One Christmas Morning by Rachel Greenlaw

Author:Rachel Greenlaw [Greenlaw, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The lock clicks. Heat floods my face and I stumble back along the corridor, eyes stuck to the floor. That went so much worse than I expected. Seeing myself sitting there, crumbling to dust, refusing to allow my best friend in as I watched helplessly through Hallie’s eyes has left me stunned.

When did I become that person?

I’m still carrying too much around in my heart. I have to change. My business is important to me, and I’m driven. There’s no shame in that. I was desperate to create something, to bring something to the world. But in the process of reaching, clutching each opportunity with the tips of my fingers, I have lost all perspective. I have tried to bury that Christmas three years ago, but somehow, it’s creeping back in. Warping my life in unexpected ways.

The cake was a mistake.

And if I get another chance, if somehow this day becomes my own, I will tell Hallie that. But I will also hold her, love her. Tell her how perfect and giving she is, how much I miss her. How full of sorrow and rage I still am, even now, three years later. How that has driven me, stalked my every waking moment as a curse. A haunting.

But as I place my hands on the worn wooden door that separates the corridor from the top of the staircase, I realise it isn’t about the cake. It isn’t about the colour of it, or Hallie and Kian’s excited announcement. It isn’t even about her pregnancy, or the IVF, or the not knowing.

It’s about everything I’ve lost. Gran. My anchor, my world. Gone.

I’m still adrift.

I pass a hand over my face, trying to remove the exhaustion. The tangle of complicated, thorny thoughts in my head. If I don’t learn to strip it all back, clear everything away until I am just left with the truth, just the single beating heart of all this, then I have no hope of changing anything. I will be forever haunted, seeing Gran at crowded Tube stations, turning down invitations to Hallie and Kian’s because I can’t stand the comparison of what our lives have amounted to. I have to shake this off. I have to face it.

Everyone moves to the snug after ten and I go to join them. Diana stays in her room, and I leave her to the quiet. Even though it’s late, nudging closer to midnight, finally I can sit comfortably in this body, cosy on an oversized leather couch, and reflect on the day and what I want. There’s a fire popping and crackling in the hearth, Natalie’s handing out glasses of fizz as a nightcap and Kian is shuffling through the channels to find a film for us all to watch.

‘Casablanca?’ he asks, eyeing everyone for approval.

James chucks a cushion at him, laughing. ‘God, no. Nothing black and white. Or anything I have to concentrate on. Elf!’

My breath catches as I steal a glance at him. He’s in one of the armchairs on the other side of me, grinning at Kian as he chucks the cushion back at him.

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