When Jason stumbled through the door, grip slipping on the massive box he was holding, I remember thinking, Why the Minnie Mouse wrapping paper? 

It was this obnoxious bright pink color more fitting for a child’s birthday party than Christmas. I guess it was supposed to be funny, and maybe I would’ve laughed, but I was too embarrassed. I swore we had promised not to get each other anything, since I hadn’t been able to go anywhere for weeks. I had been marooned in my bed attempting to shake off the dregs of influenza. I was miserable and bored. I played through the entirety of the new Call of Duty game, which I never would’ve touched before. I rewatched Star Wars and got pissed off at the new trilogy all over again. There was just so much wasted potential, I cried to my mom, who was only trying to bring me soup and has never given a single solitary shit about my geeky space movies. She nodded along to my rant anyway, because I’m pretty sure she thought I was dying.  

Eventually I managed to pull myself together—with the help of some pills—in time for my friend Lindsey’s Christmas party. It was a sacred tradition, and I always looked forward to it. But this year was different. 

     It was the first time I would be seeing Jason since he left for college earlier that fall. 

     I missed him like a phantom limb. I was nineteen, and he was the first boy I had ever loved. 

     ​He was complicated and cagey. I remember him acting like he was on an episode of Dr. Phil every time I tried to get him to talk about his feelings. He was a hedge maze. I used to dedicate hours out of my days to peeling back his layers only to find more underneath. It was all terribly cliche, I know. But I always thought about the hesitation in his sleepy green eyes, how his hands trembled on my waist. I was patient. It’s how I tamed the wild cats at my grandma’s house—by being kind and encouraging and leaving the barn doors open so they’d have somewhere warm to sleep.  

     I was his best friend.  

     And now he was standing in front of me with this monstrous box, and I was empty-handed. My face burned as my friends crowded around me, laughing loudly with their glasses of gas station wine. He told me he knew I’d said no gifts, but he wanted to get me something special. 

     ​So, he sat the box under the Christmas tree which was wrapped in warm glowing lights that threw colors up the walls and across the floor. It was spitting rain outside, and his coat was damp and shiny when he slid it off his shoulders. Emma eyed him suspiciously from her place by my side. She never did like him.  

     ​He made me cry on Thanksgiving when he called me and told me he was broken and there was nothing I could do to fix him. I didn’t know what to do with that. So, I brought it to my friends, dumped it in front of them, and asked for help. I sat on the kitchen floor, licking cake batter off a spoon, and Lindsey and Emma stared at me like they knew something I didn’t. And they didn’t have the heart to tell me.

     ​So, I left the barn doors cracked, hoping my feral tomcat would come wandering back in. He did.  

     ​My friends were begging me to open the present, and Jason was grinning wide, proud of the spectacle he created. The two of us had done theater together. He was Eric when I was Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I always thought he was a natural performer—he knew how to make people stop, look, and listen.  

     Really, I never could have said no.  

     Everyone gathered around me in the living room pressed shoulder to shoulder on Lindsey’s old sofa. I sat on the floor, legs folded under me like a timid bird. Ethan pulled out his phone to start filming like a mother on Christmas morning.  

     I flinched away from the camera flash, attempting to hide my new scar high on the apple of my left cheek behind my hair.  

     A few days before the party, my dog hurt her hip. I tried to carry her up the stairs; she nearly tore a chunk out of my face. The gash was deep and ugly. I spent some time in front of the mirror just staring at it.  

     My dad was angry, but I begged him not to do anything.  

     It’s my fault, I said. I shouldn’t have picked her up. I should’ve left her alone.  

     I pulled the box in front of me—it was lighter than I expected it to be. As I started peeling away the paper, Jason watched me from the corner of the room. He was sitting in a reclining chair that used to belong to Lindsey’s dad. I’d sat there on Halloween when he was wasted and messaging me things he’d always been too afraid to say to my face.  

     There was packing tape holding the box closed. Someone passed me a pocketknife, and I sliced through the tape while my friends cracked jokes about me holding something sharp. When I opened the box, I peeked inside to find another box staring back at me. It was wrapped in the same god-awful Minnie Mouse paper.  

​     I laughed as I pulled out the new box, which was significantly smaller than the first one. My friends laughed too, and I said something like, This is exactly what I wanted!  

​     Everyone watched as I tore away the paper, sawing at the packing tape until I could pull the box open. Then I paused.  

     What the hell is it? Emma asked.  

     Tristan snorted. Another box.  

     I didn’t say a word as I reached inside and brought out another box—just as pink as the two before.  

     There was more raucous laughter, and I shook my head at Jason, who shrugged and waved off my friends’ questions. This is the last one, I swear! 

     I chuckled nervously, hand shaking around the hilt of the pocketknife. I dragged the blade across the tape, steeling my nerves with a deep breath. When I pulled the box open, I froze. I could taste my heartbeat in my throat--like sour bile—as I tried to blink away the thick fog of shock.  

     Inside the box was an Ariel doll. She had bright red hair, big painted blue eyes, and she was dressed like a ballerina. Alone, she was sweet.  

     But next to her was… something else.  

     I stared at it and stared at it. Heat crawled up the sides of my neck and crept across my cheeks, and I kept staring at it. Someone said my name.  

     I took the doll out of the box, holding her in front of me as I brushed my fingers through her hair, coarse and sticky with gel.  

     That’s cute! Lindsey said, and I nodded.  

     It was cute, but there was more.  

     I laid the doll on the coffee table next to me. Reaching back into the box, I pulled out the other thing, holding it up for everyone in the room to see.  

     Mint green and phallic. Jason had gotten me a vibrator.  

     A wand. And a nice one, too. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.  

     Jason was grinning, rocking back and forth in the chair. The cool white cut of his teeth sliced right through me, leaving my chest open and bleeding in front of all my friends.  

     A quiet settled over the room like a smog you could easily suffocate in. Ethan slowly lowered his phone.  

     If this was a joke, the punchline flew completely over my head. Or maybe it was never all that funny to begin with. But if it wasn’t funny, then what was it?      Was it some sort of hazing ritual for his bloodthirsty fraternity? Was I too fragile to be a pledge? Was this his way of letting me know I didn’t make the cut?  

     Was it all my fault? 

     I had scratches up and down my arms from all the cats who didn’t want to love me back. This was a sharper sting. I’d never felt anything like it.  

     Jason took a deep hit off his dab pen, blowing the smoke out into the silence.  

     I, with my voice still shredded and scratchy from sickness, said, What the fuck?  

​

​

     My younger brother took a picture of the wand and sent it to his friends. He told them: Some douchebag got my sister a vibrator for Christmas.  

     My brother used to call Jason by his first name. Now he’s just some douchebag. The seat reserved for him at my family’s dinner table is now occupied by my father’s work shoes, so my dog can’t tear out the insoles. Emma threatened to shit on his car. I finally shut the barn doors.  

     I put the vibrator in a box, then put that box in another box and shoved it in the back of my closet. It’s easy to find if you know where to look, but I never do.  

     The thing about most funny stories is they’re almost never funny when they’re happening. They’re funny later, when everything’s over and done with.      When so much time has limped by that we’re barely telling a story about ourselves anymore.  

     Maybe one day I’ll be able to look at him and laugh. I’ll ask, Do you remember that time you got me a vibrator for Christmas?  

     Do you remember how you made me open it in front of my friends?  

     Do you remember the boxes? All the boxes?  

     Do you remember?  

     It was so fucking funny.