The next days the gifts kept coming. I looked forward to opening them each lunch. Every gift came with a small laugh.


Nothing stuck out until the seventeenth. “Eight makes a family” with a drawn picture of a family that looked like a five year old had made. Over one of the female characters a cross had been made. The frame fell from my hands and glass spilled everywhere. Someone was shaking me violently.

“Sarah!” Melisa screamed.

“What?” I said, looking around me. There were two people cleaning up the glass from the floor.

“What happened? I have tried to get contact with you for ten minutes,” she said, tears running down her face.

“I, I,” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I just lost my grip, no big deal.” I smiled, stood up and walked out from the lunch room. Melisa looked after me. I knocked on my boss's door.

“Come in,” he said. I walked in and sat down in front of him.

“I need to know. Who is my secret santa?” I said. He looked up at me.

“You know I can’t tell you that. It’s supposed to be kept secret until the twenty-fourth.”

“The thing is,” I took a deep breath. “I have gotten a gift from my secret santa everyday now since the first of december.”

“That is a bit weird.” He admitted. “But maybe your secret santa just wanted to make something different?”

“I thought that at first too, but today I got a gift that showed things no one here should know about.”

“What have you done?” He said with a stern face.

“No nothing like that,” I said, waving my hands. “It’s from my childhood.”

“Oh. I will talk to the team and see who your secret santa is. You can wait here.” He walked out of the room. It felt like an eternity waiting for him to come back.

Jacob and my boss walked into the room.

“I’m a bit confused,” Jacob scratched his neck. “I haven’t sent any gifts to you. Melisa helped me pick out a gift for you that I was going to give at the Christmas party.” I stood up.

“It had to have been you or from someone else at the company,” I said a bit too loudly.

“But it wasn’t me. Ask Melisa,” Jacob said, putting his hands up. I turned on my heels and returned to my desk.

Melisa looked at me from her desk for the rest of the day.


The next morning I almost threw up when I saw a new package laying on my desk. With shaking hands I unwrapped it. “Seven without you.” A necklace fell out with the name Alex on it. I stood up picking up my bag and just walked out.

The rest of the day I just layed in my bed crying. Both Melisa and my boss tried to call me, so I ended up turning off my phone.

I woke up to my doorbell ringing. I looked through the peephole, Melisa was on the other side. I opened the door a crack.

“Hi,” I said.

“What happened yesterday? You just walked out and you didn’t come to work today,” she said.

“I’m sick,” I said. Melisa pushed open the door and walked in.

“Don’t bullshit me. You've been acting weird since you dropped that picture frame. I thought we were close but you have been avoiding me ever since then. I’m sick of it, just tell me what the fuck is happening,” Melisa said, stopping centimeters from my face. I dropped my eyes. I closed the door and sat down on a chair, gesturing for her to do the same.