Santa, at your service
1554 Words
Lily
I peep through the window. Nature is by far the only friend I have. It does not discriminate the rich from poor, nor does it judge whether you were conceived in or out of wedlock. The sun has already set, and the ocean is strangely calm, the exact opposite of the dark storm ranging inside me.
The knocking on the door continues while I remain quiet. I am hoping that whoever it is gives up and walks away. Well, that does not work. There is more banging, each knock more urgent that the one before it. I am becoming curious about who it is. I have been on this cruise every festive for years now and no one ever talks or visits to me. I don’t quite fit in with the elite that can afford this ship. The staff are friendly but too busy, so I always keep to myself.
“Who is it?” I eventually answer. He is obviously not going away.
“It is I, Santa. Ho, Ho, Ho!”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. Some people have time to waste.
“My Lady, please open the door,” he pleads, with something very foreign in his tone.
“You have a wrong cabin,” I shout, but he continues to plead. I wonder what he wants.
“Please, a word is all I request of you.”
I let out a sigh and open the door, only to come face-to-face with the most gorgeous man I have ever seen. Maybe about six and half feet tall, dark piercing eyes, sharp jaw and perfectly trimmed mustache. I don’t know how Greek gods looked like, but he quite fits the descriptions. His clothes are not so fitting though. The tight blue jeans and the white vest that is sticking on his bulging abs him like a second skin is not how I would imagine the god’s wearing.
“I noticed that you have not eaten,” he says and pushes a trolley of food past me and stops near the small table in the middle of the cabin.
I am left standing at the door, stunned. No one ever notices me. I am the unwanted shadow of the Reed family. I could disappear right now, and no one would notice.
“Who are you?”
“Santa, at your service, My Lady.”
This man must know how hot he is, because this is weird, and he seem amused.
“Right. It is not Christmas yet and why are you bringing me food?”
I am a bit suspicious now. I never get presents, even if I did, he would be a day early. I have no idea what my family are up to and now I have an unrealistically hot stranger claiming to be Santa bringing me food.
“Oh boy, you are the suspicious one, aren’t you?”
I fold my arms across my chest becoming more convinced that this is another stunt by my family to prove my madness.
He lets out a sigh and makes eye contact, which I break as fast as I can. Somehow, it is as if he is looking right into my dark pathetic soul.
“You are troubled and keep to yourself, like me. You bumped into me this morning and I noticed that you were crying. I got worried when you did not show up in over nine hours. You have not eaten. So, here I am.”
I stand frozen on a spot before remembering my manners.
“Thank you,” I can only murmur. I was wrong in thinking that no one will notice if I vanished. This stranger noticed. I don’t know much about miracles, nor do I believe in them. Heaven knows just how much I longed for the resurrection of the mother I never knew. That miracle never happened no matter how much I prayed and wished it. Still, I can’t help wondering if it is one of those.
I am snapped back to reality by his instructions.
“Come have a seat. I will dine with you this eve.”
Maybe I am neurotic because I actually close the door and take a seat across a hot stranger who could be serial killer. Well, I am planning to end my life. I guess I have nothing to lose if he beats me to it.
I curiously watch him dish the soup in two bowls before dishing the food on two plates. It’s a simple mundane task, yet it seems so enchanting. I would sound very much crazy if I told anyone that a hot stranger came to my cabin and brought me food. Is that the plan? Well, it does not matter anymore.
“Are you going to eat?” he asks, and begins eating, that voice snapping me out of my destructed mind.
The food can’t be poisoned if he is eating it too. Again, I should not care. I am ending my life anyway. I take a spoonful of lettuce soup, and my taste buds go wild.
“This is delicious!”
He flashes me a smile, revealing those toothpaste advert type of teeth. Everything about this man is unrealistically perfect, it’s unsettling.
“I am a good listener,” he says while I narrow my eyes at him.
“You are troubled, My Lady. It helps talking it out,” he proceeds.
“I doubt it.”
The root of all my problems is my conception and identity. There is just no amount of talking that can change who I am.
“Come on. Try me,” he urges, stops eating and stares at me until I curve in. Why does he even care? Curious, I guess.
“Fine.”
An hour later, I have pretty much concluded my pathetic life story to the attentive man whose piercing eyes have not left me.
“So, Paul has been cheating on you with your stepsister?”
“Yep.”
“And your parents are fine with it?”
I can’t help but let out an empty laugh at that. I don’t consider those two to be my parents, they don’t consider me as a daughter either.
“I am delusional and claiming that he is my boyfriend. So, yes.”
He squints his eyes before asking, “Are these your biological parents?”
“I am a bastard child, Dad’s biggest mistake. He will always take Phoebe’s side. It’s always been that way,” I sum up my pitiful life.
“That i***t did not deserve you. A much better man is going to find you one day,” he declares before his eyes light up. “He might just come wrapped up in a Christmas present,” he suggests, and I envy his naivety. I have lived in a glorified hell all my life to believe such fairytales.
“I don’t believe in miracles, and I am done with men,” I tell him.
He chuckles and wipes the bottom of my lip with his finger. I don’t know why my heart races at that.
“The food was delicious. Thank you.”
“No, it is I who must thank thee, My Lady. I would have dined alone this eve had you not so kindly welcomed me.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He has this tendency to shift from what I regard as normal English to this very formal, yet playful Shakespeare kind of talking.
“What?” he asks.
“You speak strange,” I point out and my cheeks burn at his gaze.
“Strange-good or strange-bad?”
“Good, I guess.”
“I was hoping you will say that, My Lady,” he beams and continues to tell me about his experience with how people react to his speech. I think he does it on purpose to get the weird reactions he tells me about.
“I am Vince, by the way.”
I can’t help but laugh. We have been talking for over an hour and I did not know his name.
“I am Lily. Nice to meet you, Vince.”
“So, Lily, what does one do on their own for nine hours?”
I shrug my shoulder. I am used to being alone longer than that, but he clearly does not think it is normal. He is now walking around my small cabin and commenting about any and everything he sees.
“Is there a reason you have a knife on your bed?”
I open and close my mouth, speechless.
He turns around to look at me when I don’t respond.
“You are not planning on committing suicide, are you?”
I frantically shake my head, but I can tell that he is on to me. I wonder what gave me away.
“Close spaces can be depressing. Come, let’s get fresh air and join carols,” he says and pulls me towards the door, giving me no option to turn him down. I am thinking hard about running back to my cabin when we get to the ship’s ground floor and find the staff practicing Christmas carols. I guess my strange friend is part of the staff because they don’t seem surprised when we join in.
- Writer
