This Winter by Alice Oseman EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Alice Oseman
- Language: English
- Genre: Novels
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
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VICTORIA ANNABEL SPRING, 16
I wake up two hours after I fall asleep. The amount of sleep I get on
Christmas Eve seems to be steadily decreasing each year, probably because
each year my average falling-asleep time gets steadily later, probably because
I’m an Internet-addicted idiot. Maybe, eventually, I’ll just stop sleeping
altogether and become a vampire. I’d be good at that.
Not gonna bother complaining about my sleeping pattern right now
though, because it’s Christmas and this is the one day of the year when I
should at least try not to complain about anything. This is hard when your
seven-year-old brother is hitting you in the face with a pillow at six o’clock
in the morning.
I say something along the lines of “nooooo” and retreat under my duvet,
but this doesn’t stop Oliver from following, tearing back the covers and
crawling on to my bed.
“Tori,” he whispers. “It’s Christmas.”
“Mm.”
“Are you awake?”
“No.”
“You are!”
“No.”
“Tori.”
“Oliver … go wake Charlie up.”
“Mum said I wasn’t allowed because he’s ill.” He starts ruffling my hair.
“Toriiiiiiii—”
“Ugh.” I roll over and open my eyes. Oliver is completely under the
covers, looking at me, wriggling with excitement, his hair sticking up on end,
like a dandelion. Charlie and I have discussed at length how it is possible that
Oliver can be at all related to us, since he’s the literal embodiment of joy and
we’re both miserable fucks. We concluded that he must have got all of the
happy genes.
Oliver has a Christmas card in his hands.
“Why do you have a—”
He opens the card and a disgustingly cheerful version of We Wish You A
Merry Christmas begins to play right into my ear.
I groan and shove Oliver off the bed with one hand. He rolls on to the floor
and bursts into giggles.
“So annoying,” I mutter, before sitting up and turning on my bedside lamp,
resulting in a shriek of “YAY!” from Oliver. He begins to wander around my
room, opening and closing the card, repeating the first two notes over and
over again, and my eyes are opening and closing like they do in my early
morning English lessons. The realisation that it’s Christmas Day is creeping
over me and I guess I feel kind of … I don’t know. It’s not exactly a normal
Christmas Day this year.
Christmas is okay at our house. It’s chilled. Quiet. Dad calls it a Spring
Christmas, which he thinks is hilarious, for some reason. We open presents
when we wake up, then family come over for Christmas dinner and stay until
late, and that’s it. I play multiple video games with my brothers and cousins,
Dad always gets drunk, my Spanish grandfather (Dad’s dad) has an argument
with my English grandfather (Mum’s dad) – truly wonderful stuff.
It’s not a normal Christmas this year though.
My fifteen-year-old brother Charlie had to go to a psychiatric hospital back
in October because he has anorexia and some really shitty stuff happened.
Don’t really want to think too much about it on Christmas Day.
He ended up staying there for two months and he only got back two weeks
ago.
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