Laugh Until You Cry

21 Christmas Time

“I am so exhausted,” Marie says as she plops down on the couch with her eyes drooping open and closed. “So much holiday spirit in one day is a lot to take.”

We just got back from the Haggerty Christmas party and Marie is right- it was pretty exhausting to meet his whole family and be introduced to everybody at the party. I don’t remember any of the names at all but Andrew introduced me to almost everybody. Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, they were all there. I’m sure barely any of them remembered my name and I was mostly just referred to as ‘Andrew’s friend’ which was fine with me because I wouldn’t remember anybody’s names either. I was stuffed too because of all of the food that was there. Apparently, it’s a requirement in the family that you have to be an incredible chef and then you must cook something incredible for the Christmas party. Most of the time, I watch what I eat but this Christmas party broke me.

“I didn’t know that Aunt Jen got married,” Lucas says randomly, hanging his jacket up on the coat rack before heading upstairs, obviously pretty tired from the party as well.

“She eloped last year,” Marie reminds him.

“Yeah, well we’re going to go upstairs now so we’ll see you guys in the morning,” Andrew says before wrapping his arm around my shoulders and leading me towards the stairs behind Lucas.

When we get into his room, he shuts the door and then we’re alone to celebrate our own personal little Christmas.

“So, do I get my present now?” I ask him jokingly, sitting on the edge of his bed.

He nods and teasingly rolls his eyes at me. “Yeah, it’s in here,” He says, going into the closet and grabbing a wrapped box. “Do I get my present too?”

“Not yet,” I smile up at him as he hands me the box. “But it’s a really good present so it’ll be worth the wait, I think.”

“Okay then,” He chuckles. “Go ahead and open yours then and prepare to be amazed.”

 “I better be amazed,” I joke.

“Just open it,” He rolls his eyes at me.

I tug on the paper until it rips and look at the box but it’s a completely unexciting plain brown box. I tear open the tape and look in the box, moving around some tissue paper to find a small black box that looks like it holds jewelry. It’s long so it’s either a bracelet or maybe a necklace.

“I know that it may be too romantic,” Andrew explains. “And incredibly cliché, but I bought it before everything happened and I was still going to give it to you no matter what because I really think that you’d like it.”

I eagerly grab the black box and push it open to see a beautiful golden bracelet inside made up of connected music notes with diamonds on some of the round part of the notes. “Wow,” I breathe, pulling it out of the box and holding it in my fingers to feel the smooth gold.

“Flip it over,” He tells me. “I know that you have all of the money in the world so if you wanted a bracelet then you could just buy one, which is why I had to make it special- something that you can’t just buy.”

I look at the back of the music notes and I can tell that there’s letters engraved in the back of the notes that read “AWH 7-24-13” with one character on each note. AWH being his initials and July 24th being the date that we got together over the summer. “This is amazing, Andrew,” I tell him with a small smile. “Really, I love it.”

“Good,” He takes the bracelet from me, silently offering to clasp it around my wrist for me and when he does, I inspect it again- it really is an amazing and personal gift and it’s so perfect that I just want to lean forward and kiss him but I know that I can’t do that. We’re still just friends and, although I’m sure that that will end soon, I have to stick with it for now. I compromise with myself by leaning forward and kissing his cheek, which is a friendly gesture.