52 secret santa
By the time finals end and everyone starts packing for Christmas break, campus feels strange.
Half-empty already.
Suitcases rolling through dorm hallways.
Christmas lights glowing in windows beside doors covered in exam schedules and sticky notes and exhausted breakdown energy.
Snow keeps falling outside in soft steady waves, coating everything white enough to make Springfield look quieter than it actually is.
And somehow, somewhere between Thanksgiving and now, this group became home.
I still don't fully know how that happened.
I just know that tonight feels important.
"One more cookie casualty and I'm calling campus security," Peyton announces from the kitchen.
"I said I'm handling it," Scott argues.
"You almost set a towel on fire."
"It was festive."
"It was arson."
I'm laughing before I even fully walk into the common room.
The entire space looks ridiculous in the best way possible.
Christmas movies playing too loudly on the TV.
Blankets everywhere.
Cookie icing spread across every available surface.
Nola sitting on the counter in fuzzy socks while Yasmine stands between her knees stealing frosting directly off a spoon.
Scott and Logan somehow managing to create smoke despite the fact that gingerbread cookies are basically impossible to ruin.
Jackson looks up from the couch the second I walk in and immediately smiles.
Every single time he does that now, something in my chest still folds in on itself a little.
"You're late," he says.
"I had to emotionally recover before witnessing whatever this is."
Scott points aggressively at the oven. "I'm a visionary."
"You're banned from touching appliances," Logan says flatly.
"Oppressive."
"You literally burned water once."
"That happened one time."
"It happened last month."
Jackson reaches for my hand automatically when I walk closer, not even thinking about it anymore.
And maybe that's my favorite part. How natural this feels now, like we stopped forcing it. Stopped overthinking every little thing.
His thumb brushes once across my knuckles while I settle beside him on the couch.
Warm.
Easy.
Safe.
Nola notices immediately and groans dramatically. "You two are sickening now."
"You're sitting in Yasmine's lap," I point out.
"That's different."
"It literally is not."
Yasmine kisses the side of Nola's head absentmindedly while still reading the cookie instructions.
Nola immediately stops functioning as a human being.
Peyton watches her with deep satisfaction. "I love observing lesbians in the wild."
"Please never say that again," Logan says.
Scott snorts loudly into his drink.
The rest of the night turns into complete chaos almost immediately after that.
Peyton becomes terrifyingly competitive about decorating gingerbread cookies.
Scott keeps making structurally unstable icing towers and calling them "architectural statements.
"
Logan pretends he hates all of it while secretly fixing everyone's broken cookies when they aren't looking.
Jackson spends half the night laughing hard enough to bury his face in my shoulder.
I don't think I've ever seen him this relaxed before.
Not fully, not like this.
At one point, Scott turns the Christmas playlist up too loud and starts dramatically performing Last Christmas with a wooden spoon microphone.
Peyton joins immediately.
Nola throws marshmallows at both of them.
Yasmine records the entire thing for blackmail purposes.
And Jackson just leans closer beside me, smiling quietly while the room explodes around us.
"You okay?" he asks softly.
I look around the room.
At Nola laughing so hard she nearly falls off the counter.
At Logan arguing with Peyton over frosting colors.
At Scott fully committed to his concert career.
At Jackson beside me looking happier than I think he even realizes.
And something warm settles painfully in my chest.
"Yeah," I say quietly. "Actually yeah."
-
Secret Santa starts an hour later.
Scott somehow receives a cookbook titled Meals Even You Can't Burn and looks genuinely emotional about it.
Peyton gets tiny sociology-themed sticky notes and immediately calls it "the most thoughtful gift ever."
Logan receives a new pair of gloves after complaining about his old ones for three straight months and acts deeply offended that someone listened to him.
Nola gives Yasmine a handmade photo strip from the winter festival.
Yasmine kisses her before even opening the rest of the gift.
Scott immediately screams, "I LOVE LOVE."
"No you don't," Logan says.
"I love their love."
"That's worse."
Then Jackson hands me my gift.
It's small, wrapped badly enough that I immediately know he did it himself.
"You wrapped this like you lost a fight with tape," I tell him.
"I'm an athlete, not an artist."
"You play football."
"Exactly."
I smile despite myself and pull the paper open carefully, then stop.
Inside the box is a small silver necklace.
Simple.
Tiny moon pendant.
My throat tightens instantly because-
"Oh my God."
A few weeks ago, while we were studying, I'd mentioned offhand that I lost my favorite necklace sometime senior year of high school.
Not dramatically, not even important really. Just one of those random conversations people usually forget five minutes later.
Except apparently Jackson remembered.
"I couldn't find the exact one," he says quietly now, suddenly looking nervous. "But it kinda looked similar and-"
I kiss him before he can finish.
The entire room erupts immediately. Scott falls onto the couch screaming.
Peyton points at us aggressively. "I KNEW HE WAS DOWN HORRENDOUS."
Jackson laughs against my mouth while my chest physically aches.
Because he remembered. Something tiny and forgettable and unimportant.
He remembered anyway.
When I pull back, he's looking at me like he's trying to figure out whether I'm real.
"You like it?" he asks softly.
I actually laugh a little because he sounds genuinely worried. "Jackson."
His shoulders relax immediately at my face alone.
And God.
I think maybe I'll always love that.
-
Hours later, the common room finally quiets down.
The movie still plays softly in the background.
Half the group is asleep already.
Scott passed out diagonally across the floor with one sock missing.
Peyton asleep under approximately nine blankets.
Nola curled against Yasmine on the other couch while snow falls steadily outside the windows.
The Christmas tree lights glow softly in the darkened room. Warm gold against the walls.
Jackson sits beside me on the floor near the couch, shoulder pressed lightly against mine while everyone else sleeps around us.
For a while, neither of us says anything. We just sit there listening to the quiet.
Listening to everyone breathing.
Listening to the heater hum softly through the room.
"This semester changed my entire life," I say finally.
The words leave before I can stop them.
Jackson turns slightly toward me.
I stare at the tree lights while I keep talking because somehow that's easier.
"I thought college was gonna be..." I laugh softly once. "I don't know. Classes. Surviving. Maybe making one friend."
"You made several emotionally unstable ones instead."
"Apparently."
His hand finds mine automatically between us.
Warm fingers threading carefully through mine.
I squeeze once without thinking. Then quieter, I admit, "I didn't expect any of this."
I don't just mean him.
I mean all of it.
The group.
The laughter.
Feeling wanted somewhere.
Feeling safe somewhere.
Jackson looks at me for a long second before saying softly, "Mine too."
Simple.
Honest.
Enough to make my chest hurt a little.
Eventually I curl closer against him beneath the blankets while snow keeps falling outside the windows.
Around us, everyone sleeps scattered across the room in warm light and tangled blankets and half-finished Christmas cookies.
And for the first time in a really long time, happiness doesn't feel temporary.
Jackson presses a kiss lightly against the top of my head.
I close my eyes.
And somewhere between the quiet lights and his heartbeat beneath my cheek, I think maybe trying was worth it after all.