Regrets Part I

Savannah Grace's surprise

Christmas break is finally here. Jackson and I have been hanging out a lot the past couple weeks. It's so much different from Brayden and my relationship. We were friends first and now I'm not really sure what we are but it is definitely more than friends. I'm enjoying getting to know him on that level.

The Memphis trip is coming up and although my parents can afford to send me, they refuse to pay for my trip. I'm so disappointed, I was really looking forward to this once in a lifetime trip. I can afford the hotel room and a few meals from some money I have saved up from babysitting but there's no way I can afford that and the flight. I told Jackson yesterday that I wasn't going to be able to go. He seemed disappointed but not in a big way. That kind of made things worse. They are all going and are going to have this amazing experience and I'm just going to have to live it through pictures and stories once they return. I let out a sigh just thinking about it.

I'm upstairs in my room wrapping some Christmas presents for my family when my phone rings. It's Jackson, I pick it up.

"Hey!" I say into the speaker

"Hey, what are you up to?" he says

"Not much, just upstairs doing a little Christmas wrapping."

"Check your email".

Curious, I go to my laptop and pull up my email. There at the very top I see a message from the airline confirming my ticket reservation, two round trip tickets to Memphis! 'What??' I think to myself confused.

"Um, I see an email for two tickets to Memphis but that's impossible. I never purchased plane tickets much less two of them."

"Yes, we are going to Memphis together! I booked us two tickets on the flight with the rest of the class."

"Jackson!! I don't know what to say! You did not have to do this for me! But I am so grateful to you. I can't believe I'm going to Memphis!!" I squeal. I cannot believe he did this for me.

"I couldn't imagine being there without you so it's a little selfish on my part but I also knew how much you wanted to go. Anything else you need help paying for, just let me know". I knew his dad pays him pretty well for working with him in the shop but this is amazing.

"I think I can handle the rest of it. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!"

"That's all I care about. Oh! And I just heard, Brayden's coming too."

"What?" I ask in total disbelief.

"Yeah, I guess he heard that we got nominated and decided to give up a weekend hanging out with his crowd to come on this trip with us."

This will be interesting. I haven't really seen him in months. Now he'll not only be on the trip with us but on the same flight and in the same hotel as the rest of the class. I'm not sure I'm ready to see him but at least I know ahead of time so I can prepare myself. Either way, nothing can bring me down from this high I'm on right now finding out that I will actually be able to go to Memphis when I was thinking would not happen.

"Well this should be an interesting trip" I finally reply "I wonder how he's going to be."

"We will see. Anyway, I just wanted to give you the good news. I'll let you get back to your Christmas wrapping. Merry Christmas Savannah Grace."

"Merry Christmas to you too Jackson. Thank you again for everything. I'll talk to you soon." and we hang up the phone.

I still am in shock. I go downstairs and inform my parents about Jackson's conversation. My mom doesn't seem too happy but they are willing to let me go. She's always been the over protective type but I think she is very slowly starting to realize that she has to start letting me go. It won't be long before I'm in college and she won't really know what's going on every second of my day.

"Just please be careful. That's a long way from home."

"I will mom". She's used to me being gone for weeks at a time at various church camps but if anything happened while I was there, I was just a few hours of a drive away. This is different, I think that's why she's having a hard time. I guess she thought that if cost was prohibiting me, I wouldn't go. I thought the same way until Jackson's generous gift. I don't think I can ever repay him!

I head upstairs and finish my wrapping. Christmas is just 3 days away and 2 days after that, I take off for one of my favorite weeks of the year, winter youth camp! I look forward to this amazing week every year. It always comes at the perfect time, halfway through the school year, it's the perfect time to just be able to relax and forget about school for a while. Make new friends, see old ones, and just have fun without anything hanging over my head. All the school drama, friend drama, boyfriend (?)/ex boyfriend drama, family drama gets left at the door and we are just there to have fun and praise God.

I finish all my gifts, bring them downstairs to put under the tree then get my duffel bag out and start packing for Wintercamp. This is my favorite time of the year. I normally am in a great mood this time of year but now I feel like I'm floating on a cloud.