(A friend wrote this) The Gift

 I sat on the bleachers, out of the wind that tugged at my hair and chilled my skin. Dad had just left to use the bathroom and I was sitting by myself, tapping my toes to keep them awake. I looked down and smiled- my friend scampered up the steps, to the top.

“Hey,” I said as he sat next to me.
“Hi.” He picked up his backpack and began to riffle through its contents. “Where’d your dad go?” “He had to go. Um, I think he’s going to look for a coat for me.” I pulled Dad’s enormous coat tighter around me.
He stopped groping, drew something out of the bag, and offered it to me. I gasped.
It was a rose.
All right, it was a fake one- crumpled, flattened, and fraying, with plastic leaves, but...
I took it, swallowing hard.
“I was going to give it to you before, but you know, your dad was here- I was like, oh man.”
Smiling, I examined it and tried to act normal. “This is just...” I stopped, then tried again: “All I can say is...” But there was nothing I could say. I just wanted to hug him, but that would mess up our friendship even further. Instead, I said, “This is the nicest fake flower anyone’s ever given me.” And immediately wanted to smack myself. Stupid! I tried to cover up by laughing at my statement, like a joke, but he looked at me with concern.
“Well, the only place I could get a real one was from my garden, and in this weather...” he grimaced, and I finished the sentence, blowing out a frosty white breath.
“It’s probably not doing too well.” I looked at him, caught his eyes. “Seriously, it’s...great.”
I looked down again at that pathetic little false rose and smiled.
It was the sweetest thing a friend had ever given me, though I would never tell him that.