Page 2 of The Christmas Express

Cali

We know when someone likes us. Don’t we?

We know . We recognise the signs because we know we do them ourselves.

The attempts to hold eye contact, the unsubtle compliments, the little excuses to come back over to see you for the fifteenth time that day.

We always know, and so, if we don’t feel the same, we’ll often break eye contact first, bat away the compliments, ignore the fireflies you’re sending into our orbit because we don’t want to make things awkward.

Perhaps we want to keep you as a friend.

Ah, but the blindness comes when we’re the ones that like you .

Then you’re no longer a backlit book we can read, you’re a mystery novel behind the dusty glass of a locked cabinet.

And so, we search for signs, we scour social media for fragments of videos unpicking the way you look at us or talk to us and see if that means you’re into us.

We daydream, we imagine the future in a million different scenarios.

With Luke, I tried to read him for years and only cracked his coded pages when it was moments from being over between us. Now, I haven’t thought about Luke in half a decade.

Except for the other week, when I saw a guy wearing a navy cable-knit jumper like the one he always used to wear.

Oh, and last month when I was on a date and the man mentioned he had a friend called Luke and I spent the rest of the meal bringing the conversation back to his friends, just in case his Luke was my Luke. He wasn’t.

But before that, it had been years—

No, wait, sorry. I also had that fortnight last April where I looked after my neighbour’s cat in the flat that he used to live in and ended up sat on the studio floor every day with a box of tissues, scrolling my phone for all of the photos of him and me when we used to be just friends, just those great buddies, Cali and Luke, before anything even happened.

Back when the six of us lived in this townhouse, and we were as close as could be.

Now, I’m standing in the front doorway, frozen in time.

I was collecting my post from the side table, about to head upstairs to my own flat and cook myself a warming bowl of pasta on this icy November evening, but one envelope begged to be opened on the spot.

Something about the handwriting, familiar in a way that sent a frosty lungful of air to swoop out of my mouth.

I tore into it, and now, in my gloved hand is a wedding invitation – Bryn’s wedding invitation, of all things – and my first thought is, will he be there ?

‘Do you think Bryn invited all of us? Or just me?’ I ask up to the top of the ladder, where a maintenance man is fixing something above the door frame.

He doesn’t look down at me but answers, ‘I don’t know, love.’

‘It’s just...’ I turn the invitation over in my hand, the silver foil lettering glinting under the hallway spotlights. Jeeeeeeeeesus, so she hasn’t forgotten me? ‘She and I haven’t spoken in five years. So, this is out of the blue, you know?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘She used to live here, in the apartment that Sadie now lives in. You know Sadie?’

‘Nope.’ He wiggles the door back and forth on its hinges and I shuffle over an inch, my eyes glued on the invite.

‘She’s really nice. Keeps to herself, though.

When Bryn lived here, she was always the one to organise whole-house parties and drag in a massive Christmas tree for this hallway which would stay up all winter.

I don’t even know her bride. Ruby.’ I tested the name in my mouth.

‘Bryn and Ruby. Do you think I should go?’

The maintenance man puts his screwdriver down on the top step and I can feel his sigh aimed at me from all the way down here. ‘Might as well. Are you coming in or going out?’

Oops. I step in and let him close the door to the cold, hand him a sandpaper block that he didn’t ask for but might need, and take a seat on the floor by the radiator. ‘Did I tell you it’s in Canada? The wedding?’

‘You did.’

‘I can’t go all the way to Canada for a wedding.

Over Christmas ! I mean I have other plans to.

.. well...’ Now that’s stumped me. My eyes glide to the spot where Bryn’s Christmas tree used to go every year.

There hasn’t been a communal tree in this house since they all moved out.

‘Well actually, my parents are away this Christmas, visiting my brother in New Zealand. I went to see him back in the summer so I’m not going with them. ’

Maintenance Man is ignoring me, but probably listening, so I carry on.

‘I guess I could go. Theoretically. Even if she’s just invited me , it could be a chance to reconnect.

Maybe take a hike in the snow, thrash things out.

She loved Christmas, so I bet the wedding will be in an amazing location.

And then we could drink mulled wine by a fireplace and laugh about the wasted years. ’

I glance up – did he just roll his eyes up there at the top of the ladder?

The wedding is actually set for a couple of days after Christmas, but if I did go – which I probably won’t – but if I did go all that way, surely spending the holidays in one of the most snow-covered places on the planet would be a must?

If Luke was there, would it be better? Or would it be worse?

‘It’s just, there’s this guy—’

Maintenance Man switches his power drill on as I begin speaking and I think it might be on purpose.

But a moment later he puts it down and turns, sitting down on top of the ladder, and wipes the dust from his hands.

‘Look. Weddings bring people back together, right? Good food, bit of dancing, an excuse to go to Canada; what’s worth missing out on that for? ’

A deeply ingrained flare of resentment flushes in my cheeks, like a match being lit under my skin.

I press my lips together, lost for a moment in the past. I’m still angry at them.

All of them. And they probably are with me.

It’s been too long, and the days where we planned who’d play what role at each other’s imaginary weddings feel like a lifetime ago.

I swallow down this stubborn, scarred side of myself and change the subject. Kind of. ‘You like weddings?’

‘I do,’ he replies, then chuckles at his vow-like reply. ‘I love a wedding.’

‘Are you married?’

‘Twice. Loved every minute of both.’

‘The weddings or the marriages?’

He pauses. ‘Both.’

Hmm. I’m losing myself back into my thoughts when I hear the clonk of his ladder being folded up. ‘I’m all done here, love. You’ll let the other residents know they shouldn’t have any problem with a sticking door any more?’

‘Of course.’ I nod, standing up. I’ll type up a nice note and push it under each of their doors. ‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’

He shakes his head, gathering his things.

‘Some pasta? I’m not hitting on you or anything, I promise.’ Way to make it awkward, Cali.

Luckily, he laughs. ‘No, thanks. These evenings are getting dark early. I’m going to get home to my family.’

I wave him goodbye until he shuts the door behind him and the corridor is quiet and tidy and empty, save for the discarded wedding invitation envelope on the side table and a halo of sawdust on the carpet. Somewhere far upstairs one of my neighbours is playing a piano that I’ve never seen.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with an incoming notification as I make my way up the stairs to my flat.

Once I’ve clicked my door closed behind me, I prop the invite on my small desk beside my laptop and it watches me as I make myself a tea, switch on the fairy lights that line the upper edges of my living room and change into my ‘loungewear’ (no bra, scraggly old pyjamas).

Bryn’s name, in that loopy silver font, flickers under the fairy lights as I open my laptop. My heart shocks a little, my breath catching as her name seems to jump from the envelope to the top of my emails. One new message. Unread. Bold. From Bryn. The subject line reads, Please come .

There’s a strange sensation inside me, of a hundred tiny people scrambling to build a defensive wall before my hand moves the cursor over the email. But screw them because I win, and with unblinking eyes, I open it.

Before I even read a word, my eyes settle on the ‘to’ line, which contains not just me, but four other names. Look at our names, all together in a row like their owners didn’t spectacularly fall out on that disaster of a holiday five years previously. And right beside my name... is Luke’s.