Counseling: Christmas

They had arrived home together after school that day. Each of the apartments at the complex had a lockbox on the step as well as a dropbox for mail, and theirs had the flag up. Elly opened it and exclaimed softly.

"It's for me."

"Ya order somethin'?" Hizashi tipped his glasses down to see.

"Yeah, but I wasn't expecting anything." Elly read the label. "Looks like a box from... my mom." She twitched her ears in surprise.

He instinctively took it from her and motioned to the door. "Open the door first," he told her half-jokingly.

"Yeah." She eyed the box in distrust.

Once inside, she ignored the mail until they had both showered and changed into casual clothes. Exiting the bathroom with his still-damp hair wrapped up in a towel, Hizashi found her sitting on the couch staring at it.

"Y'better just open it and get it over with, princess," he suggested from the hallway.

Elly braced herself and sliced it open with a pair if scissors. Inside there were stacks of old papers.

"It's my old stuff? School reports and..." She drew in a great breath. "Photos and all the crap they had us make to give our moms. Zashi, she's giving me back all the stuff I gave her as a child."

The towel he had been using to soak the excess water from his hair dropped in his utter amazement. "What?"

"She wrote a note on top. It says she's getting rid of what she doesn't need in the house." Her tone was frighteningly neutral.

He grabbed the towel and threw it in the bathroom without bothering to aim. It landed on the floor but he didn't look back, just leaped over the side of the couch to sit beside her. "Babe, I'm hoping she didn't mean this the way you think."

"But, Zashi..." She mutely held up a crude card with two very small handprints on it in thick, dried paint. '<i>I love you mommy</i>' was scrawled in childish printing across the garish construction paper.

"She saved your school stuff? That's cool though." He really was at a loss but that was interesting. "I really want to see you as a kid. You must've been so cute."

Elly snorted, digging around in the box. "Here," she told him in a curious tone. "See for yourself."

Hizashi opened the folder and peered inside. "Ohhhh my god, baby," he wheezed laughter. "Your poor hair."

"Yeah, well, she cut it." She wrinkled her nose at the young version of herself.

"So this is kindergarten, then first grade..." His face fell as he flipped through the images. "Oh, man, princess. You - when you were younger, you smiled."

"I know. As I got older I was asked '<i>what happened to you? You</i> used <i>to be cute'</i> far too many times."

"Yer still cute," he blurted out. "It's just a sad cute. It's - shit, babe, it's breaking my damn heart. Why? Couldn't anyone see the rest of them are smiling but you're..."

"I guess not." She wearily set the stack of old mother's day cards and stuff aside. "I'll throw them away, too, unless you want to -"

"Nah, if you wanna get rid of them it's okay. You have photos in that one album that look happier. Save those." He looked up and reached out to grasp her arm. "Babe!"

"What?" She had begun to shake, her eyes dissolving of color to blend with the whites like she did when she threw herself into insanity mode for fighting villains. He knew she wasn't talking to him and bent over to look at what was in the bottom of the box. It was a small, mesh Christmas stocking, neatly opened at the top with the contents removed. Customs had clipped a note to it and as she lifted it out it fell.

Hizashi took it and read aloud, '<i>prohibited item that could cause harm has been removed - foreign rocks'</i>."

"It's the coal stocking," she said numbly. "What the hell did she think I wanted this for? What was so fucking awesome about this that she not only saved it, but thought I would actually want it?!"

He blinked. "Princess? Another story?"

"Oh, yeah," she hissed, enraged. "My stepfather wanted to set this out one Christmas and hide my presents. Mom at least didn't do that, but they made sure to point it out, all smug and laughing, after I'd opened them."

"Uh..." His green eyes grew huge. He had never heard of kids actually getting coal. Not even as a joke.

"They said I had been a bad kid, a bitch that year, so this was a warning."

He froze, his heart beating frantically in his chest. He pictured her as a child, having what was one of the few fun days she enjoyed (although he knew that abuse occurred that day as well). Relaxing, glowing with holiday cheer and perhaps happy for once. And then this. The happiness destroyed in a single moment by a callous move from the people that were supposed to love her. He was mystified; did the pain never end? That must have been how she felt, but a hundred times worse because as a kid, you look up to your parents and whatever they tell you is the absolute truth. He bit his lip, chewing on it as he sat, stunned.

"You know why they said I was bad?" She flung it into the box again, scraping her hand on the side as if to wipe it clean. "They forced their depressed, social anxiety ridden daughter to go with them to her stepfather's family crap. A lot of it. And they were even worse to me, because I wasn't of their blood. Everything was '<i>look at what</i> our <i>children did</i>', even if I had accomplished something greater. I was trash again, ignored."

Two groups of adults telling a child that about herself. He squeaked, a tear running down his cheek and into his mouth. He hastily wiped his lips, then licked them nervously. "That's fucked up," was all he could say.

"Yep." She tossed everything back in the box and sealed it. "Trash," she dismissed in a flat tone. "I'm throwing it all away."

"She did save these things, though. She does love you, just... doesn't do it right."

"Yeah. Doesn't help."

"I know."