Cardinal

Chapter 24 Shopping

"A party?" I asked, as Carl stood in front of us. He wanted to tell the employees about something the management and higher ups were doing for us.

"Yeah, to celebrate Christmas this year, we are going to have a Christmas party on December 17th. That'll be two weeks from Friday. We'll be doing a lot of fun activities and such, I hope you all will be able to go." Parties always had a special quality of making me nervous to go to unless it was one with mostly family members. I was scared I would be bored or alone throughout the party, so I never bothered to go to any school dances or anything like that.

"That sounds like fun!" I heard Nya say excitedly. She seemed completely fine, even after our argument a few days before. As soon as Carl was done talking, everyone had December 17th on their calendar, patiently waiting for the day to come. I, however, was less thrilled for the event.

"Harrison, are you going to the party?" Nya asked, as I was grabbing something from the shelves.

"Huh? Oh, probably not."

"How come?" She seemed confused, knowing that I was good at talking to people and making friends.

"I just don't really like parties, you know?" She slightly frowned, leaning against the shelf beside me.

"I guess I could understand that. It'd be good to be there though so that..." she paused, going silent before standing there awkwardly. "Never mind." I paused, thinking to myself.

"Nya, I need to do a little Christmas shopping if you want to join me after work?"

"Sure, who are you shopping for?" I paused, feeling my face turning to a slight red before speaking again.

"I want to get Mallie something for Christmas and apologize for everything." I looked down at the ground as Nya stood in front of me. She sighed to herself, placing her hand on my shoulder.

"Harrison, you're really bad at this. But I'll help you find something, okay?" I raised my head towards her, a slight smile forming across my face as it did. Silently, I hugged her.

"Thanks Nya."

"Of course."

***

We walked on the side of the road, going to the PinPoint near our job. It was only a fifteen-minute walk, but the cold air made every second feel like an eternity. I noticed that Nya was shivering and shaking, forgetting her jacket while she was going to work.

"You want my jacket?" I asked, pulling the sleeves off my arms.

"What! No, that's yours. You need it." She explained, pushing the jacket away from her. After a moment of convincing though, she placed her arms through the warm jacket and continued walking to PinPoint. The cold weather didn't bother me as much as it did her, but when we finally reached PinPoint, I was excited to just be inside a place with heat.

"You got any ideas for what you want to get her?" Nya asked, looking at me with a smile. I stared at the front of the store like it was my first-time walking into one, not even knowing where to begin.

"Um..." She sighed to herself, before looking forward.

"This is going to be a while." We began walking through each aisle, exploring the shelves of wonders as we tried to find a Christmas gift. I knew I didn't want to give her food or anything like that, but I didn't know what tangible item she would want. We began our search, walking around the entire store. As we did, I thought to myself about all the things she liked and what she did.

We saw a few things of interest, a new notebook, a stuffed bird, a couple of trinkets and decorations for her room, but nothing spoke to me. There was nothing I could find that I really thought about her from. As the day neared its end, we began walking towards the front, completely defeated by the fact we couldn't find anything. As we got closer to the door, I saw Nya drift towards a few shelves that sat near the front.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching her continue towards the shelves. She looked back at me, stopping as she did.

"I look at the clearance section every time I come here. I always find something cool or cute when I'm here, but if you don't want to look, then you can meet me outside." She began digging through the dirty, unorganized shelves, causing me to dig through them as well. Quietly, I looked through the shelves, moving different items to see what was behind them. After a couple of moments though, I felt as though I was just wasting time.

I sighed, moving on to the final section of the shelves, moving different objects out of the way. Behind a clay pot though, I saw a strangely shaped object. Catching my attention, I reached for it before pulling it out towards the light. It was a small statue of a bird, a Cardinal to be specific. Its feathers were bright red, and a hint of gloss was painted over the feathers to give the statue a nice look to it. The Cardinal's eyes were bright orange, with a small, black dot positioned in the middle.

It looked way to neat to be from an amateur, but I knew this was the gift. It immediately made me think of her, causing a slight smile to form.

"What you lookin at?" Nya asked from around a corner. I quickly spun around and showed her the small bird, smiling widely as I did.

"What do you think of this?" I asked, staring at Nya as she quietly looked it over.

"It's your gift, so it's ultimately your decision in the end. But personally, I like it a lot." I could feel the excitement in me growing as I held onto the bird.

"I want to find her a card."

"A card?" she asked, as I nodded my head with an even bigger smile. I felt like a kid successfully getting their parents something for Christmas, that strange, childish joy. We walked over to the cards, looking over each of them to find the perfect one. They were all pretty cheesy, but I found one with two birds talking about how wonderful a bird bath was.

It was the best card they had, but I had an even better idea for this gift. We happily checked out and walked outside, noticing the sun setting in the distance.

"Thanks' for coming with me, I know it was probably boring for you."

"No, don't worry about it! I had a lot of fun actually, and I'm glad you were successful with finding her a gift." Smiling, I looked down at the bag with the small bird.

"Yeah, I am as well."