edge of the bathtub so that I could reach her head because she's so tall and I'm so... not. I parted her light blonde hair in half and began to braid both sides. I grabbed a couple of bobby pins, and wrapped the two braids around her head, pinning them into place. "Where's your hairspray?" I asked, scanning the products on the bench.

"It should be on the bench somewhere. It's a white bottle," Laurel said.

"Oh, I see it now, thanks." I picked up the can of hairspray, and lightly sprayed Laurels hair to hold it in place a little bit.

When we came back into the living room, a lot of people had arrived. Theo was talking to Ross and Finn, and Matt was at the door letting Jack and his girlfriend in. Hailey and Millie, two twins who had a makeup channel on YouTube were talking to a guy I didn't recognize, and Zoe was standing next to Theo, but she looked a bit uncomfortable. "I'm just going to introduce a couple of people to Zoe, alright?" I said to Laurel, and then walked over to Zoe. She looked relieved when she saw me.

"Hey Madison, how are you?"

"I'm good, thanks. How are you?"

"I'm good. Don't really know a lot of people though," she said with a laugh.

"I know, I was just about to drag you around and introduce you to everyone."

She laughed again, and we went over to Matt where he was talking to Jack and his girlfriend. "Everyone, this is Zoe. She just moved here from New Zealand, and she has a great accent. Zoe, this is Matt, who is Laurel's boyfriend, this is Jack who is a YouTuber, and his girlfriend...." Frig, I had forgotten her name.

"Lola," Jack's girlfriend said.

"Right, Lola. Thank you."

"It's nice to meet you all," Zoe said, and they all nodded and smiled and said 'nice to meet you too'.

***

We all sat and talked in the living room drinking champagne, while Matt and Theo, the two cooks of the group, finished doing whatever in the kitchen. Not once did the conversation fall to the kidnapping, Michael, or anything to do with those awful eight days, for which I was grateful. I'd had to tell the story to so many people, and I didn't want to talk about it. I just wanted to forget, for it to be gone.
Zoe got along with everyone really well, which was great. She didn't really know anyone in Melbourne, because she moved here alone two months ago and all her family were back in Auckland, so I really wanted to introduce her to some people.

"Food is ready!" Matt said, walking out of the kitchen with Theo. We all cheered, and went into the dinig room. We had the party at Matt and Laurels house every year because they had a really long table that could fit twelve people, which was perfect as there was twelve of us. Theo and I, Matt and Laurel, Finn and Ross, Hailey and Millie, Jack and his girlfriend, Zoe, and the guy I didn't recognize, who was one of Matt's friends, and named John.
The table was covered in a long white tablecloth, and tiny golden stars covered the table. Plates of food covered the table. There was a big plate in the middle with a chicken on it (we'd have turkey on actual Christmas day, plus we all liked chicken better anyway), a plate of roast vegetables, balls of stuffing, a bowl full of brussel sprouts with bacon and pine nuts, mashed potato, dates wrapped in bacon, and jugs full of gravy. It looked amazing, and I think everyone was suddenly super hungry.

We all sat down, and Matt, who was sitting at the head of the table raised his glass of champagne. "A toast. A toast to us, because we have done some pretty amazing things in the last year, and we all got through some tough times."

"To us," the rest of us echoed and raised our glasses.

The food was really good, you had to hand it to Matt and Theo. I liked the stuffing balls best, which was unusual because I usually wasn't that keen on stuffing, but they had made them into little balls, like meatballs, and they were really good.

There was a bunch of stuff for desert, but we decided we'd eat desert after we opened presents because we were all ridiculously full. "We won't hungry by tomorrow!" Theo said, and we all laughed.

We always did a kris kringle, where everyone picked someone elses name out of a hat, and then you brought a present for that person, but you had to keep it a secret who you got. We were very strict on keeping it a secret, and no one told anyone who they got. I didn't even tell Theo. Well, except for Zoe. Zoe didn't really know people, so she told me that she had Jack so I could help her buy something for him. Jack was always really hard to buy for, but we ended up getting him a digital photo frame, because he liked photography. I had Millie, one of the twins. I didn't really know her, but I got her two yankee candles and a giftbox from Lush.
We made a game out of it, drawing names from hats to decide who would open first, and then once you had opened the present, you had two guesses to guess who had bought it. If you didn't guess right, you were destinied to never know who gave it to you (although we would probably all tell each other who we had at the end, because we weren't that great at keeping secrets from each other.)

Laurel opened first, and she found the present with her name on it under the tree. The packaging was really cute and vintage, it was wrapped in brown paper, and had string tied around it and in a bow. "That's so cute! I'll just take a quick photo," she said, grabbing her phone off the coffee table.

Zoe laughed. "You internet people, always taking photos of stuff."

Laurel shrugged with a smile. "That's how we roll."

She toook the photo, and then carefully unwrapped the paper. Laurel hated ripping things, espeacially wrapping paper. She hated watching me open letters, because I still haven't figured out how to open an envelope with out ripping it, and I find letter openers impossible to use.
"Oh my gosh! A polaroid camera, that is so brilliant! Thank you." She said, turning over the camera box to look at the back. "Okay, who gave this to me..." She observed the room, looking at everyones faces. "You!" She said excitedly pointing at me.

"Nope," I said with a laugh at the same time as Jack shook his head. He realized what he'd done, and tried to act like nothing happened. Idiot! Now it's obvious he bought it, because how else would he know if I had bought it or not? Luckily Laurel didn't notice him do it, and she looked around.

"Uhh, Zoe?" Laurel said, and Zoe shook her head with a smile. "Dang it! So I don't get to know, do I?"

"That is how it works, babe," Matt told her.

"Ah, bit annoying. Well thank you whoever had me, I love it."

My name was drawn out next, and I got the second and third naked eyeshadow palettes. "Thank you so much, random person, you know who you are! Oh, I can't wait to try them! Okaaay..." I looked around the room, trying to decide who had me. It couldn't be Jack, because he had Laurel. And it couldn't be Zoe, because she had Jack. Other than that, it could be anyone. And everyone had on a pokerface. It'll have to be a random guess. "Hailey?" She shook her head with a grin. I stared at each person for a second or two, hoping they would crack and laugh or something, but no one did, they all held my gaze with serious faces. Gosh, we'd make brilliant criminals. Poker face is on point. Well, not mine. I have a hard time keeping a straight face. Maybe I could be the lookout, or their lawyer or something.
"Matt?" I asked hopefully. Matt shook his head and laughed. "Damn you, Matt! Why can't you of had me?"

*****
Authors note:
Only three chapters to go! Whaaat?
I'm currently working on a couple of other stories, the one that's most likely to be published first is called Hiking Boots at the moment, but it's already gone through a couple of name changes, and it's likely there'll be more.
And I'm so close to 500 reads on this story! That's so exciting, thank you everyone!!
Ella xx