An unexpected gift from a secret Santa arrived. I stared at the small box wrapped in obnoxiously bright green paper, my name scrawled neatly across the top. Who would possibly send me a gift? My hands trembled as I carefully tore through the wrapping and opened the box.

What I saw inside made my heart stop.

It was a bracelet, delicate and simple, adorned with three small charms. The first charm was a piano, engraved with intricate detail. The second, a coffee cup, smooth and rounded. The third, a tiny star, glimmering under the soft office light. To anyone else, it might have seemed like just a thoughtful trinket. But to me, it was so much more. I knew exactly what those charms meant.

“Oh, Lila got a gift!” one of my coworkers squealed, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the office. She hurried over, her excitement bubbling. “Do you have any idea who sent it?” she asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

I shook my head, managing a weak smile. “No clue.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had no idea who could have sent it. But I knew who should have. The only person who would’ve known the meaning behind those charms—the piano, the coffee cup, the star—wasn’t here anymore.

Elliot.

As the hours dragged on, I felt the weight of the bracelet in my bag, as though it were pulling me under. My thoughts raced, making it impossible to focus. My coworkers’ chatter during lunch was a distant hum, and the string of meetings that filled the day blurred together. I barely registered the tasks on my screen.

“Lila, are you okay?” a soft voice broke through my haze. It was Megan, the coworker I was closest to. She leaned down beside my desk, her brow furrowed in concern.

I forced another smile, but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… distracted, I guess.”

She studied me for a moment before nodding and giving my shoulder a light squeeze. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

I nodded, but the lump in my throat made it impossible to speak. She returned to her desk, but her question lingered, echoing in my mind.

Was I okay?

No. Not even close.

I haven’t been okay for the longest time—three years, to be exact. While the world moved on, I stayed frozen, stuck in the same place, reliving the same moment over and over again. Waiting for someone I knew, deep down, would never come back.

It’s not like I didn’t try to move forward. I went through the motions, smiled when I was supposed to, laughed at the right times, and kept myself busy enough to fool everyone, including myself. But grief doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t leave because you ask it to. It lingers, settling into the corners of your life until it feels like it’s part of you.

And even when the sharpness of it dulls, there’s always something—some sound, scent, or sight—that drags you back, reopening wounds you thought had healed. Like this bracelet. Three little charms, as unassuming as they were devastating. Each one was a key to a memory I had locked away. And now, they had come back, forcing me to face the truth: I wasn’t okay.

I hadn’t been okay since the day I lost Elliot. And maybe, part of me didn’t want to be.

Five years ago, Elliot was diagnosed with stage two lung cancer. At first, I thought he was joking—it seemed like the kind of dark, tasteless prank he might pull just to get a reaction. But it wasn’t a prank. The truth came crashing down on me when the chemo started.

The side effects hit like a tidal wave, and suddenly, nothing about our lives was normal anymore. The vomiting that would leave him heaving on the bathroom floor for hours. The hair loss that made him avoid mirrors. The crushing fatigue that turned even the simplest tasks into monumental efforts. But the worst of it was the pain—raw, unrelenting, and cruel.

I’ll never forget the nights I’d wake to his screams. The sound of his voice, broken and trembling, as he cried into the darkness, tore me apart in ways I didn’t know were possible. I’d hold him, whispering whatever comfort I could find, but it never felt like enough. How do you soothe someone when you can’t take away their suffering?

Slowly, fear crept in. It wasn’t just fear of the cancer, or the treatments, or the uncertainty of what the next day might bring. It was the fear of losing him—of losing everything.

Because Elliot wasn’t just someone I loved. He was my home, my safe place, my everything. And the thought of a world without him in it felt impossible to bear.

Now, I have been living in a world without him for three years. And everytime I think I’ve moved on, something happens and proves that I haven’t. 

I go home and sit in the silence of my apartment, the bracelet lying in my palm. For hours, I stare at it, letting each charm pull me back into the past.

The piano. I can still hear Elliot’s song, the one he wrote just for me. It was soft and beautiful, a melody he said reminded him of the way I laughed. He’d play it whenever he could, his fingers dancing over the keys with a grace that felt effortless. He always joked that he’d never finish it, that it was "a work in progress," just like us.

The coffee. The charm brings back the scent of roasted beans and warm pastries from our weekend dates at that little café tucked away on the corner of Third Street. It was our spot. No one else mattered there—just us, our hands curled around steaming mugs, talking about everything and nothing. I can still see the way he’d smile at me from across the table, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he made another terrible pun that somehow still made me laugh.

The star. My fingers trace its delicate edges, and my chest tightens. I remember that night, standing on the hill under the vast, endless sky. Elliot had pointed to a particularly bright star, his breath misting in the cold air.

“One day,” he said, pulling me close, “I’ll be up there. And when I am, I’ll watch over you. Every step, every moment. You’ll never be alone, Lila.”

It was a promise he made with so much conviction that, for a while, I let myself believe it. But now, staring at this bracelet, all it does is remind me of what I’ve lost.

I clutch it tightly, my tears spilling over, blurring the charms in my hand. The memories are all I have left, but they feel like both a gift and a curse. They bring him closer and yet make his absence all the more unbearable.

The next day, I find myself standing outside Elliot’s childhood home, the small, weathered house that always smelled faintly of lavender and fresh-baked cookies. I haven’t been here in years. Not since the funeral.

My heart pounds as I knock on the door, the bracelet tucked safely in my pocket. I don’t know what I’m going to say or why I even came. All I know is that I needed to.

The door creaks open, and there she is—Elliot’s mother, Mrs. Harper. Her kind eyes widen in surprise when she sees me.

“Lila,” she says softly, her voice warm and welcoming. “It’s been so long.”

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Hi, Mrs. Harper. I… I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Never,” she replies quickly, stepping aside to let me in. “Come in, sweetheart. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

If only she knew.

I sit at the kitchen table, the same one where Elliot and I used to spend lazy afternoons, drinking iced tea and playing cards. Mrs. Harper pours us both cups of tea, her hands steady despite the heaviness I know we’re both feeling.

“So,” she says, her tone gentle, “what brings you here?”

I hesitate, pulling the bracelet from my pocket and placing it on the table between us. Her eyes drop to it, and for a moment, she doesn’t move. Then she picks it up carefully, studying the charms.

“It arrived yesterday,” I explain, my voice shaky. “From a Secret Santa. I don’t know who sent it, but… these charms… they’re things Elliot would’ve chosen.”

Her fingers tremble as she touches the piano charm. “His song,” she murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. Then the coffee cup. “Your dates at that café.” Finally, the star. “His promise to you.”

Tears well up in her eyes, and she places the bracelet back on the table. “It’s him,” she whispers, almost to herself. “In some way, it’s him.”

I bite my lip, trying to hold myself together. “Do you think he planned this somehow? Left this behind for me?”

She shakes her head, her expression a mix of sorrow and wonder. “I don’t know, Lila. But if there’s one thing I do know about my son, it’s that he loved you. More than anything. Maybe this is his way of reminding you that he’s still with you.”

Her words hit me like a tidal wave, and the tears I’ve been holding back finally spill over. She reaches across the table, taking my hand in hers.

“I miss him too,” she says softly. “Every day. But he wouldn’t want us to stop living. He’d want us to carry him with us and find joy again.”

I nod, unable to speak, and for the first time in years, I feel a flicker of something I thought I’d lost—hope. Maybe she’s right. Maybe this bracelet, these charms, aren’t just a reminder of what I’ve lost but also of what I still have.

Elliot’s love. His memory. His promise.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough to start finding my way back to living.