On Christmas Eve morning, I was still sleeping peacefully next to my beautiful girlfriend. The daylight had been passing through the window for some time already. I became aware that I was breathing. That was awkward. Then I positioned myself on my back and therefore started to stare at the ceiling again. What a stupidity. I looked at the clock in front of me. It was already 7:02 AM. That meant the store I intended to visit for buying presents was opened. However, since I was still in my bed and my pajamas, feeling comfortable, I hesitated to get up for a few minutes. So I relaxed. Isabella was still sleeping peacefully.

Eventually, at 7:06, I decided it was time to get up. My left hand, however, was still under Isabella's head. I had to slowly move it away from her, so that I don't accidentally wake her up. I succeeded. I got up from the bed and started putting my clothes on. But then Isabella began to slowly open her eyes.

Her left arm was pointed in my direction. I carefully took it. She opened her eyes completely and smiled at me.

"Good morning, Phineas", she said with her beautiful voice.

"'Morning, sweetheart", I replied calmly. "Listen, I'm gonna go buy some Christmas presents, like I said yesterday, so you just lie here and don't worry about me... Sorry if I woke you up. You can still sleep if you want to."

"Thank you", said Isabella and slowly fell back asleep, with a smile on her face.

I, on the other hand, let go of her arm, took all I needed - wallet, cellphone and keys - and of course, my winter jacket, and left for the mall.

Halfway there, it occurred to me that I forgot to brush my teeth and all that, so I stood for a second. I felt a little strange about it at first, but then I thought: "Ah, who cares anymore!" and moved on. On my way to the mall, I saw a group of kids snowball fighting, two broken trucks, a broken glass of a car store and a drunk man who apparently passed out in the snow the previous night.

In time, wind started to blow, so I started to feel a bit cold. There was a bus station nearby, so I sat on it. For a quarter of an hour, I watched people in cozy coats insecurely crossing the road, a couple fighting over their child, a "normal" car being chased by a police car, and some bullies threatening and suffocating a boy as tall as a post, while the snow was being rapidly pushed by wind. Some of it was entering my eyes, and it hurt a bit.

Even though I was sitting on a bus station, I wasn't waiting for a bus. I just wanted to get a little warmer. That didn't go at all as planned. A bus did arrive, however. In a moment, I figured it would take me to the mall I was going to, so I went inside it.

When I got off the bus and looked at the mall on my left, relief came to me, but only because this meant I had passed through that stormy wind and all those horrible people. I glanced at the mall once more. And I wondered...

To be honest, a part of me did not even want to do this. For something, I was asking myself if I was doing this to make my family feel better, or solely for them to get some presents from me and not think of me as a selfish person. And I rightly feared I was becoming one. On the college I go to, the pressure put on me was unbearable from the very beginning, and none of the people I met there had any respect for me. Because of this, I was slowly losing the will to hang out with people, until I started to find human company somewhat dull, almost disgusting. Basically, I got alienated. That's why, at the mall, I wondered. "Think about it," I was telling myself, "is this worth it? You'll spend too much money just for someone else to be happy? And what will you have from it? Better leave that money for yourself."

I hit myself in the forehead, in the middle of a street, for thinking that way. But I was already in front of the mall's entrance, and it had been a really, really long time (or at least it seemed that way to me) since I was last thinking about someone else and not just myself. Don't get fooled with this caring for Isabella; I only care for her because I wanted to be with her all the time. But she didn't seem to be bothered by that. Probably because she wanted to be with me too. She seemed to forgive me for being selfish. That is what I admire the most about her.

The wind was becoming wilder, and snow started to fall even more. Though it was only morning, the clouds were already becoming dark. "Fine", I said to myself reluctantly and finally passed the entrance to the mall.

Inside the mall, it was a bit more... colorful. A bit merrier than on my way there. Still, it was not even close as merry as it would have seemed to me some ten years earlier, when I still hadn't known how selfish this world was and how dull I would become. But I didn't let that issue bother me at the moment. I had to concentrate on buying Christmas presents.

I had gone all over the mall twice, but I could find nothing that anyone from my family would have been pleased with, or at least what I would've been pleased with. I gave up looking for complicated things, and made it simple with four big chocolates; one for each member of my family.

But just as I was leaving that aisle in the supermarket to get to the cash register, I saw a man. He was picking some candies, too. He was wearing a big yellow coat with two black strings. He had a beard. That was all I could see of him at first, but then, he turned to me. The poker face he had before seeing me turned into a look of silent surprise. I was shocked, because even though I had never seen that man in my entire life, I knew exactly who he was.

"P... Ph... Phineas?..." he said to me, while slowly putting his hand down.

And I just looked into his face, my eyes started watering, and I asked, quietly:

"Dad?"