The Sapphic Christmas

19th December

Sophie

Today I'm going to my mother's parents. They live near London, so it takes me about four hours to get to them, and it's one of the worst trips of my life. It seems that I'm getting sick, and I'm also stressed all the time. I think I should call Ella; I'm starting to worry that something might happen to her. You know, the kind of unreasonable anxiety is similar to what we feel when our mother leaves us at the queue in the store, and we should be next, and she's still not there. That's only ten times worse.

Fortunately, this road doesn't last forever, so soon I arrive at gran's private house. It's too cold outside to be there for more than five minutes actually.

"Hi." I hug first my grandmother, then grandfather. "How are you?"

"We're great, thank you. And you?" I nod like everything is great. We enter the house when most of my things are left in the car. Here is one of the advantages of private houses: half of the things can be stored in the car if it's not needed in the near future. I don't think that even if I really need any of it, I'll leave the house: it's incredibly cold, as I've already said. I mean, my fingers freeze in a minute, or even faster. I don't like it very much. My phone hates it more and it'll stop working if we won't go inside the house. "Will you eat?"

Of course, I can't refuse her offer and soon I'm sitting with a large plate of stewed vegetables in front of the TV with my grandparents, we watch "Home Alone", because this year, unfortunately, I haven't watched it yet. While watching my thoughts wandered somewhere, although I really love this movie. At some point, I realize that I love the fact that I can simply come to someone from my family like that, and they'll not interrogate me. We can just be together, enjoy this company. And damn, I missed that so much. It seems my parents' parents are the only people who can help me when I need it. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up in their environment, maybe because they paid me as much attention as I needed. Maybe the main reason is their support for me after my coming out. Or it happened for some other reason, but I'm just happy to be around them. Thoughts no longer choke me, I can rest. I needed it so much.

"Do you mind if I take a nap?" I have horrible headache, but I don't want to leave them here either.

"Of course. Your room is ready." They take good care of me that it gets a little embarrassing.

"Thanks." I smile at them and go to the room that's always prepared for me. It's nice to have my place in their house, at least here I don't feel out of place.

I want to sleep so much that already during the film my eyes were closing, but as soon as my head touch the pillow, I can't sleep. I think about last week over again. Is everything okay with Ella, is she worried about our fight? I don't have to text to her, but I want to do it. I finally let myself to scroll her stories on Instagram. It seems that everything is fine with the girl, which can't do anything but rejoice. I watch her last Vlogmas as well, just to be sure. All the videos I haven't seen yet. For the next two hours, I watch Ella does what she loves, enjoys December and the up-coming holidays. They have big Influencers' celebration; I see familiar faces around the girls. Ella seems to be happy, a little tired. However, there's a lot of Louis, that's nice. She told me about him, they're like Andy and I (well, before he started to ignore me). I want to be a part of it, part of her world, but I lost this opportunity and now I don't think that I have the right to desire something. I destroyed it all by myself.

I don't want my grandparents to see my sad face, and I don't know what I could do about it. I could have left that day, but that would have raised too many suspicions. I end up pretending to sleep for the rest of the day. Then I write a note, leaving gifts under the tree, and go home at night. I need time to be alone with myself. Maybe that way I won't hurt other people.