Page 43 of The Christmas Express

Cali

It’s been five years since I’ve seen this guy, and now I struggle to focus on anything else when he’s out of sight again.

I don’t think I like that feeling for me.

So when he appears in front of me now, and his eyes immediately seek me out, I force my feet to stick to the ground rather than run straight over.

I’ve been fine on my own, actually. I swallow down my shallow breath. Yes, I’ve been lonely. Yes, it’s been a long time since I felt the comfort of a close friend or a confidant. But I’ve survived, right? I’ve carried on without him in my life just fine, thank you.

Haven’t I?

Luke pauses on the spot, reading me from a metre away, sensing, perhaps, the conflicts I’m feeling right now.

Beside me, Joss sighs and moves away. Good, I don’t want to talk to her any more.

Luke steps towards me, the colourful lights lighting up his skin as he moves, and I start to melt. Before anything else, before we fell into bed together all those years ago, before the disastrous holiday, before the years of silence, he was my friend, and I think I need him back.

He doesn’t say a word when he reaches me, just wraps his arms around my head in that hug that has always made me weak, and I push my face into his chest, smelling the woodsmoke and vanilla on his sweater, feeling his breath tousling my curls.

I put my arms around his torso, and the muscles of his back relax in my hold, like they always did.

One morning, all those years ago, our first morning waking up beside each other, the sun was streaming through my flat window.

I slept with the curtains and windows open in the summertime, and a warm breeze was coming inside to say hello.

Luke was asleep, face down, and I traced my fingers over the skin of his back. In that moment, everything felt right.

And now, as we stay pressed together, swaying to the Christmas music under the lights, he whispers to me, ‘I’m sorry, Cali.’

I pull my head back a little and meet his eyes. ‘I’m sorry too.’

‘I didn’t mean any of the things I said back then. It was never “nothing”.’

That word stabs at my heart the same way it did back then, in the Spanish rain, as we stood outside the tapas restaurant.

The skies were as grey as our moods, three days into the holiday.

Ever since that first night, when, on arrival, Luke and I announced that actually, we’d like to share a room, please, things had gone downhill.

I’d thought everyone would be happy for us, but instead it was the catalyst for everything that happened after that.

And following the blowout argument, I’d walked out into the rain, and Luke had followed me.

There have been times over the years that I’ve wished I could remember the exact order of what we said to each other. The changes in tone, body language, but it blurred together, pooling into a puddle that we stood in. But would that have helped make me feel any better?

I know I felt this was our fault, I know I suggested he and I should never have got together if it would have saved our group friendship.

I remember him agreeing with me, but instead of being what I wanted to hear, I remember being crushed that he felt that way, wanting him to take it back.

And I remember a long stretch where we said nothing, just listened to the rain, and then Luke told me that what we had was, in fact, nothing.

Now, it’s Christmas, and we’ve grown up, and apart, but his arms are back around me and it doesn’t feel like nothing, at least not to me.

‘Why did you say it?’ I ask him, over the music.

Luke’s hands move down over my arms, his head tilted down, his lips by my ear. I look at his eyelashes, willing his eyes to meet mine again. ‘I thought it was the only way you could be happy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Our group of friends was everything to you, and seeing you so sad as it fractured... it killed me, Cali.’

I swallow down the emotions blocking my throat. It killed me, too.

Luke finally meets my eye and instinctively we move closer, like the other’s heart is our only source of warmth. Above him, the lights glow like the comfort of Christmas in the city.

‘Then what?’ The question leaves my lips and I see him glance down at them, like he’d be able to see the words in the space between us.

‘You were regretting what we’d done, and I regretted it too, because of how it made you feel. I acted like you weren’t as important to me as you really were. I thought I had to let you go for you to be happy.’

I extract an arm from under his and reach up, moving my hair, rubbing my face, and he looks back down. He seems tired, sad, lonely. ‘But that wasn’t your decision to make for me.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

My hand moves to his face and I force him to meet my eyes again. ‘Why didn’t you call me? When the group stayed fractured anyway? Why didn’t you come back for me?’

‘I got stuck in that moment in our lives. I don’t think I’ve ever really moved forward or grown up or done the right thing. I didn’t realise you were feeling the same. Especially after I saw you in London that day, and you looked so well and healthy and happy.’

‘You saw me for one second,’ I argue. How could he know any of that about me?

‘Maybe I just saw what I wanted to, then. I only wanted you to be happy, Cali. By that point I’d pushed you away and I didn’t want to make you sad again, ever.’

One of his hands runs through the end of my curls, causing tingles to journey up the back of my neck. I rest my elbow on his shoulder, and move my hand to his hair. ‘I’m sorry too,’ I whisper.

We’re the only two people on this train, frozen in time, the music is just for us, and everything and everyone and the past is melting away. Luke is focused on me, his lips parted, his nose brushes against mine, and I stroke my thumb on the side of his neck.

‘What do you want now?’ I ask him.

‘You,’ he breathes against me. ‘This. What about you?’

‘You,’ I answer.

‘But I want you to be happy.’ He swallows. ‘I think you already have a happy life, without me.’

‘Stop it,’ I say, shaking my head, increasing the space between us a little. ‘Don’t do this again, don’t you make the decision for me.’

‘Does he not make you happy?’

‘Who?’

‘Luke.’

For a second I’m thrown. Is he talking about himself in the third person all of a sudden? Is he actually sloshed? Oh God, he’s not even going to remember this in the morning, is he? I’m going to wake up in his bunk with him and he’ll be like, whoa, what are you doing here, stalker?

‘I don’t want to get in the way of you and your boyfriend if this is just, you know, the lights and the stars and Christmastime.’

Oh bloody hell, my ‘boyfriend’. And he has a girlfriend! I shake my head, and a small laugh escapes which I smother into his shoulder. ‘I have a confession. There is no Other Luke. I... I made him up.’ How embarrassing.

His chest vibrates with a chuckle, and his arms tighten around me. ‘Well, maybe your fake boyfriend could date my fake girlfriend?’

‘What?! There’s no Barbara? Also, why was the first name you thought of “Barbara”?’

‘Yeah, I made her up too. Good old Barbara. You know I’ve always had a crush on Barbra Streisand.’

Oh my God, that’s right! I’d forgotten that about him.

Luke blushes, just a touch. ‘I’m so stupid when it comes to you, you know that by now.’

He doesn’t have a girlfriend... Could we, maybe... ?

Luke is still chuckling. ‘You made him up? And still called him Luke?’

‘It was... I wasn’t thinking. I just didn’t want to feel like the only one who hasn’t moved on.’

‘Well then,’ he says, his voice dropping low, and I lift my chin, and here we are again.

‘Well then...’ I echo.

It would feel so good to kiss Luke again, the memory tingles my lips like it left an imprint. But... I glance around us.

Joe and Sara are dancing on the other side of the room. Joss is by the stairs, watching us, pain on her face. Bryn is waiting for us in Vancouver.

Everything is so delicate right now, like a snowflake I’m holding in my hand that could melt or blow away at any moment. Doubt creeps up my neck, under his gaze. We’re just all coming back together, what if Luke and I move too fast, and ruin everything again?

Luke steps back, my hesitation glaring like the lights being switched on at the end of a night at a club.

‘Luke—’ I start, needing his proximity.

‘Listen.’ He smiles at me, soft eyes, all heart. ‘The ball is in your court. I’m not going to make this decision for you this time, but I don’t want you to have regrets. I’m going to bed.’

Holy crap, did he just proposition me? No, no, he probably meant that he was literally going to bed, and we could talk in the morning.

As he walks away from me, I lean against the wall, cooling my back against the steel, propping myself up to stop myself being torn in half.