Page 45 of The Christmas Express

Ember

Six words. Six words that rarely seem to indicate something you want to hear is on its way.

‘I need to tell you something,’ Alex says to me in front of a sky heavy with stars and a vista of deep snow and tall mountains.

‘What?’

‘Do you want to go inside?’

‘No,’ I cry. ‘I want to know what’s happening. Are you married? Do you not like me like that? Are you worried I’m going to try and move to Canada to be with you because I like you, but I just wanted to enjoy tonight and enjoy you and not think about the future.’

‘It’s none of those things.’

I raise my eyebrows at her. ‘If you don’t want to kiss me, just say so and I’ll go back in and warm up and tomorrow we don’t have to see each other ever again—’

‘I told you I was travelling to Vancouver to see family,’ she interrupts me.

‘Yes?’

‘I told you I have a sister. But I never told you her name.’ Alex shuffles, her mouth twitching. She breaks eye contact and looks away, out towards the mountains. ‘Her name is Ruby.’

‘Okay.’ I shrug. ‘What, is she made up or something?’

It’s only when she looks back at me, sadness shrouding her, that I realise what she’s saying.

‘Oh my God. Bryn’s fiancée?’

She doesn’t have to say anything else; I can read it all over her face.

‘Your sister is Bryn’s fiancée,’ I repeat to myself, and face the dark.

I swallow through a dry mouth, try to steady my breathing, push down the sickness feeling.

I have to hold the railing to stop myself from the weight of this pushing me to the ground.

This must be why they call it a crush, because the emotions can be crushing.

‘Em, I don’t want you to think—’ Alex puts a hand on my back but I move away.

‘You know Bryn. You’re going to her wedding. You were...’ Oh, God. ‘You were just trying to... to distract me.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’ A weird little laugh escapes, quickly swallowed up by a fresh wave of mortification. I look at her again. ‘Did you know who I was from the start?’

‘No. I knew a group of Bryn’s friends would be on the same train as me, and she sent me an old photo of them.

I was going to introduce myself but that first time we met you were all in the middle of an argument.

Then the second time, it was just you and me, and then you told me you were coming to stop the wedding. ’

‘I wasn’t going to stop the wedding!’ I growl, fed up with this narrative. ‘I was never going to crash the wedding; I was just going to talk to Bryn. If the wedding then got stopped it would have been because she wanted it stopped.’

‘Okay,’ Alex says, lapsing into silence for a minute while I stand with my face in my icy hands.

‘So, then what, you just decided to manipulate me with all that stuff about the polar bear trip, the “Ember without Bryn is someone that sounds cool”, to try and get me to leave?’

‘No...’

‘And then you pretended you were into me? So I’d change my mind about her?’

‘Yes, alright, at first I did think that. It was my sister’s wedding—’

‘But you could have just told me.’

‘I should have. I wasn’t expecting us to have this much, you know, of a draw to each other, to be honest.’

I nod, hearing her loud and clear, and now wanting to be far away from her. ‘I’m going inside,’ I say.

‘Let’s go and warm up,’ Alex agrees, opening the door and letting me through first. I take the coat off. ‘Keep that for a while if you like, until you’re thawed out?’

‘No thanks.’ I hand her back the coat. ‘I told you so much, about me, about my relationship with Bryn.’

‘I’m not going to tell anyone. It was all between me and you. I know you won’t believe this now, but it turned into something real for me, it still is. You were always safe with me.’

I give her one more long look. ‘I can’t talk to you right now, not about any of it, Alex. So, I’ll just say, Merry Christmas. To you and your beautiful family.’

My feet take me back through the never-ending carriages. I am numb.