You lift a fold of wrapping paper, winter blue with curls of silver, peeling back the foil with more care than it deserves. This has not changed, your reluctance to crush something beautiful. You’re fourteen now and have chosen your own gifts; there is little here to surprise you. Yet this might: the light-up bubble wand I saw you covet for a moment at Disneyland. Your eyes maintain their ever-steady calm, but I know your heart. Still, I’m apprehensive as you set aside the neatly folded square of paper and open the box. And then your eyes are a child’s again.
Elizabeth Maria Naranjo is a writer in Tempe, Arizona. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Superstition Review, Reservoir Road Literary Review, and a few other places. Elizabethmarianaranjo.com Twitter @emarianaranjo