25. Twenty-Five

25

PRESENT

I close the front door of the Airbnb, already shivering from the cold outside. From the kitchen, I hear the low murmur of Elliot’s voice, and he emerges a few minutes later, holding his phone.

“I managed to get hold of the property manager for this place,” he says. “She said the main road should be cleared by morning, so we should be fine for the book festival. We might have to dig the car out ourselves, though. There’s a spade in one of the cupboards, apparently. I’ll look for it later.”

“Right,” I say faintly, as he goes back into the kitchen without waiting for an answer. “I’ll … just have to wait it out then, I guess.”

I go back over to the sofa and sit down, already worrying about what I’m going to look like tomorrow morning, once I’ve slept in my clothes; not to mention how I’m going to get through the next few hours with just me and Elliot, and absolutely no distractions.

Unless we’re counting that whole ‘love letter’ thing he said earlier, which is definitely proving to be one hell of a distraction for me …

“Do you still like pasta?” Elliot calls from the kitchen. “I hope so, because that’s all I’ve got.”

“Um, sure. Whatever.”

I’ve been so focused on everything else that’s been happening today that I haven’t even been thinking about food, but my stomach gives a loud rumble at the very mention of it, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast.

“Feel free to switch the TV on if you like,” he yells again. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

There’s a moment of silence, then the radio comes on in the kitchen; a 70s rock band singing about how they wish it could be Christmas every day.

Yeah, right.

I take a quick look at the huge TV that’s built into the wall above the fireplace, but the remote for it looks a bit like the control panel of the International Space Station, so I decide not to risk it, and set to work lighting the fire instead; which is harder than you might think, because it’s one of those electric ones that are designed to look like real flames, and it, too, comes with a remote I’d need a degree to figure out. I manage it at last, but I somehow press a button that dims the living room lights at the same time, and it’s only as I stand back to admire my handiwork, taking in the flickering logs and soft lighting, that I realize I’ve inadvertently managed to create quite a romantic little scene out here: a scene I’m still struggling to reverse a short while later, when Elliot appears in the kitchen doorway, holding two plates piled high with spaghetti, and looking completely taken aback by the changes in the room.

“I, uh, I was really cold,” I say quickly. “I thought I’d switch the fire on, but then I did something to the lights as well. Sorry.”

“Oh. Okay,” Elliot says, carrying the plates over to the dining table and setting them carefully down. “D’you want some wine with this? There’s a nice bottle of red in the kitchen.”

Through the open door, Jingle Bell Rock comes to an end, and Ella Fitzgerald starts singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas instead. I swallow hard, trying not to listen to the lyrics, which always make me cry.

“Fine. Sure,” I say quickly, ignoring the fact that red wine always seems to stick to my teeth, making me look like Dracula’s stressed-out sister. “Whatever you like.”

I take a seat at the table and sit there silently as Elliot produces the wine and pours it into two crystal glasses. Ella’s almost at the bit about how someday we’ll all be together, and I’m dangerously close to tears now.

“Right,” says Elliot, having finally run out of things to do rather than sit down opposite me. “Well, I guess we should … hey. What’s wrong?”

His ‘man stoically about to face dinner with his ex’ expression changes to one of concern as he catches sight of me sitting there, my bottom lip starting to tremble.

“It’s nothing,” I say firmly, determined not to let this get to me. “I’m fine. Seriously. I’m absolutely fine.”

I pick up my fork and stick it into the pasta in a way that I hope demonstrates someone being ‘absolutely fine’.

Elliot, however, knows me better than that.

“Holly,” he says warningly, sitting down in the seat next to me, rather than the one at the opposite end of the long table, which I assumed he’d go for. “Out with it. Did something happen? Is it the pasta? I know I’m not the best cook in the world, but —”

“No. No, of course not. The pasta’s fine. It’s lovely,” I tell him, forgetting that I haven’t actually tasted it yet. “Look, it’s just this song,” I go on, seeing he isn’t going to give up until I tell him the truth. “It always makes me sad. It’s … well, it’s a difficult time of year. That’s all.”

Elliot listens carefully to the last few notes as they fade out.

“Is it your mom?” he asks, his face softening. “Does it make you think of her.”

“Her and … oh, just everything,” I say, twirling my fork into the spaghetti. “It’s one of those songs that tricks you into thinking it’s lovely and festive, but when you really listen to it, you realize it’s actually quite sad. It’s about missing someone. About wishing things were different. God, I hate this time of year.”

For just a second, I think he’s about to reach out and hug me. For another second, I think I might quite like that. But then he appears to reconsider — or maybe I just imagined it — and picks up his cutlery instead.

“So you still hate Christmas, huh?” He takes a bite of his pasta, somehow managing to make it look easy, while I struggle to get mine to stay on my fork. “Even though you live in a town that seems to have become weirdly obsessed with it since I was last here?”

“Especially because of that,” I reply vehemently. “It’s like it’s Christmas all year in Bramblebury now. Did you know we have two separate Christmas shops now? Only they’re called ‘shoppes’ obviously, because that’s what the tourists like.”

“Sounds horrible,” Elliot agrees gravely. “D’you want me to change the radio station? Or switch it off? I could put on some k-pop instead? Or, I don’t know … gangster rap? Death metal? That’s probably as un-Christmassy as it gets.”

“No, it’s fine. We should be safe now that Ella Fitzgerald’s done her bit,” I reply, smiling in spite of myself. “If Joni Mitchell starts singing River , though, I won’t be responsible for what it does to me.”

“That one’s my favorite,” Elliot protests, grinning at me over the top of his wine glass in a way that takes me back ten years, to when he used to smile at me like that a lot, and it never failed to make my stomach flutter. It turns out it still does. This does not bode well.

“Oh, mine too,” I reply, looking away. “It’s a great song. But…”??

“Sad?”

“Sad. Very, very sad.”

I pick up my own glass and take a large gulp, wondering why so many Christmas songs are about people leaving places — or just wishing they could.

“This is really good,” I say, gesturing to the pasta in a bid to change the subject. “I didn’t realize you were such a good cook.”

“Well, I didn’t really get the chance last time I was over here,” he replies. “But I’m a man of many talents. Cooking is just one of them.”

He goes back to his food, and a silence descends, his reference to ‘the last time’ he was here serving as an unwelcome reminder that we’re not just two old pals having a nice chat about our favorite music, and what kind of pasta we like.

“I still can’t believe we found those letters,” I say, grasping at the first topic that comes to mind when the silence gets too much to bear. “You couldn’t make it up, could you?”

“No,” agrees Elliot. “Well, you could, I suppose. It would make a great opener for a novel. I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to make their reason for not staying together something a lot more interesting, though.”

“Zombie apocalypse?” I suggest, not particularly wanting to revisit our earlier conversation about whether or not Evie and Luke did the right thing. “Alien invasion?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a deadly virus that sweeps the world,” he deadpans. “But no. Just … something other than them being sensible . I hate it when people are sensible . It’s just so disappointing.”

“I guess I can see why it would be a bit of an anticlimax for you, considering how invested you were in their story,” I say pointedly. “You have to admit, it’s realistic, though. That’s how real life is, most of the time. I would know; my entire life has been an anticlimax.”

It is, admittedly, a very weak attempt at a self-deprecating joke, but, judging by the look that crosses Elliot’s face, he’s taking it very seriously.

“Do you really think that?” he asks quietly. “That your life’s been a disappointment?”

“Well, no, not really ,” I reply carefully, sensing that this conversation is about to take a turn I’m not entirely prepared for. “I mean, my life might not exactly be bursting with drama and excitement, but I have a house and a job. Two jobs, really. I have my health. So, you know, it could be worse.”

I could be snowed into an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere with the ex who left me, for instance. Oh no, wait…

“‘I have my health?’” says Elliot, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Oh, come on, Holly. It’s okay to want more than that, you know. You’re allowed to have dreams. Next you’ll be telling me there are kids starving out there, so we have to count our blessings.”

“There are kids starving out there,” I mutter, stung. “And we should count our blessings. It’s … well, it’s what grown-ups do, Elliot. We’re not kids anymore. And there comes a point when you have to accept that life isn’t just all about doing whatever you want, without any consequences.”

“We weren’t ‘kids’ when we met,” he points out. “We were in our twenties.”

“Which is still way too young to be making any major life decisions,” I retort. “That’s why I think Luke and Evie did the right thing. It was … sensible .”

“Like you and Martin?” Elliot asks quietly. “Is that why you got together with him? Because he was ‘sensible’? Because he was a ‘grown up’.”

“I did it because he was safe ,” I reply firmly. “And I knew he was never going to break my heart.”

Like you did.

“I guess it doesn’t get much safer than the boy next door,” Elliot says, making the words ‘boy next door’ sounds like a particularly biting insult. “If that’s what you’re into.”

He digs into his pasta in a way that suggests he might be imagining burying Martin in it.

“Right. And I guess you’ve been living some kind of wild, free-spirited life, filled with danger and excitement, have you?” I ask, rattled. “With someone much more interesting than the girl next door?”

This is such a transparent and clumsy attempt to try to find out if he’s seeing anyone that I’m blushing even as I say it. But Elliot just reaches out and tops up both of our glasses again.

“The ‘girl’ who lives next door to me is 82,” he says. “And I already told you I don’t have a girlfriend. But you’re right; my life’s pretty boring, really. I think journalists even refer to me as a ‘recluse’ actually, whenever they have to write about me. So I’m sorry if I seemed like I was judging you. I don’t have any right to.”

I pick up my glass and take a sip of wine, feeling oddly wrong-footed.

“They do call you a recluse,” I tell him at last. “And ‘elusive’. I think they quite like it, though. It makes you seem mysterious and enigmatic. But … why?”

“Why am I mysterious and enigmatic?” Elliot’s eyes twinkle as he says it, and it triggers a memory of the first time we met; a memory which I quickly try to push to the side. “It just comes naturally, I guess. It’s all part of my magnetism.”

“You were never like that before, though,” I point out, thinking out loud. “Reclusive, I mean. You were always so open . You had such a … a zest for life, I guess. You wanted to see everything; do everything. You were going to see the world at one point. But now it seems like you just want to hide away from it. So, why?”

Elliot toys with the stem of his wine glass, watching the way the crystal catches the light.

“I did want to see the world,” he says, still staring into the glass. “But I didn’t want to do it alone, Holly. I wanted to share it with … well, someone. But that’s not how it worked out.”

He looks up at me, and I’m suddenly very aware of how close he is. How painfully familiar he is. And, well, how unfairly attractive he is, too. Because, in spite of everything that’s happened, Elliot Sinclair still makes my stomach flutter when he looks at me in that intense way of his; and I feel like that gives him a very unfair advantage over me in a conversation like this one.

In the kitchen, The Pogues start singing Fairytale of New York , almost as if whoever chose the set list for this radio show knew that we’d need to hear yet another song about missed opportunities and dreams that died, and we’d need to hear it right at this very second.

Ho ho ho.

“I haven’t been ‘hiding away’, Holly, as you put it,” he says simply. “I’ve just been lonely. Things were never really the same after … after I left here. I thought writing about it would help; but it didn’t. It didn’t help. And now it seems it also just made you hate me, which … let’s just say that wasn’t part of the plan, either.”

He runs a hand through his hair, looking sadder than I’ve ever seen him. Every impulse in my body is screaming at me to comfort him — to just reach out and put my arms around him, and make everything okay — but I know I can’t do it. Not until I know exactly what he’s trying to say.

“You said the book was supposed to be a love letter earlier,” I say carefully. “But I don’t know what you mean by that?”

My heart flutters frantically in my chest, like a caged bird trying to get out. I’ve wanted to ask him this ever since he said it; but now I’m not sure I’m prepared for his reply.

“I meant exactly what I said,” he shrugs. “I wrote it for you. To you. We hadn’t figured out Evie and Luke’s story by that point, so I used ours instead. Because even though it was over by then — and I know the ending wasn’t a good one — it was still good while it lasted. Wasn’t it?”

In the flickering firelight, his expression is a mixture of hope and resignation. And suddenly I think I know why he wrote us into his book.

“So it was a kind of goodbye, then?” I say softly. “A way to remember it?”

Elliot appears to consider this carefully for a moment.

“I suppose so,” he agrees, nodding. “I guess you could call it that.”

I watch as the light from his glass casts kaleidoscope images across the wall opposite me, and when I look back at him, I’m horrified to find that my eyes are filled with tears; and this time the radio’s playing some strange disco version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer , so it’s definitely not because of the music.

Trust me to be having one of the most emotional moments of my life so far to the soundtrack of a novelty song about a reindeer.

“Hey,” says Elliot, shuffling his chair closer until our knees are touching. “Hey, you’re crying again. What’s wrong? It’s not still Ella, is it?”

I want to tell him that everything is wrong. Me. Him. The weather. Our relationship. This ridiculous song we’re being forced to listen to. There are two things, however, that are much more ‘wrong’ than anything else; the main one being the small — but important — fact of me having just realized that I’m still in love with the man in front of me.

And the second being that the man in question has just confirmed that his book was an attempt to draw a line under our relationship; to say goodbye to us.

I want to tell him this, but now he’s reaching out a hand and gently tucking a strand of hair out of my eyes. As he does it, his hand brushes my cheek, and it’s all I can do not to lean into his touch; or, better still, to slide onto his lap, wrap my arms around him, and let him hold me, the way he used to before he decided we needed an 85,000 word ‘goodbye’ to our relationship.

“Holly,” Elliot whispers, his lips dangerously close to mine as he leans towards me. “Tell me what’s wrong. Is it the book, still? Is it what I said about it? Because I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I swear.”

“I know,” I reply, somehow managing to get the words past the lump that’s formed in my throat. “I know you weren’t. But I just … I just wish you’d found some other way to say ‘goodbye’, if that’s what you had to do. A normal way. Like to my face, say. I think … I think that would’ve been better.”

“I could never have done that,” Elliot replies, his eyes dark with some unspoken emotion. “I couldn’t have said goodbye to you, Holly.”

He’s even closer now. So close that when he reaches up and cups my face in my hand, it feels almost like the logical thing to happen next. My body reflexively responds to his touch, as if it’s triggered some kind of muscle memory that’s just waking up, like Cinderella after Prince Charming’s kiss.

He’s going to kiss me.

I want him to kiss me.

I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. Even more than that rare first edition of Pride and Prejudice that Dad keeps saying he’ll buy for the shop one day, but never has. So much, in fact, that I find myself almost subconsciously leaning towards him, willing his lips towards mine.

Maybe just one last time? For old time’s sake? Maybe it wouldn’t even hurt.

But, of course, it would hurt. It would hurt a lot. And I know that beyond doubt, because I’ve been here before. I’ve taken the risk. I’ve kissed the guy. And I’ve ended up broken-hearted, and promising myself I’d never let it happen again.

Which means I need to urgently hit the stop button on this scene that seems to be writing itself, taking its cues from some long-forgotten script, and do the one thing I know he hates more than anything: I have to be sensible. Because it’s the only way to keep myself safe from him.

“Well, it’s getting late,” I announce, standing up so abruptly I narrowly miss bashing heads with him and knocking us both out; which I guess would be one way to bring this … whatever this is … to an end. “I think I’ll turn in.”

I have no idea where the spare bedroom Elliot mentioned is, and there’s approximately zero chance of me getting any sleep tonight. But as I walk on shaky legs towards the door I hope will lead to somewhere I can be alone with the tears I know are coming, I can’t help but want to pat myself on the back.

Because I did it.

I walked away from Elliot Sinclair, and the danger he represents to me. I did the right thing, even though it hurts.

Maybe I’m more like Evie than I thought I was.