“Merry Christmas!” Sierra beamed at me, her head on the center of my chest and her fingers strumming across my naked abdomen. She was wide awake, which meant that she must’ve been up for at least a while now.
“Morning,” I mumbled, my stomach twisting. “Merry Christmas.”
“I’m so excited for today,” she said, lifting her head off me and resting it on her pillow.
While I had been excited last night, this morning … I didn’t feel good. I had twisted and turned in bed all night until very early this morning and could barely swallow the bile heavy in my throat. All I could think about last night was … how she’d react to my present.
Thornton had said that I deserved to be happy, but did I really? And if I did, what would it even feel like? Would I always fear that it’d be ripped right out from
