One Day At A Time

Chapter Eight: Present Panic

November passes the same as October, in a blur.
They all went to see the school's production of, "Romeo and Juliet", where Lucas kept pointing out the set pieces he had built and painted.

Thanksgiving break is shorter than any of them would have liked, but they do spend a good chunk of their break together.
Though, they spent it inside since the bitter cold of winter is slowly creeping in.

All of them come back from break already excited about Christmas.

Every year since they all met Lucas in eighth grade, they do a Secret Santa gift exchange, which is admittedly the highlight of the holiday season for everyone, especially for Rose, who came up with the idea for the gift exchange in the first place.

They all sit at their lunch table a few days after getting back from thanksgiving break, where Rose pulls four folded-up slips of paper out of their jacket pocket, which gets the Secret Santa ball rolling.

Rose lays the pieces of paper on the table and shuffles them around.
They take one for themself, then tells the group,
"Take whichever one you want."

Ava, Lilly, and Lucas each pick up a slip of paper and eagerly look at Rose. "Open them." They say, opening their own slip of paper.

Rose is Lucas' Secret Santa, Ava is Rose's, Lucas is Lilly's, and as fate would have it, Lilly is Ava's Secret Santa.

"Are you all happy with who you're buying for?" Rose asks.
"Hell yeah!" Lucas smiles.
"Yes!" Ava says, grinning.

Lilly simply shows them all a smile, but she's buzzing with joy on the inside.

She knows that Lucas is dying to make a joke about her being Ava's Secret Santa and she doesn't want to help him make the joke by being overly happy.

She's already brainstorming a million ideas for Ava's present, a million pretty good ideas.

At the end of the day, she briefly glances over at Ava in the car and asks her,
"Do you know what you're going to get Rose?"
"Yes, I do." Ava replies.
"What is it?"
"You'll see when we do the exchange."

"Why?" Lilly questions, looking back at the road.
"It's a surprise!" Ava says, smiling.
"I won't tell them!"
"With that logic of giving away surprises, you have to tell me what you're gonna get me!"

Lilly looks over at her again.
"No, I'm not telling you."
"Well, then I'm not telling you what I'm getting Rose."

Lilly rolls her eyes.
"That doesn't make any sense, Ava. You know that, right?"
"I know."

They arrive at Ava's house and, like most days, Ava lingers in the car for a second, because she's disappointed she can't give Lilly a goodbye hug over the center console of the car.

As strange as it may sound, the vaguely disappointed look in Ava's eyes narrows down Lilly's gift idea for her.

After dropping Ava off, she goes right to her bedroom, logging into her dad's Amazon account and searching for the item she has in mind.

It isn't there, it's not on Amazon.
That worries her slightly, but she keeps her cool and goes to a different website.

The other website doesn't have it.

But she persists, trying another website, which... also doesn't have the item.

"What the hell?" She mutters under her breath, trying a fourth site, which, surprise-surprise, doesn't have it.

Lilly puts her head in her hands for a moments, exhaling a heavy sigh.

She almost gives up on the damn present, but she knows that Ava will absolutely love what she has in mind.

So, as a last resort, Lilly searches for it on eBay, where she finally finds it for a pretty good price and in surprisingly good condition.

She can't help but smile and exclaim,
"Yes!"

After her parents get home, she goes to her dad, Shawn, with the laptop in her hands.

He looks at her curiously when he sees eBay pulled up on the screen.
"Are you sure about this? I thought buying from eBay was... sketchy?"
"It's not, it'll be fine, Dad." She reassures him quickly.

"If you're sure..." He sighs begrudgingly.

She completely understands his hesitation with buying from eBay, but she was going to worry quite a lot if she couldn't get it ordered.

So, she watches him order it and thanks him with a sigh of absolute relief.