Girl Meets Season 5

Episode 13- Girl Meets A Christmas Wish

It was the best thing that could have happened on her seventieth birthday, as she stood on the roof of the apartment building long after everyone had left the party. Riley was looking up at the skyscrapers and in the distance, a shooting star fell in the background. She made a wish that the rest of the year would be happy time and that secret Santa that year would be the best one yet. It was their last secret Santa they would have in high school and she wanted it to be something really special.

That was her wish, until everything started to go wrong, first it started when no one was at the café when she had the box ready. She worked that night because the person who normally closed had to leave on an emergency. She wanted to cry but somehow it only hurt because they had all forgotten to come to pick out names. It wasn't about buying presents as much as it was about being together, and them forgetting hurt more than anything else. Working alone on a Thursday was hard enough, but none of her friends had come to visit at all. Sighing she had closed up the café and walked home with her box, and thoughts that tomorrow would be another day.

Except the next day she had gotten the flu from being out in the cold the night before and was stuck in bed. The doctor had told them that she had a very contagious strain and so everyone was told to stay away from the house. Her mother gave her food while wearing a mask and she ended up confined to her room for the next week.

The secret Santa box was thrown into her closet, because there would be no point in doing it when she couldn't get everyone to pick. She kept her phone off because the light hurt her eyes, and since no one could visit it was just easier to ignore. By the time she was well enough to go back to school it had been too late. The holiday break was well underway and she couldn't ask her friends to step away from their families in order to run around the city in order to make secret Santa happen.

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Lucas knew that Riley wanted to do secret Santa, and when she had gotten sick he asked Mrs. Matthews to sneak the box out of the house so they could pick the names. He couldn't help but smile at how she had made personalized envelopes for the name cards for each person or how the box had been decorated in red glitter paper with a silver bow on top.

"This is so Riley," he smiled as he placed it in the middle of the table they normally shared.

The day that Riley had picked for them to choose the names from the box, they had all been stuck doing other things. Lucas and Zay had a late practice, Cassie had to take care of her brothers, Smackle and Farkle were out of town for a science competition and Maya had gone with her parents to see the baby's first sonogram. They had all tried to make it to the café, but once they had gotten there it was closed and they had all felt bad for missing it.

So when they found out that Riley had gotten sick the next day, they were equally miserable because they knew it was something she looked forward to every year. That was when Lucas devised a plan, to sneak the box out and have everyone draw names so that when Riley was better they could exchange gifts. It was their gift to her.

"So everyone has to pick but no one can tell anyone who they got," Zay said as they looked at the box.

"I'm so excited, I never got the chance to do this before with so many friends," Cassie said bouncing in her chair.

"This is the first time I'm doing it too, mainly because I'm family so we usually exchange presents as family, but this is actually nice because I've gotten to know all of you throughout the years," Josh smiled at them his hand entwined with Maya's who was smiling at her friends.

"Riley's going to love it," she said. "We pulled her name out right?"

"No because it wouldn't be even if we did," Lucas said to her.