Queen of My Heart

35: Waking Up and Christmas!

  I opened my eyes and saw a familiar face staring down at me. It was Lexie! Better than last time. Wait- there was a last time?

  "Hello. Do you know your name?"

  "Of course I do Lexie! My name is Queenie Heart, Daughter of the King and Queen of Wonderland. You are my boyfriend and I have been seeing you since I was born in a connection through our dreams. I have lived in the Isle of the Lost since I was born, and my mother had just recently come back from the slump somehow after talking to father."

  "Do you have your memories back?"

  "I think so." And I beamed at him. I wanted to kiss him, but my parents came in. Alex left the room.

  "Queenie? Are you okay?" Mother put her hand on my shoulder and I flinched. What was wrong with her? Now that I know the entire context with actual memories, I'm scared. I think that mother noticed me go rigid, then start shaking from my bones, so she let go of me. "My daughter, I am so sorry. When you're older, I'll tell you. When you've experienced enough life to know love and after you've tried ruling Wonderland."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's nothing-at least for now. Don't worry about it. I'd just like to tell you that I am so, so, sorry. I feel extreme remorse for treating you the way I did. Can you ever forgive me, and we could be like a normal mother and daughter? I understand if you don't. You don't have to, but I would like to make amends and pay you back for all the distress that I have caused you with happiness in our life."

  "I think that time will heal. If you are true to your word, I will forgive you, of course! But if you go back to the way you used to be, I'm not going to be able to trust anything that you say." I think that this was fair.

  "I hope we can be a family, like we were supposed to." Father said.

  "I think that you would want to talk to your friends now."

  "Thank you."

  "No problem. Go!"

  "Bye!" I gave them a wave and left. I found Alex near my locker with Torri.

  "Torri! My best friend! Lexie! My boyfriend!"

  "Hello Eenie. It's nice to have you back! You remember everything, right?" Torri said first.

  "Of course."

  "Everything is going to be back to normal now. It's great! I'll leave you two alone now." She gave me a huge hug and left.

  I looked around and made sure that we were alone. Then I crashed my lips onto his. I breathed in his scent that can only be described as Lexie. There is no other explanation. I loved it and I wanted it to last forever.

  After what felt like a few seconds, but was probably more than that, Lexie pulled away and stared into my eyes. We just held each-other, happy to be together and happy at last.

  I loved the rest of my year. I stayed with Lexie the whole time. The holidays were when everything got really interesting. Especially now that I am going to start my 'Queen Training'. I know that I already passed one of them, as I got the portal to open for me like 2 years ago, but that was it. I had no idea what they were going to be and I'm pretty sure that I would get one chance at it.

  Naturally, when the time came for me to get to Wonderland for the holidays with my parents, I was nervous. I didn't want to leave the safe haven that was Auradon Prep, or Lexie and Torri. I also wasn't going to be able to see them over the holidays very easily. So those things I didn't like. But I was moving forward in my life, and that is important.

  But I had one last thing to look forward to before this event, apparently called Christmas. Lexie had told me about it in our dreams, but I never really got to celebrate it. It was just looking at the fireworks from my tiny window, and from what I saw, it was a grand and beautiful holiday. The holiday themes are sharing and relationships, whether family, friends, or love! That sounded lovely.

  I woke up on Christmas morning with presents under my bed. I did slip Torri and Lexie something, and something small for my parents, but I didn't expect to get so many! There was a beautiful notepad from my parents for composing, an invitation from King Adam and Queen Belle to their castle for Christmas, a huge box of chocolates from Torri and a music box from Alex. It was specially customised to play 'When You're Gone' and it was my favourite gift. It meant a lot to me that people cared enough about me to give me presents.

  Christmas had a certain jolly feeling in the air- actually being here and experiencing the atmosphere of excitement was so much better than anything that Lexie described. I practically ran over to Lexie's dorm room and though I definitely wasn't a morning person, I had a lot of energy at 7.

  Ben was already somehow out of the dorm, so I slid open the curtains, careful not to wake Alex, then jumped on top of him yelling "It's Christmas, sleepyhead!"

  He jolted awake, as if I had run an electric current through him, and rubbed his eyes for a few seconds. After releasing that I had woken him up, he proceeded to very gently shoved me off the bed. I landed with a thud on the floor.

  "Queenie! What did you do that for?"

  "Fun, what else?" Then I gave him my best Cheshire cat smile and kissed him. "Thank you for the music box, it is beautiful."

  "You're welcome. What did you get me?"

  "You'll find out soon enough. Right there- it's the big red one." He joined me on the floor, grabbed it and pulled on the ribbon. In it was a book that I annotated. "I knew that you liked books, so I annotated one of your favourite stories. What do you think?"

  "I love it. Thank you." And he kissed me again.