AUNT KATE IS HEARTBROKEN THAT her present didn't arrive in the mail today — Christmas Day. But her gift is the same every year. A critically-acclaimed novel that she thinks I'll enjoy, and a sweater or scarf. I'm sure I can wait a little longer.

This will be our first Christmas as a three-person unit. Normally, my Aunt Kate hosts us because her family is bigger, harder to assemble, and her house is larger and wears festivity more beautifully.

She, being my father's sister, was our main support network after he died. I remember living with her for a short period after what must have been his death, and how warm and doting she was, even while she was grieving her own sibling. On top of looking after Vallen, Jamie and Jake — my cousins — Aunt Kate tried very hard to help us; that is, Luke and I. I think she relented slightly when she accepted that the vibrancy death takes with it never finds its way back.

First thing in the morning, we Skype Aunt Kate's family: the Tanners.

Jake and Jamie, the twins, are the first to pop into the screen, identical boys the same age as me. They are the typical childhood tormentors that eventually mature and become quite dear. However, though they are more agreeable with me, they've only gotten louder and more argumentative with each other. They tell me about their older brother, Vallen, and his upcoming wedding anniversary and recent promotion at work, their football season and their disappointment that Luke still plays soccer instead.

Then the conversation blooms between Mom and Aunt Kate, with the children sneaking off to the side to play on their phones. Her laugh lines and warm brown hair are such a lovely sight that I can't stop smiling as we talk. She asks me about my future plans, and I fumble awkwardly through those questions because I really have no idea what will happen after winter break with the Revolution, let alone after high school.

"No worries, dear," Aunt Kate soothes. "Whatever you end up doing, I have complete faith that you will be fine."

After signing off and opening the few presents under our tree, there's really nothing to do until dinnertime. I wander into the kitchen, intent on helping Mom with her preparations. She won't have any of it however, levelling a stern look at me, then at Luke in the living room — playing his new video games. "Why don't you guys spend some quality time together?"

"Ew," I roll my eyes. "Christmas is the season of joy, Mom. Not misery. Luke is pretty content staring at the TV, anyways."

Luke pauses his game to retort, "Sophie sucks the joy out of everything." I subtly flip him off from behind the pages of my book, so Mom won't see.

"It's Christmas. Besides, you should spend more time together. He's your brother."

"So?" I arch my eyebrow. "That's never stopped me from avoiding him before."

"I mean," she stresses the next words, "he's your only brother, and your time is limited. You're young, and you think you have all the time in the world. But you don't."

"You spend time with him, Mom. I bet you won't be in the same room as him ever again."

Mom takes off her reading glasses, "Remember when Luke was born?"

I sigh. Roll my eyes. Flinch internally. That was a hard time for us.

Dad had died a few months earlier and I was starting school. Mom would have had to leave her job to take care of Luke if we hadn't moved in with Aunt Kate. But I loved my baby brother. Once the weird pink tinge to his face wore off, I fell in love with his big eyes and chubby cheeks.

As a baby, Luke was so calm and timid. He would cry at daycare because of his shyness, but be perfectly happy around family. Watching him learn to walk was adorable, and I fell into the role of big sister very easily.

Now, it's a very different story. "Yeah," I clench my teeth. "What about it?"

"Why don't you like him any more? I know Luke and you see the world very differently from each other, but you guys are siblings. What if one of you dies before you have the chance to make better memories? It's not an impossibility."

Of course I know how suddenly things can change. You can set security alarms around your home, get the best doctors and stay healthy, but some things are not up to you. Death chooses for itself. "Just for today, put down your book and do something with your brother. Even if it is video games"

"Fine." I walk upstairs to put my book away. See, I think Mom doesn't realise that Luke and I have already worked out a system on how to interact: don't. "But I'm picking the game we'll play."

"No!" Luke yells.

"Oh, yes. If I'm versing you, then we're playing the only game I have a chance of beating you in."

Rummaging through the box of video games, I pluck out the dusty packaging of Mario Karts. Despite not having played Mario Karts in many years, the jaunty theme has still held a firm place in my memory, bubbling to the surface of my brain as it assaults my ears. The cursed game has nothing but bad memories in its lagging animation and waxy characters. Luke would call my dislike of the game loser's syndrome.

So I'm not the best at this game. But any other game of his would absolutely mystify me, therefore, I'm sticking to dangerous but familiar territory.

Luke plays Bowser, as always, and I play Toad. With the preliminary countdown of the first race already blaring, the dread from my childhood makes my grip on the controller tighten. I used to try passionately to succeed just once at this game.

My definition of success would be to finish at least tenth place, or get more than ten points. At nearly eighteen years of age, I can say that I've succeeded once: when Mom decided to play, and took the title of worst kart-driver from me.

Ten seconds into the first race, on a shamefully easy curve, my kart is ramming into a tree.

Luke guffaws. "What the hell? Oh, this is going to be so easy."

"Ha, ha," I laugh sarcastically. You can see why I don't like video games.

Luke dissolves into more laughter and insults, to which I grit my teeth and slower silently. In his excited boasts, Luke doesn't notice Mom looking at us with a sweet, satisfied smile. She seems proud, and doesn't break eye contact until I give her a reluctant, annoyed smile back.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Delaney shows up at my door dressed like a rock star, sporting a rock star attitude, lips stapled in a smirk.

My eyes run over her skin-tight sweater and faux leather miniskirt — both hues of red and burgundy. She's definitely not the sweetest rose in the bunch, and for a fleeting moment, anxiety about Mom's reaction to her chills my blood. What if she freaks out? If she doesn't trust me around Delaney for a night, I might not be able to go.

Delaney's older Debate Club friends from last year informed her of a New Year's Eve party at one of their houses. She tried to get all of us to go, but Drew's family are visiting relatives in another state, Benjamin would rather study than party — as always — so it's a ladies night.

I needn't have worried because when Mom comes to the door, Delaney's audacity melts away. Before me now stands this polite, witty, bubbly girl I introduce as Delaney. She shakes Mom's hand. She jokes with her. She compliments her hair, of all things. I think Mom is enchanted at first sight, because she lets me waltz out of the house without setting any sort of curfew or rules.

Who would have thought anyone would trust me around Delaney?

As soon as the car door slams shut, that sly glint rekindles behind her pupils. It's the same cunning spark that burns in the eyes of her sister, Jade, who sits in the driver's seat. She's a junior at Halston University.

I remember seeing Jade and Robyn at the Homecoming Fair, and thinking how alike they looked to Delaney. From what I gathered, their personalities are either vastly different or exactly the same to hers — both are a plausible explanation of why Delaney doesn't seem to get along with them. But perhaps it's nothing deeper than having to share her bedroom again now that they're back for the holiday.

"Hi. Thank you for driving us," I tell her.

Jade flippantly waves her hand. "No trouble." She picks up Leah and gives us a ride to the house party on her way to a rendezvous with her boyfriend.

As soon as we draw up at the curb, we race out of the car and Jade roars off in a cloud of smoke and streaks of burnt rubber. Going by the vague plans Jade had for her evening, I'm not sure we even have a ride home. If Delaney is worried about that, she is hiding it well. She seems not to care at all about our transport home, excitedly knocking on the door.

"Dee!" A slender young woman answers, and more people crowd behind her to catch a sight of Delaney. I gather the old Carsonville High School Debaters have missed her. "Come on in quick. Bring your friends. It's cold as balls outside."

The genre of parties I usually attend are celebratory: birthdays, anniversaries, the like. Back in California, I attended a total of three house parties, though I had the opportunity to attend more. My cousins Jake and Jamie were, and still are, on the football team — but as I've said, I give anything sports-related a wide berth. Besides I'd rather claw my own eyes out than watch strange girls throw themselves at my relatives.

That left my small group of friends, made of similarly academic people — Nova, Graeme — and one improv geek — Declan. The three house parties I've attended in the past were more gatherings of all the social misfits, crowded into one room to play video games and vape. Since I do neither, house parties have never excited me.

This one is different. It's hosted by college freshmen, and I can already smell alcohol in the air. Delaney is still hugging and reuniting with her friends, leaving Leah and I to shift awkwardly in the foyer. Delaney returns with two cans and slips them into our hands. "Oh, hell no."

Delaney shrugs, flipping the hair off her shoulder. "It's non-alcoholic, see?" Indeed, the label has a large 0% printed on the front. "But it makes you blend in, and no-one will try to get you to drink if they see you holding these."

"Tastes like ass," Leah complains, her features pinched with disgust.

"I know, right?"

Leah and I stick to Delaney the whole night. Her Debate Club friends are welcoming and laid-back, so we slip easily into group conversations with them. As midnight draws near, the party picks up pace. The music rises in volume and tempo, and more people take to dancing in the living room.

We easily fall into a pattern of dancing until our ribs hurt, eating and drinking until they don't hurt any more, talking and laughing till they hurt again. It's the best — and first — girl's night out I've ever had, with people who have gone through the same shit I've gone through and are doing the same thing to escape it.

For tonight, I can pretend everything is perfect and everyone is happy. None of us are drunk, but all three of us are tipsy in a different sense of the word. The sort of tipsy your friends give you, where we have had so much revelry that we are warm, giddy, buzzing with energy. Happy tipsy. Let the Monarchy rot in my memory, because right now I am as free as I've ever been.

When the countdown to midnight begins, almost past the wildest part of the party, Delaney stops moving. A guy is holding her waist, and trying to sway to the music — except he's horribly drunk and off-beat. She struggles to push him off, and I gesture for Leah to look. "Let's deal with this prick."

Her face hardens and she nods. Before we can reach Delaney he plants his mouth on her, pushing her body backwards and gripping her chest. What a pig! Leah shares my fury, shoving dancing couples out of the way in order to reach her.

Delaney is still writhing against him; her heeled boot comes up, and just as quickly slams down on his foot. The boy's filthy lips pop off her and scrunch into a grimace of pain. We hear him slur, "Feisty, I like it."

Then the asshole is swooping in for more, and he might have made it if not for Leah's blinding slap to his face. Damn right. There is the hardy young woman I know. Her hand comes flying back, pulling off a backhand with a cold anger even Delaney couldn't match. Delaney glances behind her and sighs in relief when she sees us.

"You hold him down, I beat him up?" she says shakily. Her shoulders are drawn and tense, but I see right into the depths of her stormy eyes. This pig really frightened her.

"Why waste our time with this scum?" Leah bites. I've seen how icy she becomes when her defenses come up, previously over Faune and now, over herself. The friend of said scum is suddenly paying attention, more sober and attentive than his pet pervert.

"What the fuck? Why did you slap him? You're crazy!" he asks.

"He was being an abusive, perverted shit — that's why," Delaney hisses, stepping forward to face-off the friend.

"Come on, you're being butthurt." He asks his friend, "What actually happened?"

Scum giggles lewdly. "She was making flirty eyes, so I came over for a good time."

Delaney makes eye contact with me and suddenly beating the guy up comes back in my mind as a burning impulse. "Don't bother," Leah whispers, sensing what we are thinking. "They're not worth it."

"My friend didn't mean any harm," the boy continues. "He wouldn't even touch a girl if she wasn't putting out signals."

"Signals? What do you mean by that, specifically?" Delaney questions, feigning girlish politeness.

He spreads his hands in a way that's probably intended to make him seem approachable, the diplomat, the good guy. "Just that you shouldn't take offence to anything he did. Can't you tell he's drunk off his ass? Of course you were going to get attention from him wearing what you are. And it's New Year's, everyone is kissing, so if I were you, I would be glad I wasn't all alone."

Delaney steps closer to him, her eyes blazing with anger like the white-hot flame of a blowtorch. Realising too late why she is stepping into his personal space, the boy's eyes barely have time to widen in fear before her knee collides with his crotch.

I swear the force behind her kick was enough to lift him off the floor.

"Just be glad a girl even touched you on New Year's," Delaney says venomously. "It's better than being all alone."

"W-what the fuck," he chokes through tears. "What did I do to you?"

Leah bends down to his level. I would not want to be on the end of her murderous glare. "What time of year it is does not excuse a guy forcing a girl into anything. What a girl looks like does not excuse a guy forcing her into anything." Then she wraps a gentle arm around Delaney's shoulders, drawing her away from the man on the floor.

"If your friend can't learn that, and if you keep defending sexual abuse, someone, someday, is going to hurt you way more than my friends did," I add sweetly. "I'm only warning you for your own good."

The people around us are staring. Those closest to us saw the whole exchange, and are quite supportive of us. Cheering, coming up to see if we are okay, consoling Delaney. Further away, the oblivious people are still dancing their cares away.

"Do you want to find your college friends?" I offer.

Delaney shakes her head, crossing her arms around her. "No point ruining their fun. Let's go."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

We are warming the winter air with the heat from our breaths.

It's deep into the morning, but I can't bring myself to text Mom. Besides, I think she trusts me enough to handle myself. If she didn't before, she should now. That was some badassery I saw tonight.

Delaney, Leah and I are at the playground of Haywood Park. If we attempted to, I'm sure we could have recovered our celebratory mood. But none of us felt like partying or socialising anymore, so we walked around the block to this playground. Leah and Delaney have taken up the two swings, and I'm sitting on the fulcrum of the seesaw, swaying slightly.

I peer concernedly at Delaney, who, expectedly, hasn't spoken much. "Are you sure you're okay? Not traumatised or anything?"

She looks up from her lap. "Yeah. I think we did more damage than they did. By the way, that was a spectacular backhand, Leah. A thing of beauty." She and Leah high-five.

"I don't usually hit people. That was the first time I ever have," Leah chuckles disbelievingly.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Now, now. You'll get me addicted to slapping strangers."

"Poetic justice," I quip.

Delaney throws her head back and guffaws, her laughter a column of white crystals against midnight. "To be fair, they were complete morons. Assaulting assaulters is fair play." Our laughs echo through the trees, shattering the icy silence into a million glistening shards.

"It was fun, though, before those guys interrupted," Leah admits.

"Hell yeah," I agree. "We should have another girl's night out."

"Absolutely. But I'm wearing my spiked boots next time." Delaney says, "In case I have to do some more kicking."