I only noticed the small gift-wrapped box after they all left-- the cheerful Jane, always ready to make everyone laugh, Klara, who filled us all in about the newest gossip in town, Kate, who remembered everything and everyone the best and never tired of reminding us about our school years, and Lucy, who had became my best friend the moment we had first met, fifteen years ago.

Of course, life happened in between and we lost the close touch we once had, but now, as we met again to discuss the last details of our planned high school reunion trip in the mountains, it felt as if nothing much had changed.

As my eyes wandered across the sitting room, I placed the used cups I was about to carry into the kitchen back on the coffee table and walked to the Christmas tree. Taking the small box wrapped in a Christmas gift paper adorned with tiny snowmen in my hand, I shook it gently. It produced no sound, no clue hinting at what was hiding inside, or who put it there...

Lucy. It must have been her... I mused as I turned the box upside down. I noticed the small piece of paper attached to its bottom, stating, 'Do not open before Christmas', even as my phone rang. Lucy's picture smiled at me from the screen of the phone, confirming my suspicions.

"It was you!" I accused her without a preamble.

"Yes, fine, it was me," she admitted, and I could hear the other girls' giggles in the background.

Klara was driving them all back home-- a small town where we all grew up, two hundred and something kilometres away from the capital where I had lived for years now. I still could not believe that they came to convince me personally to come and spend the Holidays with them and some of our other ex-classmates in the mountains-- all those who were still free and childless, and could do as they pleased.

"It isn't from me, though, and you are not supposed to open it before Christmas," Lucy added now, disturbing my train of thought. "See you on Friday."

"Hmm... thanks? Bye," I said, knowing that there was no way to persuade her to tell me anything more once she resolved to keep something a mystery.

Friday-- a week from now. I agreed to meet the four of them in the small village in the mountains where all the roads finished, and from where we would have to walk to the chalet they had booked. Three kilometres long walk across a snow-covered forest... I shook my head as I put the present back under the tree and the phone on the table.

Finally gathering the cups and plates on a tray, I made my way into the kitchen. I didn't even know who would be coming apart from the four girls and myself. They had only said that the chalet had ten beds and plenty of sofas, and they still had a week to persuade some people who were not quite convinced.

I smiled, imagining the faces of my thirty-two ex-classmates as I remembered them, nearly dropping the cup I was washing when my mind produced a picture I had been trying to forget for years. No, he would not be there... even the girls had said when they first called me two weeks ago that he was among those whom they could not contact...

Either way, it seemed that I was in for the most adventurous Christmas in a while.

I spent every free moment of the week leading towards the trip by carefully choosing what to bring with me.

Spending ten days in the mountains in December meant a huge luggage, which I could not afford to take. All that I would bring, I would have to drag across the forest, on foot, for the last three kilometres of the journey. The four girls and I would be the first to arrive in the early afternoon of the twenty-fourth, a few more people were supposed to come in the evening of the same day, and the rest as early on the twenty-fifth as they could, in time for the Christmas dinner.

It turned out that Lucy, the brain behind this trip who took it upon herself to book the chalet, make sure that we would find the place warm and supplied with enough food for at least twelve people for ten days, was the only one who knew who was coming except the five of us. And she refused to say anything to any of us, we found out when we called each other behind her back during the week. She wanted it to be a surprise.

At least I don't ski, I mused as I dropped the heavy bag on the back seat of my car at seven o'clock in the morning on Friday, opening it quickly to check that the mysterious present was still where I had put it-- stuffed safely among my clothes. I had given up guessing what was inside, I kind of enjoyed the mystery now multiplied by not knowing who was coming with us.

I took my jacket off and put it on top of the bag. Shivering in the freezing darkness of the early morning I shut the door and walked around to the front, starting the engine and driving quickly into the hectic traffic of the city, hoping to be out on the motorway before the rush hour.

I had a long journey ahead-- two hundred kilometres to the town where I grew up and the girls still lived, then another sixty to the place in the mountains where I would meet them and leave the car.

It was lunch time, and snowing heavily when I finally arrived. The four girls, having reached the place in one car an hour ago, were waiting for me patiently in a small cafè.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," I apologized as I took my things out of the car and locked it the moment they joined me outside. "The roads were awful."

"It took us ages to get here too. It's been snowing since last night." Klara beamed, looking excited about the amount of snow lying everywhere around us.

I rolled my eyes at her even as Jane, nearly invisible from under the huge rucksack she carried on her back, said, "I want to see if you'll be this excited about the snow once we start walking."

"Let us go then," Lucy said, looking up at the heavy grey clouds, squinting against the falling snowflakes. "It will be dark soon."

Leaving the tiny, picturesque village at our backs, we ventured into the forest following a narrow trail. It wound its way under the trees, snaking up a gentle hill. At first, all of us in turn tried to get some information about who was coming from Lucy, but she refused to say anything. Soon, the hill became so steep that we had no spare breath to talk.

Jane and Kate reached the clearing where the chalet stood first. They started to laugh the moment they saw it, before the rest of us reached them.

"What?" Lucy asked, feigning ignorance, but Klara and I were already giggling too.

"It looks like that place from Last Christmas," Jane said.

"It used to be your favourite song!" Kate added.

"I bet you chose it on purpose..." I said, looking at Lucy, who finally laughed too.

"Alright, I admit," she said, dropping her ski like the other girls into a tall heap of snow lining the trail. "But it used to be our favourite song, not just mine."

"It still is. Come on, let's go in!" I called, heading towards the building.

It was just after three but getting dark fast when Lucy unlocked the door and let us in. I paused on the porch for a while, transfixed by the surrounding beauty. As far as I could see, there was a narrow, snow-covered valley half-hidden by a thin veil of fog and a thick forest growing all around.

"The ski lift is some thirty minutes' walk up the hill," Lucy spoke from behind me. "You could sledge while we ski..."

"Yes, sure." I smiled. "So... who else is coming?" I tried again as I walked inside past her.

"You'll see soon enough. Let us choose our rooms before the others arrive."

The room I got had a large, comfortable bed, a balcony that ran under all the bedrooms on this side of the chalet, and an even better view than the porch.

I got changed out of my damp jeans, and after I hung the clothes I meant to wear for Christmas dinner and New Year's Eve in the wardrobe, I joined the girls downstairs in the kitchen.

We only just decided what to prepare for dinner and opened a bottle of wine when three more people arrived, all men this time.

It took us only a heartbeat to take in the changes that happened in each of us during the fifteen years since we left high school. We laughed as the guys told Lucy off for choosing a chalet so remote only because it looked like a place from a Christmas song, then helped them to place the Christmas tree they brought from the village next to the still empty fireplace. While Lucy, who obviously knew about this too, produced a box of decorations and the guys chose their rooms, two more girls arrived.

Then, while some prepared the dinner and others brought wood and lit the fire in the sitting room's fireplace, the rest of us decorated the Christmas tree.

No one else should be coming tonight, Lucy informed us as we sat down to dinner. The ten of us spent hours talking about what we had been up to since we had seen each other last, then cleaned up and sat in smaller groups around the fireplace. We started to stroll towards our bedrooms one after another as the evening progressed, trying to avoid bumping into each other in the only three bathrooms of the chalet.

"We are ten already. Is anyone still coming tomorrow?" I asked Lucy, who was waiting for her turn in the bathroom in the corridor as I walked out.

"Yes, unless they changed their minds. Good night."

"Good night then," I replied, pulling her in an embrace, smiling at her stubbornness. I knew that none of us managed to find out anything. Apparently, we had all tried at some point during the evening.

Before heading to my bedroom, I stood quietly in the semi-darkness of the corridor for a while, peeking over the rail of the massive wooden staircase. Klara and Erik were still sitting downstairs on the sofa facing the dying fire, gravitating closer to each other as the night progressed.

I smiled as a flood of memories hit me-- the two had been the other couple of our class, getting together and breaking up several times throughout the four years of high school. I wasn't sure if they ever met after school or like me and Lucas had never spoken since, but it seemed that nothing much had changed between them...

Trying to banish the memories the sight of the two brought to the forefront of my mind, I walked to my room quickly. I didn't want to think about Lucas. He had been the cause of more than enough sleepless nights for me before.

I really didn't want to think about him, but I couldn't help it... Watching the moon's ascent above the snow-covered valley as I lay under the warm covers of my bed, my hand resting on the small box I had placed under my pillow, I let my mind stroll freely over the past.

I shouldn't have fallen in love with Lucas. Looking back now, I could see how we were too young and naive, and our relationship could only end in a heartbreak. Back then, I did not realise it; back then, I thought that we would stay together forever.

That forever ended soon after we left school, and life pushed us apart. Lucas' parents moved abroad taking him away, and our relationship did not survive the distance. That I never had a proper, long-term relationship since, I blamed on my hope that... I didn't even know what, exactly.

The only news about Lucas that reached me years later through Lucy, who heard it from someone else, was that he was getting married. That put a full stop to my hopes and fantasies... almost...

"No," I whispered the moment I unwrapped the small present the following morning. "No, no, no."

I recognized the silver, flower-shaped brooch set with transparent gemstones lying on a small square of red velvet immediately. It was the last Christmas present I had received from Lucas, the one I returned to him when I heard that he was about to get married. I wasn't sure if it ever reached him as I had simply sent it to the address where he and his family had once lived... It did, apparently. And now, after all these years, it was back with me. Why?

'It belongs to you.' A tiny piece of paper folded neatly to fit within the box explained in a handwriting I once knew so well.

"No," I repeated again, disentangling myself from the blankets and heading towards the door.

"Lucy!" I called the instant I opened the door, then shut it again quickly as I noticed who was just coming up the stairs... It couldn't be... Just that it was. Lucas.

Trying to gather my scattered wits, I leaned my back against the closed door and let myself slide to the floor.

I sat there, my forehead resting on my knees for a few interminable minutes, unable to think, until someone knocked on the door.

"Oh, come on, open!" Lucy called from the other side.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up and let her in, inspecting the dim corridor beyond her.

"I'm alone, relax." She laughed.

"How... could you... not tell me?" I accused her, letting myself drop on the bed.

"Oh please... what would you do in my place? He begged me. He's only here because you are... Promise you'll behave. You are both adults now, just... talk to him, okay?"

I sighed. I didn't want to talk to Lucas. And then again... I did.

I nodded silently, watching her smile. "Good. I feel that... I'm doing the right thing." She shrugged, then walked out of the room.

"Where is he?" I asked before she could close the door.

"Next door," she whispered, nodding to the left.

The moment she left, I heard the balcony door sliding open in the room next to mine.

"It's fine... You can do this..." I tried to encourage myself as I wrapped a couple of blankets around my pyjama-clad body and made my way towards the balcony.

Taking another deep breath, I pushed the glass door open and... faced Lucas, looking at me from his balcony.

"Hi," he said simply, his gorgeous, familiar face lighting up with a smile.

"That's... Klara's room. How come Lucy gave it to you?" I asked sullenly, taking him in.

He had not aged at all... I realised, feeling suddenly self-conscious. I didn't even brush my hair...

"I was told she moved to Eric's room last night." Lucas chuckled, making me smile.

"What are you doing here? I heard you were married?" I asked after a moment of awkward silence, not realising that we started approaching each other until we both bumped against the thick wooden rail dividing the long balcony.

"Nonsense," he said, standing so close that his warm breath landing on my cool skin made me shiver and take a step back. "It... was over before it could happen. She wasn't you," he said, running his hand through his hair, his eyes searching mine.

I realised I was nodding, knowing too well what he meant. No man I had met after, was ever... him.

"You'll freeze. Why don't you go get dressed... there are so many things I need to tell you..."

I only nodded before I rushed back inside. Feeling as if I was dreaming, I pulled some clothes on, tied my still unbrushed hair in a messy bun, then, hands shaking, attached the brooch to the cowl neck of my jumper.

He knocked on the door just as I was ready to walk out.

"You have no idea how much I... how often I thought of you... " Lucas said, his eyes quickly finding the brooch shimmering against the blue wool of my jumper.

"I do, believe me," I whispered back, letting him pull me in an embrace before we descended the staircase, not realising we were holding hands as we used to do once, until we noticed the bemused looks of our friends already gathered around the fireplace, steaming cups of coffee in their hands.