Page 6 of The Christmas Express

Cali

Jeeeeeeez. My heart is thudding so loudly I can hear it even over the screech of the London Tube as it comes to a stop at Heathrow Airport.

I’ve not been able to eat a thing all morning, and my mouth is dry, my eyes wide as I dart my gaze from face to face while I exit the carriage and follow the crowd towards the terminal.

Any second now I could see one of them again.

I’ll recognise them all, surely? None of them are likely to have changed that much.

Of course I’ll recognise them all. Silly me.

I could pick them out in the distance from any of their walks or postures alone.

I totter through the airport, my big mauve suitcase full of heavy coats and long-sleeved formal wear, dragging its wheels behind me.

I am doing a good impression of a normal person, just a single gal on a solo expedition.

Chin held high, eyes focused on the airline check-in desks in the distance.

Nobody will guess that under this chic exterior I’m hyper-alert to the potential of hearing Joss’s loud, hiccupy laugh, of Joe’s squeak-squeak-squeak of that one trainer of his, of catching sight of Sara’s bum-length curls among the greys of the terminal, vibrant in whatever vivid colour she’s dying them these days.

Of smelling Luke’s aftershave – the smoky vanilla one that he didn’t even used to realise was his signature scent but that made me wobbly-kneed when he’d walk into a room and cross straight over to greet me with a hug.

I join the queue to check my bag for the first flight to Toronto.

Even though Bryn’s wedding is in Vancouver, when she sent through our ticket info she said she’d have a surprise for us waiting in Toronto Airport for the second leg of the journey.

I don’t know what the surprise is, but I’m guessing either she’s meeting us there, or has maybe upgraded us on our onward flight or something.

My old friends could be here in this queue.

My palms leave streaks of sweat on the leather of my passport and I stand as still as a statue, eyes forward, afraid to look around me.

I have the sensation that someone is staring at the back of my head – is it one of them?

And if I turn, will the stare be a glare? My heart is too afraid to find out.

‘HELLO,’ I say a little too loudly to the pristine woman at the check-in desk when I shuffle forward.

‘Hello.’ There, that was a much more airport-appropriate volume.

‘Checking my bags for Toronto, please. My name’s Bryn.

No, it isn’t!’ I drop my passport in a panic and it tumbles over the counter, slapping its way past the outstretched hand of the woman.

‘Excuse me?’ An arched eyebrow arches higher.

‘Cali, I’m Cali, not Bryn. Bryn is my friend who booked the ticket. Who the booking might be under? But probably not, I’m the passenger, you want my details, I guess. So, erm, there’s my passport and look...’ I hold my e-ticket out on my phone screen as if it’s proof I’m Very Normal.

‘Yes, we just need passenger details,’ says the woman, tapping hopefully only nice, positive things on her computer. She hands me back my passport and asks a few security questions as I heave my case onto the conveyer belt.

I am one hundred per cent blushing my whole face off, and my neck is hot under my hair and the woollen turtleneck I’m cosied up in, ready for Canadian winter weather. God, I hope none of them are in the queue watching me right now.

I’m about to fill the silence with a monologue about why Bryn booked the ticket for me and how we were once friends but I haven’t seen her in five years and I don’t really know yet what this all means for the future, but then my case is given a sticky tag adornment and slides off into the magical suitcase tunnel of love and I’m being presented with a boarding pass and a seat number and archy-brows is wishing me a lovely flight.

‘You too,’ I say automatically as I move away.

I can’t look back and instead shuffle my rucksack onto my back and make my way towards security. By the time I’m through, my mouth is dry from all this shallow breathing and worry-sweats, so I stroll the shops of the terminal sipping from a freshly purchased bottle of water.

Would it be weird to put my shades on inside so I can gawp at the people I’m passing, properly? I just need to see them. I need to know where they are, what they look like now, and how they’ll look at me .

Yes, it would be strange. Or perhaps quite celebrity-like? It’s worth a go.

I slip on my sunglasses and immediately feel my back straighten.

Okay, this is good, it’s like I’m behind a mask now.

And maybe someone who works here will spot me and assume I’m somebody important and direct me into a swanky airport lounge and then I’ll be escorted to the first-class cabin on the plane and draped in a satin duvet and crystal flutes of champagne will appear until I no longer even care that behind me, somewhere in economy, is the guy who whispers his name in my thoughts every single day.

‘Oof, sorry,’ I say, stumbling over a small child sat on the floor, sticking shiny little stickers onto the underneath of a bank of seats.

I take off the sunglasses and give an apologetic smile to his parents, and something catches my eye.

A splash of violet curls heading into a shop on the other side of the seats.

I back away, changing direction, diving into a travel accessories shop and engrossing myself into the minutia of plug adapters until the woman who might have been Sara is bound to have moved on.

In fact, I’m there so long that by the time I emerge (empty-handed, much to the frustration of the sales assistant) the big TV screen is now displaying a boarding gate allocation for my flight.

This is it now. I walk with stiffness towards the gate like it’s my personal walk of shame.

Outside the large glass windows, the skies are December-grey, made mistier by the drizzle, and it casts a gloom over the planes which seeps inside the terminal, making it seem more like late afternoon than mid-morning.

Maybe they won’t even be there? Maybe they all declined the invitation in the end.

Maybe it’ll just be me and Bryn in that big, cosy Canadian cabin, and we can become close once again, and one day we’ll laugh about the lost years and wonder whatever became of the other four and how miserable their lives must have ended up to not have found their ways back to such a beautiful friendship.

Lost in this thought, my mouth turns down along with a small sink in my heart. I guess I want them to be there, after all. All of them. Even if it’s awkward, or uncomfortable, or really hard. I want them to be there.

My gate number comes into view. My tummy churns, my skin tingles, and my breath quickens as nerves mingle with excitement and fear and all three lace through my veins.

And then there he is.

He is a lighthouse, and I am a wave-beaten boat which spots him in the gloom like he’s shining only for me. Just as I suspected, even from a distance, even after all this time, my eyes find him instantly.

I tuck myself behind a pillar for a moment, reaching for nothing in my bag, while I blink away my blurred vision.

Luke seems to be moving in slow motion, stepping towards the gate, sipping from a takeaway coffee cup, appearing nonchalant but as he moves closer, into focus, I see his shoulders are tense.

He’s right there. Only metres away from me. My heart has stopped, my breath now held. And it’s just like the first time I saw him, a whole decade ago.

It had been a Sunday, in the autumn. It was mid-morning and I was expecting my new friend Bryn to pop down soon so we could try out her new roller blades over in Greenwich Park.

I’d been in the middle of taping discreet kitchen sponges to my elbows under my hoodie, in lieu of proper skate protection, when I heard a key jamming into my door.

I’d frozen on the spot, cocking my ear to the side. Bryn? But it was a man’s voice muttering outside.

Sneaking over to my door, I’d peered through my spyhole, looking straight onto a head of sandy hair. Then he’d stepped back, looking directly at me through the tiny circle of glass, making me flinch and hold my breath. But I couldn’t turn away, as he looked back down and studied his keys.

Love at first sight? I don’t know... But when I opened my door, giving him a fright, which turned into him unleashing the hottest and cutest chuckle I’d ever heard when he realised he was trying to move into the wrong apartment, we locked eyes and it was something, a connection.

I didn’t know then if we were meant to be best friends or boyfriend and girlfriend, but I knew I wanted to be near him, as often as possible, and he was the same with me. We were like magnets, and very soon he was enveloped into the friendship group.

Then the years ticked by, and it didn’t go beyond that. He never made a move. I never wanted to risk the group dynamics if he didn’t feel the same.

Until one day, when it seemed the right time to risk it all, bet it all on us, and we lost.

Now, he drains the last of his coffee, licking a stray bit of foam from the lid. Damn, I wish I was that lid.

Shhhut it, Cali .

I can’t look away and I watch Luke for a moment longer.

His hair is a little longer than it used to be, which highlights the tousles, making them more defined.

He slumps down into a seat, his teal eyes scanning the area, and I step back again, hidden further from view, until he pulls out a paperback and looks down, his eyelashes dark and blinking softly.

He stifles a yawn, lifting an arm wrapped in a maroon jacket to cover his mouth.