Page 43 of When Hearts Collide

“How do you know how to tie a bow tie?” he rasps.

I still haven’t stepped away. We’re as close as two people can be without touching.

“I had to do it for my brother from time to time. And I enjoy doing it for people I…” care about. But I can’t say those words out loud. Instead, I quickly amend, “People who need the help.”

More heated looks and heavy breaths, each of us on standing on a tightrope suspended between two skyscrapers, hoping we won’t plummet to our deaths.

“You look good.” I wet my lips and flash him a tentative smile.

“I hate dressing up in penguin suits, but it’s part of my job.” A boyish grin appears on his face, an expression making him look years younger, and my heart swoops and falls to the floor.

“What would you prefer to do if you had free time?”

“Hunting. Reading in my cabin in upstate New York.” He rakes his hand over his thick, tousled hair. He grimaces, and a flush spreads to his neck. “Birdwatching.”

I try and fail to stop a giggle from escaping my mouth.

He bites his lower lip. “What’s so funny? An old man like me can’t like birdwatching? I’ve heard it’s an old person hobby.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s not that. I’m laughing because you look so happy when you talk about your hobbies. I’m glad you have an escape. Everyone needs one. Mine is gardening. I like to nurture the plants and flowers, to feel the life at my fingertips. It’s why I prefer potted plants over bouquets.”

My fingers tangle with each other. My eyes dip down to his chest and a heat crawls up my face. “And I also like knitting,” my gaze darts up to his as I stammer, “n-not that I knitted the scarf, of course.” Heat rises to my face, and I curse my inability to lie. “Some say knitting is an old person hobby too…and you’re not old.”

A few seconds pass by before he answers, the lightness in his voice moments ago nowhere to be found. “I’m at least fifteen years older than you.” It’s a warning, but it might as well be foreign language to my ears.

“Age isn’t only measured by years but also by experience.” Does a mere number matter when I feel my soul calling out to you?

A muscle pulses in his jaw before he tears his eyes away from my face and steps back, shrugging on his formal jacket. “Thank you for helping with the bow tie and for the gift.”

He doesn’t look at me now and my heart pinches at the rejection.

I turn back at the doorway and find him holding my blue scarf in his hand, slowly looping it around his wrist.

Around, and around, and around.

I come home later that day to the sound of gut-wrenching sobs.

“Joss?” I call out as I set my keys and bag on the glass dining table and head toward her room.

The sounds are muted now, muffled sniffling from behind her door, which is cracked open. Quietly, I enter her dark, musty room and find her sitting on her bed, her face buried in her palms. Her beautiful, shiny black hair is in disarray, like she has spent the last ten minutes pulling at it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask gently as I take a seat next to her and place my hand on her back, rubbing soothing motions on her tensed muscles. “Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

She shakes her head. “No one can help me. Not even God is listening.”

“You can talk to me. It’s better than bottling it up inside.” And I should know that since I’m an expert at burying my emotions.

Jocelyn murmurs into her hands, “I’m failing Anderson’s class. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, since I haven’t been in class half the time. Even my revised paper was a D.”

“I can help you study. And worse comes to worst, you can take it again next year. One bad grade won’t affect you.”

“No. You don’t understand,” she turns to me, her eyes teary and bloodshot, “I’m doing poorly in all my classes this year. Anderson’s class is the closest I have to passing. If I fail his class too, I’ll be put on academic probation, and I can’t do that. I can’t disappoint my mom like that.”

Jocelyn grabs my hands and clutches them tightly. “Millie, please help me. You have to help me. Don’t you see? Millie,” her voice pleading and desperate, “the reason I haven’t been in class a lot is because my mom is in the hospital. She has breast cancer.”

Tears are streaming down her face now, but she makes no move to wipe them. “Things don’t look good, Millie. The doctors don’t think she’ll last the holiday season.”

My heart plummets and the old ache, one I thought had scabbed over a long time ago, splits wide open.

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