Left Alone

Summary: Every year at 's academy, students go home for Christmas to spend them with their family...except for those who don't really have any. One shot.

A/N: This...is really really short. xD I've been wanting to write this for a while, but I was too caught up with Taking Chances. The latest chapter was so hard to write, so I thought that I should focus on finishing it before writing this even though I knew that I would write it eventually. :) Reviews make me happy.

When I was back at the Academy, the day I dreaded most was the start of Christmas break.

It was everyone else's favourite day, of course, why wouldn't it be?

Every Moroi and dhampir's parent or legal guardian would pick them up and they'd get out of 's and either leave Montana to some wonderful place or just stay at their actual home.

At ten am, a time when everyone would be sleeping, every Moroi and dhampir student would gather at the front gates, and the number of guardians would double, though it was daylight, and whoever was meant to get the student would go and get them.

Not everyone was required to attend, so those very few who knew that no one would come for them would just stay in their dorms.

Except for me.

Maybe it's because I'm a masochist.

Nearly every student of every age group has large mad-hatter smiles plastered on their faces, excited to get out of the Academy for two weeks.

I stuff my hands in the pockets of my winter jacket and look for one of my friends.

Every year, I find them.

Eddie, Mason, Lissa, Andre, I find them all, and I greet them, and hug them, and express how much I'll miss them and jokingly tell them that they'd better bring me back something, and then someone meant to pick them up will arrive and they'll all leave.

But, for some odd reason, I'd still stay.

I would stay and wait as the excitement dims and the crowd scatters and becomes more sparse.

I'd stay and wait until each and every student is gone.

And then the guardians would close the gates.

I'll be left standing there.

All alone, in the quiet, abandoned academy.

Every year, I'd hang my head and slouch my shoulders and march back to my dorm room where I'd be forced to face two weeks of isolation, abandonment, loneliness, longing, when everyone else will be happily enjoying time spent with their family.

Sometimes, I would wait hours by myself at the gates until I'd go back to my dorm.

One year I had to have a guardian escort me back.

With my hands still stuffed in my pockets, I could wait until the sun starts to set.

As if someone really were coming for me.

But no one ever comes for me.