Gwendalynn: The Girl With Cancer

Gwendalynn | 37

When our world stopped...

JANUARY - 2013

I couldn't function for a day. I, along with the rest of my family, had jet lag like no other. I didn't even recognize the many presents in the living room when we walked through the door. What I did was go straight to bed without changing or anything.

Later that day, I woke up and went downstairs to realize there were about eight presents lying around the room. I stopped for a moment, taking in the different appearance of the living room. I awkwardly took the final step down from the stairs.

"Mom?" I asked.

It was four in the evening and I knew I was going to have a really jacked up sleeping system for a bit.

I walked into the kitchen to see Gwen and my father sitting at the island. I smiled at the sight of my girlfriend, taking a seat next to her and my dad.

"What are you doing here?"

"Your mom apparently got me gifts." She turned to my mother. "Which is extremely not necessary."

My mom turned and set down some meatball sandwiches in front of us. She gave Gwen a simple grin. "Don't feel guilty!"

"After New York? I need to be!"

"We accept you as part of the family now, Gwen."

Gwen blushed beside me. I leant forward and planted a kiss on her cheek and began to eat my sandwich.

After everyone finished, we headed to the living room. Gwen and I sat near the tree. Mom handed us three presents each. I felt bad. I hadn't gotten them anything.

I opened my first gift to find a pair of Osiris shoes. My second was a PSP and my last was a box of acrylic paints. I was actually pretty excited about my gifts.

Gwen got a hard covered spiraled journal, a dress, and a photo album from all the pictures my parents had taken of us from New York. She loved them as well.

But there were still two presents left. One to my Dad and another to my Mom.

Dad's was a couple of Chuck Norris movies. The minute Mom opened her present, I knew who'd gotten my parents the presents. I told Kory to stop giving her those damn snow globes!

"Oh my goodness! An Elf snow globe! Nathan, look how cute this is!" she exclaimed, pointing to the elves and shaking the globe.

Gwen giggled next to me. We agreed on not give each other presents this year because we actually spent a lot of our money in New York for activities she and I decided to do. She looked up at me.

I leant forward and whispered. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

...

I didn't even have time to open my locker when Ryan questioned me about New York.

"It was good. Gwen and I had a great time."

"Wait," he froze. "You mean nothing bad happened in New York? No drama?"

I shook my head, finally getting the locker combination right. "Yeah."

"Wow. That's a change."

"I know right."

Ryan and I turned to head to our first class. We noticed Noah walking down the hall as well in front of us. He turned to laugh at some guy next to him and met our gazes. He stopped laughing as he noticed us, walking silently.