Wrapped in a Bow

Looking out the window, Gwen was starting to think a white Christmas wasn’t all it was wrapped up to be. While tapping her fingers on the table, she started to hum to herself; willing her thoughts to come up with her next poem. Poetry wasn’t something that really came naturally to her, in fact, she only recently discovered that she liked writing down her feelings and expressing them to her peers. Her problem was that expressing her feelings wasn’t really something she had ever learned how to do. 

It was a week ‘til Christmas and all through the house…

  Gwen looked around and… well, it was just her wasn’t it? The house was quiet, boring, and would provide no inspiration for her poem. Not that her poem had much to it anyways, it was starting to seem like a ripoff of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Gwen crumpled up the paper and then tossed it off to the side before resting her head on the table. After a moment she looked up to see 12:30 a.m. on the clock. Right when she was about to head to bed, the door creaked open and her mom stood there in the doorway. Julie had snow covering her long brown hair, and her coat looked ready to fall apart. Standing in the doorway, she smiled at her daughter. Gwen stood up and took her mom’s coat to hang it up in the closet. Julie immediately started heading towards the pile of dishes on the counter, frowning. 

“You didn’t do dishes tonight?” she asked. Julie took her hat off and started running the dishes under water. 

“I was working on an… English project.”

Julie sighed, “Well, I can’t do everything around here all the time. I’m tired Gwen, I just worked a long shift, and I just need you to step up.” 

“I did everything else around the house, I just figured dishes could wait.” Gwen responded as she went to pack up her school papers back into her bag to prepare for school in the morning. 

“Nothing can wait when you know that I have work again in a couple hours. I don’t have time.” 

“You don’t have time for anything mom.” Gwen muttered, just loud enough for Julie to hear her and abruptly turn the water off. 

Julie tightened her grip on the counter while counting to three in her head. “Can we not do this tonight? Just head to bed, okay? I love you.” 

Gwen paused as she processed her mom’s words. “Yeah, see you tomorrow. Or whenever you get home next.” Gwen rushed down the hallway and Julie heard a door tightly shut. 

Julie turned the water back on, and continued on. Before she went to bed herself, Julie saw a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. She tried to smooth it out and recognized her daughter’s handwriting. At the top of the paper was the word, “Snap.” Julie then crumpled the paper back up and threw it into the trash can that her daughter must’ve missed. 

+++

“So, did you ask your mom?” Sam asked as she sat next to Gwen on the steps of the school. It was the last day before break, and everyone else had left for home as soon as possible. However, Sam knew her friend probably hadn’t left yet, as she seemed to avoid being at home.

Gwen looked up from her notebook with a particularly exasperated roll of her eyes. “No, it wasn’t the right time. She came home late, and we weren’t getting along.” 

“She always comes home late. Pretty soon it’s going to be too late to invite her. The poetry reading is in two days.” Sam watched as Gwen went back to her writing. “You are ready for the reading right? Like, you have your poem written and memorized?” Gwen looked up and glared at her, but didn’t say anything in response.

“Hey Gwen! Sam! See you guys at the reading!” Both girls looked over to see Amelia Hartenbren waving as she passed them. Gwen’s eyes lingered on her until she got far enough out of view.

“So, I’m guessing you haven’t made much progress with Amelia either?” Sam asked as she pretended to nonchalantly lean back on the stairs. 

“No, Sam. We just became friends, besides I wouldn’t even know where to start. Like, with both Amelia and my mom. I just… I can’t figure out how to tell either of them how I feel.” 

“Gwen, you are going to regret it if you can’t figure out how to talk to them. Your mom loves you, just tell her you got into poetry, and you’d appreciate it if she came to a reading. She’ll find a way to make it if she knows it’s important to you. And as for Amelia, just ask her out to dinner after the reading or something.” Sam gave Gwen’s hand a short squeeze as Gwen tried to bury her face in her sleeve. 

“I’ll think about it.”

+++

Gwen sat down in the empty theater staring at the microphone set up on stage. She imagined herself two days from now walking onto the stage with all the confidence in the world. She would raise her hand, give a single snap, and start off her poem. “A single snap holds more honesty than all my words combined…” Gwen whispered the starting lines of her poem, testing them out on her lips. 

Gwen was interrupted by a voice from behind her. “And my heart snaps with each lie I try.” 

Gwen quickly turned to find Amelia walking down the aisle towards her. She had a bright smile on her face as she came and sat next to Gwen. “What? Your poem is already engraved in my mind. Did you finish it yet?” Amelia, ever the dramatic, put emphasis on engraved. 

“I think I finished it today. I’m not sure it’s all that good, but Friday… Friday is going to be everything I’ve ever wanted.” 

“Why? Is it the spotlight?” Amelia giggled as she teased Gwen. 

Gwen gave her a soft smile back. “Close. I guess I haven’t had my moment yet. I can sometimes find it hard to express myself, I guess. And when we wrote that poem for class, I kind of realized that writing poetry could help me figure out how to do that.”

“Express yourself? Like finding a way to just be you?”

“More like… finding a way to express my feelings.”

Amelia looked thoughtful for a moment before she grabbed Gwen’s hand and gave it a quick tug as she stood up. “Follow me, I have an idea.” Gwen looked skeptical, but she obeyed. Amelia led her backstage where a small Christmas tree stood for the gift exchange before the poetry reading. She reached down and grabbed a gift. She paused a second and looked at the present before handing it to Gwen with a smile. “Don’t tell anyone I gave this out early, but I got you for secret santa, and I want you to open it.”

Gwen took the gift, but hesitated opening it. “Are you sure? I mean, we were supposed to wait ‘til the show.” 

Amelia nodded enthusiastically. “This will help you more now than it will later.” 

Gwen slowly undid the bright red bow and went to toss it aside when Amelia caught it.

“Don’t lose the bow! That’s the best part!” Gwen gave a short laugh before continuing to open the present. When she did, there was a small poetry book in the box. She looked up at Amelia, grateful, but questioning.

“Okay. It took me a while to think of something special. We bonded over poetry. You have a gift Gwen, and I wanted you to have something to inspire you.”

Gwen blushed and slowly thumbed through the book. “Why would I need to open it now though?”

“Because you inspire me. And me giving you that book is one way I can express my feelings. There are so many ways to get others to understand how you feel. One way can be words, like poetry. And another way can be actions, like simply give a gift. You don’t need to worry about not being able to express yourself, because you can share your feelings in so many different ways.” 

Gwen looked up at Amelia, speechless. She quickly reached forward and brought Amelia into a hug. “Is that you saying thank you?” Amelia asked with humor in her voice. Gwen laughed with her before pulling apart.

“I didn’t get you a gift.” Gwen said quickly. 

“You weren’t supposed to. It’s called Secret Santa, not Gift Exchange.” 

“Well, I want to give you something.” Gwen looked around before she saw the red ribbon still in Amelia’s hand. She gestured for the ribbon, and Amelia gave it to her. Gwen set down her book and then looped the ribbon around into a bow once again. 

“Here. Keep the best part. I’ll get you a real present later.”

Amelia smiled, and Gwen almost thought she saw Amelia’s cheeks turned red. “I like this present enough already.”

+++

The next day, Gwen once again found herself sitting at the dining table waiting for her mom to get home. Except this time, she had gotten a gift for her mom. Usually her mom and her skipped the whole present thing to instead spend Christmas making cookies. The more presents bought meant the less supplies that could be bought. When the clock turned to 11:00 pm Gwen almost gave up, knowing that she could be waiting for a long time. However, her mom stepped through the door with a red face. Whether it was from the cold or from a particularly bad shift at work, Gwen didn’t know. She stood up immediately, picking the present up in her hand.

“Mom! I wanted to give you something.” 

“Not now, I need to do the bills before I head to bed, and I already have a headache. We can talk tomorrow okay, I’ll be home around 10.” Julie walked over to the counter and took off her coat and looked up just in time to see her daughter’s almost… disappointed face.

“Really, it won’t take long, it’s just a gift.” Gwen tried to hand the present to her mom.

Julie tried not to shout out of frustration. “Gwen. Not now. If you insist on doing presents, it can wait until Christmas, or like I said, tomorrow. I don’t have time right now.” 

“It won’t take long, I promise. But this can’t wait.” Gwen once again held out the present to her mom, almost desperately. However, Julie just grabbed the present and slammed it onto the counter.

“Gwen, if I say it can wait, then it can wait. We will talk tomorrow.” Julie had a tone of finality to her words and sat down to boot up her computer. 

Gwen stood there for a minute, just watching her mom avoid her gaze. Eventually she turned and headed towards her room, not even worrying about closing the door. Instead she silently sat on her bed until she eventually fell asleep.

+++

“A week before Christmas, yet a smile stays on my face. Because the snap of my fingers means I finally found my place.” Gwen beams when the entire audience starts snapping in rapid succession, and she even hears a whistle from where Sam is standing and snapping as loud as humanly possible. Gwen does a quick, yet awkward, curtsey, before walking backstage to meet Amelia. 

“Oh my god! That was beautiful! I loved it!” Amelia excitedly gave Gwen a hug before pulling back with the biggest smile on her face. “But, did you just curtsey?”

“Don’t make fun of me! I was having a moment!” Gwen jokingly shot back on her… friend? 

“Do you want to maybe, like, have another moment tomorrow. With me I mean. Like, we could go see the light show in the country and then have dinner?” Amelia asked, making Gwen light up even more than she did on stage. 

“Yes! I mean, I would love that.”

“Perfect.” Amelia gave her a quick peck on the cheek before walking onto the stage to deliver a poem of her own. That was when Gwen realized that pinned to the back of Amelia’s head was the bow from the other day. 

+++

Gwen walked through the door at 10:30 pm, feeling better than she had in forever. She slowly closed the door, with a smile on her face. And when she turned around she saw her mom standing in the kitchen. She had her hands on her hips, and seemed upset.

“Where have you been? I’ve been home for over an hour!”

“I was out. I thought you weren’t coming home until late?” Gwen asked, shocked to see her mom home before eleven. 

“I told you I’d be home by 10! And I even came home early after how excited you were yesterday!” Julie gestured to the present that was still sitting on the counter from the night before. 

“You haven’t been home before eleven in weeks!”

“That doesn’t mean that you can come and go without telling me where you will be! What if something had happened, I wouldn’t know where you were!”

Gwen angrily took her jacket off and threw it on the couch before moving towards her room. “You would know where I was if we had just talked last night!”

“Don’t you dare run away from this conversation! This has nothing to do with last night, this is about tonight!” Julie turned around to face her daughter, her eyes glaring accusatively. 

“Are you sure you even have time to talk about tonight?” Gwen said in response, not ready to back down anymore.

“I’m here early tonight for you! You have to understand that I’m busy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not your mother! You have no right to sneak out!”

“I didn’t sneak out! I was at a poetry reading!” Gwen shouted. For a second her mom and her just looked at each other, as if almost testing each other for what happens next. Gwen has her own expectations, yet she doesn’t know if they will be met.

“A poetry reading. Sure. I definitely believe that.” Julie said sarcastically as she moved around the counter to pick up the present. “Look. I guess tonight isn’t the time for this. Let’s just talk about where you were and then we can do the present thing some other time.” 

Gwen grabbed the present from her mom, ripped off the bow, and then set it back on the counter, shoving it towards her mom. “No, now is the time for this.” 

“What has gotten into you?” 

“I just wanted you to know me! I wanted you to be there!” 

“What are you talking about?” Julie looked at the giftbox in her hand and opened it to find a flier for a poetry reading night. 

“What is this?”

“I was at a poetry reading. I told you. I performed the poem I’ve been working on for weeks. I’ve been trying to invite you all week.” Gwen said, her tone starting to soften. 

“Why not just tell me about it? You didn’t have to wrap up a flier.” Julie said as she read through the details on the sheet. 

“You didn’t have time. You’re always busy, or angry, or more likely both! I don’t know how to talk to you anymore! I know it’s stupid, but Amelia told me that sometimes giving gifts can help you share your feelings, so I figured that might be easier.” Gwen started to slow down her words, and made them softer as she seemed to have given up.

“Oh, sweetheart. You can always talk to me.” Julie starts to tear up as she motions for Gwen to join her at the counter. Gwen slowly walks over until she’s standing right by her mom. “I’m not too busy for you. I didn’t realize that you were trying to tell me something.”

For a second there was just silence in the house, however, something tense sat in the air. “You know I love you right?” Julie asked her daughter.

“Yeah. I love you too.” Gwen told her. Julie stood up and gave her daughter a long hug. 

“So. Poetry? I didn’t know you liked poetry.”

“I like saying what I feel.” Gwen admitted. Julie started playing with her daughter’s hair and gave a kiss to her forehead before pulling apart.

“And who’s Amelia?” Julie asked. 

“Well… I like Ameilia.” Gwen gave a hesitant smile. Julie snorted with laughter and paused when looking at her daughter.

“How about we get some sleep and then tomorrow we can start on the cookies. And then you can maybe tell me your poem?” 

“Yeah. I’ll tell you my poem.”