"Just fold in the batter." Sarah instructs me. I recollect what was once told to me and I started folding the batter.

The four hours of sleep I got was perhaps one of the best sleep usually a four-hour sleep was never enough for me.

Sarah decided to bake some more plum cakes so that she could sell them at the bakery. She's been doing it for years and from Juliet, I got to know that the demand for her plum cakes seems to increase year by year.

With all the energy I got from the incredibly delicious French Toasts for breakfast, I folded the batter of the third bowl. Once I was done with that, Sarah and I poured them into the cake tins and popped them in the oven.

"There you go, now we wait till it's baked." She says as she kept the oven gloves back its place. "Woah, I still can't believe I helped you make the cake." I remove my apron, I felt proud of what I did. "My first batch of plum cakes go out at the beginning of the month but this batch is where the demand is." Sarah tells me.

"Why is that?" I ask her.

"Because of the alcohol in it." she whispers, I raise my eyebrows. "Don't worry, I don't have them at home, strictly for business only." she shook her head. "I soak the dry fruits and nuts in rum for over six months and they are used for the cakes as we get closer to the special day." she tells me.

"Woah, the cakes will be strong then." she nods her head.

I take a glass and fill it with water while Sarah put the dishes in the dishwasher. Once I finished drinking water, I washed the glass and placed it back in its place.

"Holly?" I heard Sarah say my name.

"Yeah" I turn to see her with a not so cheery face. I instantly knew what she was going talk about. "How are you feeling since you weren't very good yesterday?" She asks me.

"I'm fine, I'm doing good actually." I smile and reply.

"That's good to hear. You were really upset after the call." She looked very concerned, "I'm fine." I say again.

"Well, that means you will be having lunch today." she cheered.

---

Mince beef pie needs to have another name. I'm pretty sure that there is one already but a new word needs to be invented to praise Sarah's beef pies.

There were no flaws in that pie that I had for lunch today and if Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay say that there are faults then I shall personally give them a piece of my mind.

I lay on my bed with a bright smile on my face. I was happy, my tummy was happy and I could thank God for as long as I could.

While washing the dishes in the afternoon, Sarah informed the girl or as she calls us "ladies" that we would go tomorrow for our Christmas shopping while the men would go on another day. Even if I haven't had much experience in buying presents, Christmas time would have the best deals at any store. I may not be a shopaholic especially for clothes but investing in some oversized sweaters and overcoats is very essential.

My thoughts faded when it struck me that I do not know what to buy as presents. Buying presents were not my thing, I rarely had any reasons for buying presents because I have parents who gave me the money to buy what I wanted and friends who had everything. The only person who I could buy presents for is sweet little Emma and the best way to get Emma her present is by taking her to whichever shop she likes the most and let her pick up whatever she wants.

The case is different now, I have to buy presents because it's a tradition to wake up and open all the presents you received overnight.

I reach for my MacBook that peaceful slept beside me. I logged in and headed straight for Pinterest. Typing in names of best possible gifts is probably the lamest idea but I had no choice.

All the pins that came on display might either be a little strange for a present or it would be perfect for a couple who planning Valentine's Day instead of Christmas.

I close the MacBook and let out a sigh. I'm sure it's a lot easier to get someone something for Christmas or I could call up Emma and get her help.

I took my phone and brought my finger close to her name to call her but before I did, she's calling me.

Perfect timing.

"Emma! I was going to call you like right now." I greet her.

"Really?" I heard her ask.

"Yes! You have no idea how messed up my head is. I'm happy but so much happened in the last twenty-four hours." I tell her.

"I see, so how can I be of help for you?" she asks me. "I never mentioned that I needed your help." I say.

"Holly, you call me when you need help with something." I sigh. "So what's up?" I heard her ask.

"It's nothing big, I just don't know what to get as presents for Christmas," I tell her and instead of getting a proper response, she begins to laugh.

"You don't need to laugh about it, I need your help!" I snap.

"Relax, I knew you would call me up for this but before I help you with this, you said that the past twenty-four hours had a lot of events," she says.

"Yeah, it kind of made it clear that I might have a slight crush on Jasper." I mumble.

"Really?" she sounded surprised. "Oh don't. Like you weren't expecting it and for all you know, you might have prayed a little extra at church." I reply and she chuckled.

"What happened to this realisation?" She asked me.

"Mom called." I sigh.

"Oh." I slightly nod but for some reason, I felt something wrong in her voice.

"She somehow got to know about me not being in New York. It's not that I care if she knew about it but what hurt me was the way she spoke to me." I tell her.

"What did she say?" She asked me.

"That I'm sleeping around and I let go of my innocence willingly. She still wishes that I got back with Daniel. How could she even think of me like that?"

"Well you did mention that she wanted you there for Christmas and when she inquired about you, she found out that you weren't in New York." She told me.

"What's crazy is that she knows exactly where I am. The only people who know about me coming here are you, Jasper and Ryan so from where did she get to know about it?" I spoke, more like talking to myself.

There was silence between us. I looked out the window and began to wonder how she got to know. I did not care at first but I got curious. Many would think I'm crazy because I did not want my parents to know where I was but when you've lived your life so far as an independent individual where they rarely cared about you, you just begin to wonder why they care about you. Yes, people change but I know my parents a little bit and change for them can never come overnight.

"Holly?" I heard Emma, she didn't sound very cheery.

"Yeah?" I heard her sigh. "Em, what's wrong?" I ask her.

"Holly, I'm very sorry but I'll take the blame for letting your location out for your mom to know." She slowly tells me.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Holly, I was drunk and he came to talk to me. I've been avoiding him for a while because he kept asking for you and everything. He made it very clear that he has a thing for you and I made told him to stay away from you since he would just hurt you." Emma begins to explain.

"Are you talking about Eliot?"

"Yes. I hate to even call him my brother because I-" she stopped herself and took a deep breath. "Anyway, remember when I told you that the young adults were heading for the club, yeah? As much as it was fun to get in illegally, I had the best of drinks which my cousins ordered for me. You know I'm usually not the type to get drunk but I kept drinking and behaved like any drunk person." she continued to tell me.

"Eliot came over to where I was and scolded me to have gotten so drunk and pulled me out of the club and decided to take me home. He took me being drunk as an advantage and asked about you and blurted it out that you were Phili with Jasper for Christmas." I let out a groan.

"And Eliot told Daniel and Daniel informed my parents." I complete her words.

"Holly, I did not mean to do this, you know that right." I heard her say.

"You were drunk, I understand. See, this is what I meant about guys, Emma. I swear, if I met Eliot again, I'll punch his face so hard that no girl would want to be with him." she chuckled.

"You'll probably fracture your hand." I sigh.

"Holly, don't let this ruin your time there," she told me. "And I apologise for my drunk self to do such a thing." she adds.

"You don't have to apologise plus, I really don't care what my parents think and know of me." I told her, I heard her sigh.

We spoke for a bit longer on random things and then we ended our conversation.

The evening was very pleasant in the Anderson household. Sarah, Juliet and I packed the cakes we baked after breakfast and then drove to the bakeries that sell Sarah's special plum cakes. The little town greeted everybody very warmly, felt like people belong here and made everybody made even a new person comfortable.

Once we came back to the house, the ladies, including me, of the house were in the kitchen to prepare dinner. Since the lunch was heavy, Sarah decided that we have some chicken wraps for dinner.

At sharp eight o'clock, everybody was seated at the table. Crunchy with the lettuce, juicy grilled chicken with some honey mustard and sweet onion sauce was my new favourite combination for a wrap.

After we had our wraps, Sarah and Juliet quickly washed the dishes while Jessica and I arranged some homemade chocolate truffles on a cupcake stand. Usually, you would expect the of these truffles to be in the size of a Ferrero Rocher but these truffles were a lot bigger, I'm sure you won't be able to finish if you took a second truffle.

We sat on the carpet and ate the truffle after Sarah and Juliet joined us. Peter started to hum a Christmas song and the twins joined him and started singing the song. After the song came to an end, more songs were sung. I sat quietly in a corner and watched how the family I've been with over a few weeks were.

They weren't pretending, they were genuine. You could say they were in love and if anybody needed to know what real love is then you should meet Peter and Sarah and see their life and their lovely family. A little later, I excused myself and made my way to the back porch, sat on the chair and let out a sigh.

I don't know what went wrong when it came to my family. I found no love, everything was fake and because I grew up in such an environment. Emma keeps telling me that she loves me but that's it.

I put on my earphones and put my playlist on shuffle and looked out at the white backyard that was lit with some garden lights. The stars in the sky were twinkling, if it wasn't snowing, I would be probably lying on the ground and just watch the stars all through the night.

My phone started to play Autumn Leaves by Ed Sheeran when I saw someone place a mug in front of me on the table. I remove my earphones and looked to my left to see who it was. I couldn't help but smile.

"Why do you like to sit in a place where you might freeze to death?" he asked me.

"Winter months come and go fast?" I shrug. "What are you doing here anyway?" I ask him.

"You excused yourself from the room, I sensed that you weren't yourself," he replies before he took a sip of his drink. I take my mug and took a sip of the drink, it was hot chocolate.

"Are you still thinking about what happened yesterday?" he asked me.

"Sort of," I mumble. "Some people do not know how to mind their own business, they don't understand the words of "We're Over"." I look at him.

"But what got me a little was the relationship of your family. You guys just love each other and you stand for each other." I looked down at the mug. "I felt how terrible my relations with my parents were. I feel guilty at times for hating them Jasper but I can't find a reason to not hate them." I say and took another sip.

"They will only look out for me for their image sake." I told him.

"That's not true, Holly." he leaned forward to look at me. "They care about you, they'll care more about you when something happens. My Grandma told me once that you either wait for something to happen that won't you be happy with or look at the consequences and act right from the beginning." I look up to him.

"Don't them hate them just yet, don't give your hope up yet." he told me.

"Jasper i-" "It's not easy, I know but at the end of the day, they were the ones who created you." he interrupts me.

"I wasn't planned, nor was I made out of love Jasper." I told him.

He sat there for a moment and then after that he opened his mouth to speak,

"You may not know their guilt Holly, they might be sorry for they have done." he looked at me. "I'm not going to forgive them that easily." I told him.

"I never said that. All I'm saying is give them a chance." I sigh at his words. "And regarding love, when the time is right, you'll receive the love you deserve." he places his hand on mine. "But you need to trust and sometimes let go of the past so that you can move on." he tells me.

"That's an equation that will take days to solve." I chuckle.

"The point is at some point, you will have the solution." he smiles.

---