Forbidden Fruit

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

At 2 AM, Camilla lay awake in bed and stared up at the ceiling.

She wasn't sure how long it had been since she woke up with a fast heartbeat and a cold sweat, but no memory of anything that would cause such a thing. Maybe it was a nightmare that she had the good fortune to forget so soon. Incidentally, it was also Christmas day except the sun wouldn't rise for maybe six hours.

By 2:20 AM, she had moved the lamp by her bed over to the desk to shed some light on the textbooks she opened up. Anytime was a good time for studying, she told herself. If anyone asked her why she was so tired, she could say she was up studying and she'd be telling the truth. She'd also get called a loser, but that would also be telling the truth. Camilla couldn't win, could she?

At 2:30 AM she realized she was too frazzled from the lack of sleep to actually read anything, so she crawled back into bed. If she wrapped herself in the blanket it felt like she was dragging herself down to hell, but if she moved it just a little too far away it felt colder than Jack Frost's- what would be the coldest part of the body of a being whose entire being is coldness? In any case, if she closed her eyes no rest would come.

It was now 2:45 AM. Camilla figured maybe a glass of milk would help, and walked out of her bedroom.

She'd lived in this house all her life. If she had to, she could make her way to the kitchen with her eyes closed, and walking around in the dark wasn't too different-

"Hey!"

What was that? She looked back at what she stumbled on- as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw boxes.

Well, that was a surprise. Actual, wrapped-up Christmas presents laid out on the carpet. They hadn't been laid out like that since she was eight years old and still believed in Santa Claus. After that, her mom and auntie had little pretenses about Christmas gift giving. Auntie would come over Christmas morning, they'd have breakfast together, and presents would be passed around afterwards. They were never brought out and laid out like this beforehand, in that set up.

Yet, here they were. What was so special this time around?

For some reason, Camilla couldn't seem to take her eyes off them. What was so different now that these were laid out ahead of time, presumably while she was asleep? It was almost certainly some sort of surprise for Christmas day. It almost felt like she was eight again- the same little shiver of excitement of wondering what could be in those boxes, come day.

Her idle daydreaming was interrupted when the lights went on in the hallway leading away from the living room, and her mother poked her head in.

"What's going on?" she asked, irritated.

"Oh, nothing, I just tripped while getting myself a snack."

Her mom seemed to accept that answer, as she withdrew back into the hall, and the lights there went off. Camilla turned away from the presents and went into the kitchen.

At 3 AM, Camilla was pacing her room with a glass half full of milk in hand, and a burning question in her mind. What was so, so special and secret about those presents that they had to be arranged as if they were a normal family's? Her mother wasn't going to pretend they were from Santa in one of her bizarre mother-daughter bonding plans that inevitably ended awkwardly, was she?

She considered the boxes. Three of them, about the same size, stacked haphazardly on top of one another. All of them were wrapped in red paper with a patterning of green and gold ornaments on them.

They seemed too thick to hold books, unless they decided to stack two thin books on one another and wrap that as one thing- which would be quite the treat. If mom decided to put a fuckton of clothes in one of them, Camilla would reserve the right to be... extremely disappointed, in private of course. On the other hand, a fuckton of seeds for the garden in spring would earn Camilla's undying adoration and approval to her mo- hahahaha, in her wildest dreams maybe. Auntie would be the one to give such a thing, and she already had that. And besides, who put that many seeds in a box that big?

She wondered if she could gather more information by poking at the boxes, but she'd never be able to put them back just right. Would her mother notice? But she didn't want to ruin the surprise for herself either, even a little. It made her feel a little giddy, it made her heart race, it made her feel like a kid again, something something the true meaning of Christmas. It was a paradoxical balance. The hour wore on. The questions burned, and desperation seemed to well in her heart and mind as if it was an ocean pouring in through the cracks in the walls. Camilla would soon drown. Yet that was exactly where that light, exciting feeling came from, wasn't it? And why would she ever want to ruin a perfectly good surprise? Half of a good surprise was a genuine reaction, she knew. But when she said it was a burning question, she meant it, every flicker of curiosity that brushed against her mind, a sweet smoke in the air.

Camilla tried to distract herself. The now empty glass lay on the desk- if she were to go back to the kitchen she might have been tempted, so getting something else to drink was out of the question. She checked tumblr. Her inbox was empty, as usual. Looking at art, embroidery, and the occasional heated ace discourse quickly wore out its welcome as everything seemed so... Christmassy. What a surprise. Every time she saw something like that her mind went back to those gifts in the living room.

Maybe she didn't get enough sleep. So she tried. Then she remembered why she woke up in the first place, that crazy dream about running over a deer on the road by accident while escaping school(?) in the middle of the night being chased by, uh. Who again? Anyway the parts after that were fuzzy, something about the mall Santa she saw last week tauntingly laughing at her, still with less ho's than the GHHS student body, something about a rose that caused her to bleed profusely, and then she woke up when a wolf bit her. So she didn't really want to sleep.

A horrible, horrible idea, came to her, in desperation- if she was avoiding pettily scandalous temptations to ruin a lovingly crafted surprise, why doesn't she drown it out with something even worse?

Ever since Camilla got her hands on a copy of Lolita, she had become very good at hiding it. For now, she put the sleeve of a more respectable book over it and placed it on the shelf over the desk. Her mother never suspected a thing, but recently Camilla had noticed "her" copy of the Bible had re-appeared on the shelf in her room. No matter how many times Camilla passive-aggressively moved it back to the storeroom, or mom's room, or anywhere else in the house, it reappeared on her desk someday. The fact that it appeared on the shelf this time signaled her mom intruding on ever more of her territory. More relevant to that moment, she was getting dangerously close to the latest hiding spot of the unholiest book she owned.

The last thing Camilla wanted to do was explain to her mother that she got the book because she wanted to know what all the fuss on tumblr was about and also because it was the title of a Lana Del Rey song. The second last thing Camilla wanted to do was admit was that she still listened to Lana Del Rey.

Gingerly, she pulled it off the shelf and cracked it open. The very first lines did a very good job of taking her mind off the Christmas presents and right into the pits of hell.

For a little while, at least.

At some point, the content became too much to bear and her thoughts began escaping to the relatively benign, but so sweetly seductive secret of the Christmas presents.

She couldn't take this anymore. Come 4:45 AM, Camilla took a pair of scissors, a flashlight, and some tape to indulge her sinful, sinful desire.

Just one, she told herself as she sneaked through the halls in the dark. Just one gift, just one cut, just one peek- that would satisfy her.

Camilla placed a hand on the top gift. It seemed rather sturdy. Pointing the flashlight at it revealed a message scrawled in ink at the top- For: Camilla. Love, Auntie. Once she found a bits of tape on the outline of an opening with the wrapping paper, she placed a hand there and turned off the flashlight.

Her hands trembled as she snipped open each piece of tape as quietly as she could. It felt so, so wrong, yet this was quite possibly the most... fun? The most fun she had during Christmas in years? Quite possibly. It was shameful to admit even to herself.

It was done. She unfurled the wrapping paper and pointed the flashlight at the result. Her hand immediately went to her mouth to cover her gasp.

It was a box full of macarons. All sorts of colours, presumably flavours too. Were they all hand-made?

She quickly placed the bit of wrapping paper back, covering what it was supposed to cover. Maybe if she was lucky enough, she wouldn't need to use extra tape re-sealing it. Yet... wouldn't it be obvious they were cut before, either way? Oh, and her expression when Auntie would present it to her, that would be the dead giveaway won't it? Auntie could read her like an open book, she'd know.

Camilla was done for. She retreated back into her room, and sat in her bed staring at the ceiling for a while. She even picked up Lolita again, as punishment. If it weren't for the fact that she just touched that book she would have prayed to God, what for? Not getting caught? Forgiveness? Actually why would she ask God for anything, it wasn't like He ever responded, despite her mom essentially being married to the guy now.

It was now 5:55 AM. She could hear her mother's footsteps in the hallway. Camilla cowered under the blankets pretending to sleep, except she had her phone in her hand and was desperately typing away a confession of the previous night's sins to the first person she saw on her contacts list.

She waited for mom to angrily scream her name or call Auntie or do something that would confirm how utterly, completely busted she was. Her phone vibrated.

As it turned out she texted Julien. Woke him up. At 6 AM. Camilla was a monster.

> A lot of families open presents early
> If yours doesn't you can just explain it to them
> It was only one
> Hopefully they'll understand

Well, Julien, he was the one who didn't-

> Haha that makes sense sorry for waking you up at this ungodly hour

Damn Camilla and her apologetic nature.

Well, she had to stop pretending to sleep at some point. Auntie was at the door, there at 7:30 AM.

Auntie commented on how quiet Camilla was during breakfast. Did she know? How could she know? She couldn't. But she will know.

At 8:30 AM, the fateful hour came. Auntie picked up and handed the box which Camilla knew contained macarons to her, and she opened it, feigned surprise as best as she could.

"Oh wow, these look amazing! Did you make them yourself? Thanks so much!"

Judgement, justice, eternal damnation-

Auntie didn't comment at all.

The next one was opened. One of her guesses had been correct after all, two books stacked into one gift. A truly pleasant surprise.

She still didn't comment at all.

The final gift turned out to be from Auntie to her mother. It was a crepe maker, one of those weird kitchen gadgets infomercials late at night would advertise. Mom loved it. Camilla found it tacky but kept her smile, The Best Medicine, on.

Neither of them commented at all.

Did... did she not get caught? At all? Or did Auntie just not care? Did she fool them? Did she cover her tracks well enough? Did she waste her energy panicking for 4 hours for nothing?!

The first thing Camilla did the moment she was excused was lock herself in the room and scream into her pillow.