I thought I'd try something new and share a Christmas short story I wrote starring Queen Terra Delmar of Isola di Squalo and Dylan Murphy. It's called Our Own Little Christmas. I'll be posting it in 8 parts.

Our Own Little Christmas part 1/8:
Terra woke up alone again this morning, just like she did on Valentine’s Day, and on her birthday, and on our fourth wedding anniversary a few months ago. Either I had left early in the morning, or I had never come home at all the night before. The further into my college education I got, the busier and more preoccupied I became. The first few semesters, I made the three-hour journey to and from the university in Palermo, Sicily, every day. Each night, I would return home to our tiny island home of Isola di Squalo, the island of which Terra was Queen. I would be exhausted from a full day of study and travel, but I would happily fall into bed each night knowing she was right beside me, snuggled in my arms. That alone made it all worth it.
But as my classes grew more challenging and my workload mounted, it became impossible to make the trek home every night. I refused to get housing on campus. I refused to accept that I couldn’t go home to her every day. So, for a long time, I would stay in a hotel or crash on a friend’s couch for the night in order to make a late night study session and an early morning class. Finally, Terra convinced me that my best option would be to lease a flat near campus. I adamantly denied needing it, but she could see the exhaustion on my face. She knew I couldn’t keep up the rigorous pace much longer. I swore to her I would come home every weekend, and I did…until once again, the work mounted up, and I was forced to stay one weekend, then two, then three.