Carter's POV (not edited)

The thing that comes with December is Christmas. With this realization, I know I need to start searching for presents for people. This is a challenge I usually leave until way too late. This year, I want to change that. After all, since I've figured my feelings for Kaillie, I kind of want to get her something special, not something I only find last minute that's store-brought.

When I mention presents to my mom, specifically ones for Abby and Kaillie, she does not seem that helpful. She's a female, so I don't understand why she's not that helpful, but she does say something else and change the topic. "So what did you and Kaillie do yesterday, honey?"

Her smile is warm, although it seems to contain half a smirk, as if she knows what's going on between the two of us. But how can she see know if I don't even know?

"We went skating..." I say awkwardly, as any teen does when their parents quizzes them on what they did without them, specifically when it was with the person they like.

She laughs a little bit, chuckling, "You finally got her to go skating, eh?" The laughing just makes me remember the hundreds of times that Kaillie has complained about not being able to skate, and therefore refusing to go skating with me. Those memories made me laugh too. It also relaxes me a little bit, as if maybe she's not trying to get information out of me about the events of yesterday as much now.

After we finish our little laugh, I reply, "Yeah, I did. She wasn't as bad as she made herself out to be."

"Well that's good," she laughs again, "I was hoping she wasn't that bad."

I smile, saying, "She was actually pretty good, considering how I thought she was going to do." Really, she wasn't that bad of a skater, she just wasn't one of the fastest ones either. She's on a kind of advanced beginner level.

"How'd you swing that?" my mom asks, sobering up.

I shrug. "We were bored, I guess." Isn't that what happened, after all? Well, that and it was too cold to continue walking around outside.

A silence lays over us and my mom smirks at me, as if warning me of the conversation to come. That's never good. I guess she still does want information. Time to run. I make my excuse of Christmas shopping and get out the door before she can ask me anymore questions.

As I walk out the door, I realize I still have no idea what to get for either of them. Lucky for me, I have the brilliant idea to call Abby and invite her along, which she gladly obliges to. Hopefully, Abby can help me with Kaillie's gift, and hint for something she wants along the way, which would hit two birds with one stone.

You know, my plan seemed excellent before we arrived at the mall and Abby became super excited. This could either be a good thing for me, as in an easier hunt for Christmas presents, or a very bad thing for me. It wasn't that I didn't accept that this could take all day, it's that now I know it definitely could. Abby may be tough, but that does not mean she doesn't like shopping.

"Okay, so you know the mission, right?" I ask Abby in an attempt to focus her on what we actually need to get at the mall.

"Christmas presents," she answers happily, smiling at the thought. "Because you seem to not have a bloody clue as to what to get any of the females in your life." And there's the sass Abby could possibly be famous for.

I shot her a look, saying, "I have an idea for my mom!" which is a totally lame comeback, but it's the only one I could think of as well as being the truth.

"Mhmm," she murmurs, not totally convinced, "but nothing for me or Kaillie."

"I know. I guess it's cause I know how I feel and Kaillie's needs to be extra special this year," I admit, hoping she has an answer. Which she does not, unless you counting cooing about how I like our best friend in a more than friends kind of way, which was probably making my face go progressively more red as she went on. "Please stop," I mutter, hoping she hears me.

She puts her hands up in surrender, exclaiming, "I'm sorry, I'll stop acting like a proud mother slash fangirl right now. I'm just happy you finally determined  what your feelings for her are."

"Finally?" I question. Is she serious right now? Okay, maybe that is true, but still. The fact she's having a small freakout over it is not exactly making me the most comfortable prson in this car right now.

"I may or may not think you've liked her for longer than you say you have," she says with a smirk painting its way onto her features.

"I'm pretty sure I would have known," I tell her with a raised eyebrow. Wouldn't I have known if I liked her?

"Maybe not..." she trails off, before hopping out of the car with a skip in her step. Guess I should follow suit.

Once we were walking around the mall, I noticed that we were actually being quite productive in our mission. I got my mom a nice necklace, and Abby was dropping me lots of hints on what she wanted. After we ate lunch, we were basically wondering around trying to find something for Kaillie.

We have walked in many stores in our search, but in every store we've come up empty-handed. The store I'm following Abby into seems to sell clothes, and she seems to be pretty focused on her path. Maybe this time it'll be productive.

As I catch up with her, she holds up a long sleeve shirt to me, and I can't say it's extremely productive to a present for Kaillie. "Abby," I sigh, "We're not looking for a present for you right now."

"Who says it would be for me?" she says in fake tone of innocence, looking up at the shirt closer as she pulls it toward her body. It's just not Kaillie's style, but it is definitely something Abby would wear. Plus, I can see how much Abby likes it as she continually stares at it.

"I do. Now how about you put that shirt down and go look for one for Kaillie instead of yourself?" Lucky for me, my orders seem to work as she puts the shirt down with a pouting expression on her face, and walks further into the store. This leaves me with the perfect opportunity to buy the shirt while she's not looking, and tada, I now have a present for Abby, even if it was Kaillie's present I'm really looking for. Two birds with one stone, like I said earlier. You know, if anyone had seen her in that moment, where she was pouting after being told to leave the shirt alone, or the moment earlier when she was having a little fangirl freakout, no one would think she constantly goes around acting all tough. Whether she wants to admit it or not, she is a softie on the inside. But then again, people could probably say the same things about me sometimes, couldn't they? After all, I'm currently shopping for Christmas presents with one of my best friends, who happens to be a girl, even if she is a fierce one. These are things that cross my mind as I walk over to the cash registers, Abby's shirt in hand, and buy it while being on the lookout for her at the corner of my eye.

The cashier smiles at me, as if she knows what I'm doing. "Making sure she doesn't see you?" She looks to be around a middle aged lady, and her brown eyes seem to be sparkling with interest at my reasoning for keeping an eye on Abby.

I nod, confirming her theory. "Preferably, I don't want her to know that I just bought her Christmas present," I joke, although some surprise in this would be nice. Unlike what Abby thinks, she doesn't actually need to know everything.

"I'm sure she'll love it," the words roll of her tongue and I realize what she assumes. That Abby and I are a thing, or something along those lines. Yes, we may sass each other, but we don't like each other in that way.

 The total appears on the till, and I pay her the cash as I hear Abby's shoes come up behind me. "Thanks, I know she will, because she picked it out." I may not be quite understanding of how the cashier may have the idea we're dating, but I'm glad the cashier manages to get the item in the bag and in my hands before Abby could see what was in it. If the conversation hadn't already been over, I may have corrected her, but I didn't deem informing a stranger of my single relationship status as a time effective thing to do, nor did I generally feel like it.

As we're walking out of the store, I notice Abby start smirking before she opens her mouth. And here it comes. "So what's in the bag, Carter?" she makes a tisk noise from her mouth, and almost sways her words in a back and forth kind of way. She reminds me of a character named Isabella from a show Noah watches, called Phineas and Ferb. Specifically, the way she asks Phineas what he's doing today, because she obviously likes him. Except with Abby, it's because she wants something from me, and right now it's the answer to what is in the bag I'm currently carrying. I try to ignore her and notice how the sunlight of the bright winter day is reflecting on the gray tile of the mall floor, but that just makes her keep mentioning it every so often.

"Hey Abby," I say, breaking my silence.

"Yes?" she replies immediately and expectantly.

I now have two options; lie and say it's a different present, or simply declare it a secret. Based on the store she found it in, a female clothing store, it's unlikely that I would buy anyone else on my shopping anything from there, so she'll probably see through it really quickly. As well as the fact the second option is just more honest, who would want to give up the chance to say that something is classified? "It's a secret," I tell her, even going as far as putting my index finger across my lips in a signal of silence. One that doesn't work, unfortunately.

Now she's just going on about how it's probably for her, and how it's probably the shirt I made her put down. Both of those are correct theories, but she doesn't need to officially know that until Christmas. I need a distraction, that's what I need to make her stop talking about the red shopping bag in my hand. What an opportune time for a knick knack store to appear up next in the lineup of storefronts. Now, when I say knick knacks, I mean a store that sells smaller things, like some homey all decorations and photo albums, and as I learn when we walk in, apparently small stuffed animals. Funnily enough, Abby turns away from them and tries to go into the other side of the store before I call her back. "Abby, are you sure you don't want this stuffed animal?"

The look I get in return is fired up, and she vaguely looks like she wants to throw something at me, but I know she will not because of the fact we're in a store and not at her house. "No, Carter," she tells me briskly, "I do not want the stuffed animal you are holding," before she turns and continues her journey away from them. But I happen to think the small stuffed animal is perfect for her. It's a tiny snowman wearing a tiny red winter hat that has big pale blue eyes, a shade so light that it almost resembles a light grey sky on a cold, cloudless winter morning, like Abby's eyes do. Despite what she says, I determine that it completes her present and buy it anyway. I even get the cashier, a younger guy who is probably around ten years older than me, to give me a bag that's big enough to hide the other one in. I'm hoping that plus the distraction will stop Abby from pestering me about the contents of the bag.

As I walk around the small store, I notice I keep looking at the picture frames and photo albums. Something just seems to be drawing me to them. "Hey Abby," I call out, hoping she can help me with Kaillie's gift as she turns the corner into the aisle.

"Yeah?" she asks as she comes closer.

"I'm trying to figure out Kaillie's gift... What about something here?" I say, gesturing to the photo albums in front of me. I start to flip through a couple, but none of them seem to be it. Someone really needs to tell me when gift giving became this hard.

Abby is standing beside me, one hand on her hip, the other positioned on her chin in thought as she stares downward in all the different covers. "What about one of those ones?" she points at a group of fairly colourful albums, before telling me that she likes my idea.

I lean over to look at the albums as she fillets her vision to different areas of the shelf, as if she is using a type of scientific precision to find me other options. It must be the mark of a good shopper who shops often and knows what she is doing. She points at a couple more, and I check them all out. The last one is the one that seems to stick though. It's a simple album, with only one of two pictures per page, but there are more than one standard page layouts. The first page, which I suppose serves as a title picture with a caption, only has space for one picture. It's almost bound in a brown kind of leather material, and the word memories is engraved in gold on the spine of the book, as well as within a flowery pattern on the front of the book, among the curvy vines painted on it. The pages inside it are white, and contain more subtle inputs of colour than the outside. A pop of colour here and there. The lettering is still in gold, but it's almost as if someone elegantly drew on the letters. The book itself is reminiscent of an older style, but you can tell that this specific book is new. Something about it just strikes me as being the perfect book to give to Kaillie, so I take it up to the cash register. Like our friendship, it has been an ever growing thing for a long time, and like the vines on the book, we keep growing. When I get home, and within the next couple weeks before Christmas, I plan on adding some pictures to it of our friendship, but leaving some of the pages open for new entries. Whatever I do, I'm sure it'll turn out great and meaningful. I just have a good feeling about this.

So as we walk out of the small store, I leave feeling confident that I can do what I need to do to make the most of this present, and maybe even have it portray how I feel about Kaillie.

"Did you see that shooting star tonight?/Were you dazzled by the same constellation?/Did you and Jupiter conspire to get me?/I think you and the Moon and Neptune got it right/'Cause now I'm shining bright, so bright/Bright, so bright/And I see colors in a different way/You make what doesn't matter fade to grey/Life is good and that's the way it should be," ~Bright, Echosmith

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So there is the update guys! I hope you liked it :) It is a little weird to be writing about Christmas in September, before my birthday has even passed, but it's weird in a good way, because Christmas is an amazing time of year :) Despite the cold weather outside, the atmosphere is usually warm with spirit :)

Do you think Carter got some good presents? Would you have reacted like Abby at the fact he wanted some help to ensure that the present is extra special? I'd love to hear from you!

The song attached is a cute song from Echosmith, and I really love it and I think you should check it out :) But then again, that's just my opinion :P

So, a life update for you guys; I'm now in University! It's really exciting, I can't believe it's already started! I don't know how that'll affect me updating, considering how I'm already not great at it, but we'll see :) I mean, I got this update out, and I wrote most of it last night, so it shouldn't be that bad? Guess we'll have to see though :)

Talking about this book, since I'm not exactly the planner type, I'm not exactly sure how many chapters are left, but it may not be as many as you think? I know that there is at least 5, because I have those ones vaguely planned, so I'm estimating about 30 chapters, but I'm not 100%, so don't quote me on that. I just thought you guys may want a heads up though :) It's getting near the ending of  this book and there is a twist coming! I'm very excited actually :)

I would ask about Christmas presents and shopping, but it's not exactly that time of year, eh? Don't mind the fact that sounded super Canadian though :P I also had another question, but I think I'll save it for next time, since I've made this note long enough :P

Please VOTE, COMMENT & FAN! <3

Until next time to all the lovely people reading this,

~Talia <3

P.S. Thank you so much for all the reads, even though I'm pretty confident I said this last chapter too <3 I hope everyone has a lovely day/night :D