{69}✔️

Dahlia's POV

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Christmas day was an amazing day. We woke up at 5 am, went to the living room, and opened all our gifts. Dad was more than happy with his, as were Cora and Denver, and I really liked all of mine as well.

I saved Billie's for last even though it absolutely killed me, and I was surprised to see she'd put quite a few gifts in the big box. A Polaroid camera, a new photo printer, some iPad accessories, some stuff for my DIYs and a mini diary. When I opened the diary I saw that she'd already written in it.

As my dad and siblings worked on making our big Christmas breakfast, I read through it. She'd written all types of cute shit. She wrote songs for me in it, she wrote about some of the conversations we'd had and some things she'd never said to me that she wished she would've, she wrote about questions that I'd asked that she didn't answer at the time, but she made sure to in this diary. She wrote about the things that reminded me of her, she wrote about the things that I did that she loved, she wrote about all the places she wanted to take me and all the things she wanted to get me.

And here I thought I was a sentimental little shithead.

God, I love her.

I wanted to call her or FaceTime her or something and tell her how thankful I was for the beautiful gifts, but I knew she was busy catching up with her family and opening her own gifts. We're going to talk later tonight and I honestly can't wait.

By the time I got done reading through everything she wrote, breakfast was ready and I quickly joined my family at the table to eat.

Everyone seemed really happy and it made me happy to see my family looking so refreshed. Cora couldn't keep the smile off her face as she shoveled food into her mouth, and dad and Denver were playfully arguing over sports, laughing every couple of minutes as they slowly went through all the food on their plates.

I stayed quiet and observed for the most part, more than happy to just watch them being their usual, dorky selves.

When we finished with breakfast, dad insisted on putting on Christmas music and watching a Christmas movie while sipping on hot chocolate and eating way too many Christmas cookies. We all gathered on the living room couch and snuggled up together with our drinks and snacks, a large blanket thrown over all of us as we sat there.

We honestly spent most of the day on the couch. We'd all fallen asleep at one point, but when we woke back up we actually watched the movie that was on—the best we could with the music blaring, of course—and then after a while, we started to talk, sharing the good stories we had from however many years ago.

After that, we all took out our phones, showing each other all the pictures we'd taken during our trip.

It was around dinner time when we all went to our own rooms. Dad mentioned wanting to talk to Josephine for a few minutes before we ate again, and Cora wanted to call Liza. Denver said he was just going to watch some TV and I decided I'd take the time to text the twins and all the rest of my friends.

I changed my lock screen to a picture of Billie and me and my home screen to a picture of one of the pages in the diary she gave me after I'd finished texting all my friends, and then I began to sort through all my gifts and put them away.

Dad cooked a quick and easy dinner and we all ate it silently. It was a peaceful and comfortable silence, all of us too tired to say much. We'd been pretty lazy all day, but still. Just yesterday we'd gotten back from our amazing trip and I'm pretty sure we were all still worn out from that.

After dinner, we all showered and changed from our old pajamas and into new ones. We sat around for another hour or two after that, soaking in the rest of our Christmas Day and dreading for it to be over until it came around again next year, and then we each made our way to our own bedrooms again, this time for the night.

After closing my door, I quickly dived onto my bed and picked up my phone. I smiled largely as I noticed I had a text from Billie.

Bilboa:

Call me whenever you're ready baby

Finally!

I quickly pressed the call button and waited anxiously for her to answer, biting the nail on my thumb and swinging my feet in the air as I laid on my stomach.

"Well, hello there!" She nearly screamed.

"You know you're the best girlfriend in the history of girlfriends, right? You're amazing! I loved the gifts you got for me. Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome. I loved the gifts you got for me too!"

"It was just food." I mumbled. I feel bad. She got me all those amazing gifts and all I got her was a gift basket.

"Bitch, I love food!" She laughed. "My mom had to take my basket away after I opened the seventh bag of snacks."

"Dude, you're so greedy." I snorted.

"It was good! As much as I loved the food though, I think I loved the card you put in there so much more."

I blushed and stayed silent. I bought her a really nice card and wrote like a whole damn essay in it. I was hoping it wasn't too much.

"I keep looking at my birthday gifts, though. You're amazing, you know? I don't know what you were talking about when you said your poetry isn't good. I just keep reading all the poems over and over again and I'm shocked every time by how incredible they are. How incredible you are. You're so talented, bro."

"Stop it," I whined, rubbing my warm cheek. "You're one to talk. I cried like seventy thousand times reading all the stuff you wrote in the diary."

"Good," She snickered. "It's payback for you making me cry with your beautiful words...I really love you, Dahlia. So much. I've never met someone I could be this open with. Except maybe my brother, but he's not really my type, you know?"

I laughed loudly and shook my head at her, even though she couldn't see me.

"Hey, send me a picture of your hand, will you?"

"Do you have a hand kink now, Eilish?"

"Mind your business." She joked.

"One second."

I sent her a picture of my hand. The one with the ring on it because I knew that's what she wanted.

A few minutes later she sent me a picture of her lock screen which is where she put the picture.

"Your hand is really cute." She muttered.

"You should see my feet."

"Send me a pic of those too then."

"$70."

"Wow, really? If I were you I'd charge $100."

We stayed on the phone until around 3 am. I'm sure we'll both regret that tomorrow. Seems like neither of us has gotten a proper night's sleep in at least a few days, but it's worth it.

The last thing I remember hearing her say before I fell asleep was "I love you."