I looked outside through the window. As was usual at that time of year, the entire outside of the school was covered in snow. Scattered all over the snowy schoolyard, several kids could be seen getting into cars with their families. Normally, Christmas was the only time of the year when the students left the boarding school. Well, as long as it was possible to leave. In my case, it wasn't that I couldn't leave, but that I had no family outside.
"Has everyone left already?" I looked away from the window to find my father slowly approaching me. I had entered that school at the same time he started working there as a teacher. Which was why I had spent most Christmases of my life at that school.
"Yes, almost all of them." I replied as I turned away from the window and looked down the length of the now totally empty and silent hallway. ""Have a lot of people stayed?"
"No, not many. I thought I counted about five, six counting you." My father said, glancing momentarily out at the white landscape that window left in view. "Dinner is served in half an hour, why don't you go get ready?"
I simply nodded. My father kissed my head before I headed to my room. Once there, I showered with warm water and went to pick out my Christmas Eve outfit. Normally, we were required to always wear the uniform, but on days like this an exception was made. I opted for a long-sleeved black top, a red plaid skirt and black boots. Realizing that I was late for dinner, I left my room and hurried to the dining room. Once there, I sat down next to my father, who lightly stroked my shoulder before resuming his conversation with the teacher sitting across from him.
A good while later, as I was finishing my dessert, I looked around for the first time. Although some teachers had left, the vast majority had remained at the school. There were a couple of students sitting next to them because, like me, they were the kids of some of them.
At other tables, a little farther away, there were more kids, most of them younger than me. You could hear them talking and laughing loudly, and I couldn't help but smile. At that moment, I noticed that there was someone sitting all alone, away from the rest of us. He must have been about my age, had blond hair and blue eyes. As much as I knew I shouldn't look at him so insistently, I couldn't take my eyes off him. At that moment, his gaze lifted from his plate to my eyes. I felt my cheeks reddening, but I didn't look away. To my surprise, neither did he. Barely a minute later, I managed to come out of that kind of trance and focused on my dessert again.
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It must have been close to ten o'clock at night, and I was strolling through the halls of the school. I had been with my father and the rest of the teachers for quite a while, but after a while I got bored and managed to get out of there, with the excuse that I was a bit tired. Suddenly, I felt a delicate smell of smoke coming from one of the stairs. Curious, I climbed up six steps until I reached the stair landing. What was my surprise to find that boy from the dining room leaning against the stone wall, smoking a cigarette.
