Our Christmas in July party is exactly how you’d picture a stereotypical office Christmas party. A tall, tacky Christmas tree in the corner that someone took the time to decorate with handmade ornaments from the kids, a long table of food from trays of store-bought cookies to someone’s macaroni salad, elderly white people dressed in horrifying Christmas sweaters.

Everyone just kind of floats around the room mingling or snacking. Unsurprisingly, Brian looks perfectly at home among the older crowd, while I’m mostly bouncing on my heels as I wait for Georgette to call everyone’s names to give out their Secret Santa presents. Honestly, it feels like I’m standing in a retirement center, from the slow Christmas tunes that are probably a couple centuries old to the fancy little finger sandwiches. I can’t imagine any of these people are fun at parties. You know, real ones.

Georgette moves us all on to Secret Santa, and she starts calling names. I don’t actually know if there’s some method going on here, but she starts with some girl named Margaret and moves on to Billy, and I really hadn’t realized there were so many people at camp I don’t even recognize. I mean, Bev is in the corner talking to Brian about something that probably only old people find funny, and that guy Frank from the sleepaway camp is here too, but the other counselors are all pretty much strangers, except for Devin, who sits awkwardly with eir hands tightly knotted.

And with each name that goes by, I feel my heart rise in my chest just a little more as I wait for the moment that’ll sweep us both together.

Georgette says, “Holly, you’re next.”

And my heart starts pounding. Like come on already. Give the people what they want!

Finally, when she call’s Devin’s name, e quickly grabs eir present. E turns around, and eir eyes lock onto mine, and it feels like the world is slowing down, like this is the moment when everything comes to light and we share a heartfelt kiss as the credits roll.

And then e passes it off to some girl I don’t know, and they share a couple laughs but I feel my stomach sink. So much for our romantic gift exchange. I just want this party to end, like yesterday.

My present’s from one of the volunteers, and she passes me the gift without really looking at me. It’s a Target gift card, which is fair since my whole list was just places to buy me gift cards from, and my heart isn’t in it anyway. I’m just robotically going through the motions.