All I Want For Christmas

Chapter 7 - Making A Decision.

'History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived but if faced with courage, need not be lived again'

~ Maya Angelou

Olivia's P.O.V.

Do you know the one thing I absolutely hate about the internet? it's people's incessant need to wanna share their whole lives with with the world from their morning routine, to the coffee they drink and the problems they're having in their relationships when there's no need to.

Back when I was a kid, it was considered a major invasion of privacy if you were to read the inner most thoughts of someone from reading their diary but these days, people, mainly women are more than happy to divulge everything on the internet from arguments with their husbands and boyfriends to proudly posting their STI results.

Like what the f**k? do people have no shame any more?.

Crazily enough, the one thing I hate about the internet is also the thing that I really love as well or at least, I find it interesting because there are sites out there where you can post your story in hopes of gaining some advice from someone about a problem you're going through.

I had considered doing this myself to see if there was anyone out there who could give me some advice about my situation which wasn't toxic, hateful and or murderous but then I found a story which was kind of similar to mine.

The story was about a girl who had been married to her husband for six years, they had two kids together and one on the way and then she found out that he had been having an affair with her sister who he had been seeing for around six months.

Now, this in enough itself is already awful but then she revealed the worst part which is that her scumbag husband had admitted that he was never in love with her and that he only married her so that he could remain close to her younger sister who he had been in love with since they were teenagers.

As you can imagine, this devastated the wife and she cut off all contact with her ex and her sister after the divorce with all communication and drop offs with the kids going through her parents and everything was all good until a year later when her ex and sister split up after the latter had found the love of her life in bed with her best friend.

I know, shocking right, who could've predicted that would happen?.

Anyway, after a year of peace, the victim in all of this had started to receive numerous messages from members of her family including her parents who had pleaded with her to forgive her sister and help her through her pain and trauma because they had both been burned by the same 'cheating, toxic, narcissistic abuser'.

The ex-wife refused preferring her peace with her children and didn't wanna ruin that by inviting her sister back into her life because she knew that only chaos, manipulation and trouble would follow her BUT she did choose to forgive her sister which she did for herself and her kids, not her sister.

The reason why she did this is because she truly believes that forgiveness is important in order for you to fully heal from the past which she described as the most freeing thing ever but she made it clear that forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting and it certainly doesn't mean acceptance of that person being in their life.

This was interesting to me and it gave me food for thought because I never forgave my ex or my twin for what they did because I didn't think their actions were forgivable but now I'm starting to wonder if forgiving them is the final act I need to perform so that I can fully heal from my past.

There was also another story which struck a chord with me which once again two sisters fighting over the same man who was married to one and cheating with the other, except in this story, the whole saga caused a huge rift in the family with half of them siding with the wife and the rest of them siding with the side piece including her parents.

This devastated the wife who had made the conscience decision to cut everyone off who had sided against her which made the problem even worse because they're the type of people who believe that family is family and that you should always forgive your family no matter what and never let anyone, especially a man come between them.

The wife ended up regretting her decision to cut her parents off and after many years of them not being in each other's lives, they forgave each other and are getting on better than ever but she hasn't seen her sister since she caught her with her ex and she's ok with that because she doesn't want anything to do with her.

If you're wondering what the moral of the story is, well, the moral of this story is that cutting off family members or in my case avoiding family members because of someone else's mistakes is something you shouldn't do because what you're doing is you're punishing people for the bad thing that someone else did which isn't right or fair and I quickly realised that this is what I was doing.

I had cut off my entire life and avoided going back home because of what Tyler and Colton did and that's not fair to my parents and my other brothers who are being punished for something they didn't do.

Reading these two stories have really got me thinking hard about my situation and it's helped me to make my final decision about whether or not I should go back to Colorado.

BANG!!, BANG!!, BANG!!.

What the hell?.

"OLIVIA AMELIA REDWOOD, OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT f*****g NOW!!"

Wait, I know that voice.

I took my eyeglasses off and put them on my coffee table before standing up and heading over to my door.

BANG!!, BANG!!, BANG!!.

"O-LIV-I-A RED FREAKING WOOD, OPEN THIS..."

I opened the door to my apartment where I was greeted to the sight of my very angry and feisty yet cheeky looking best friend.

"Demi"

"Oh...hi Ollie, can I come in?"

Demi said whilst flashing me her cheeky yet innocent smile which totally contradicts the angry and crazy woman who has just been banging on my door.

"Sure"

I say whilst holding my door open for Demi who confidently walked into my home after giving me a kiss on my cheek.

I then shut my door before turning around to face Demi who was now looking down at my laptop.

"Reddit Ollie, really? Jesus, it seems that I came here right on time"

"What do you mean?"

I ask confused as Demi closed my laptop and sat down on my couch.

"You know exactly what I mean, Olls"

"Actually, no I don't"

I say in frustration.

"What are you doing here, Demi? I thought you were sunning it up with Juan in Costa Rico"

I say with a fake Spanish twang to my voice causing Demi scoff.

"He wishes, Ollie"

Demi says whilst rolling her eyes.

"Anyway, I am the ghost of Christmas past, present and future who is here to make you forget the past and embrace the present so that you can move on with your future and I'll be a bigger help to you than reddit, my darling"

What the?.

"Huh...I don't understand"

"Well...it's very simple, Olivia"

Demi says whilst dramatically putting her hands on her knees and standing up.

"I'm here to make you understand that the past is the past, it can't be changed and it can't be relived"

"Yeah, Einstein, I know that, we learned this when we were ten"

"Well, Mrs smarty pants, if you know that then you should also know that if we don't learn from our pasts and move on then it can severely affect our future and not in a good way"

Demi says and I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Have you been talking to my mom?"

I ask her and she smiled giddily at me.

"And uncle Frankie and my parents, they're all worried about you, Olls...they want you to come back home and spend Christmas with us"

"So, they sent Krampus here to convince me?"

I ask with a smirk causing Demi to glare at me.

"Krampus my butt b***h, at least I'm not the Grinch"

"Neither am I, Dems"

"Aren't you?"

Demi asks with a scoff whilst looking at me like are you being serious?.

"Yeah, the Grinch hated Christmas, Demi, hence the title of the book the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, I happen to love this magical holiday and you damn well know it"

"Ok then, prove it...come home for Christmas and before you even say no, I..."

"Ok"

I cut her off and she looked at me shocked.

"What did you just say?"

"I said ok"

I said with a smile and Demi looked at me with a shocked look before she squealed loudly.

She then ran around my apartment squealing and shouting SHE SAID YES!! like she had just proposed to me and I said yes to her before she came over to me and tightly wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I can't believe you said yes"

Neither can I.

"You've just made all of our Christmas wishes come true, Ollie, this is gonna be the best Christmas ever"

I hope so, Demi, I really do hope so.