Page 71 of A Winter in Wonderland
I kept my eyes on the sky, but I didn’t mind that he was asking. ‘Yeah, there’s a reason. A few, in fact. It’s just that over the years I’ve built up a bit of a wall between myself and the holiday season. It just happens that the worst things in my life always seem to happen at this time of year, so it’s kind of painful.’
‘Because it brings back bad memories?’
‘Yeah. And I don’t really want to add to them, you know? So I tend to hide away over Christmas and pretend it’s not happening. It sounds a bit weird now I say it out loud, because you can’t really hide from Christmas.’
Josh shook his head. ‘No, I think I get it. Might I say, you picked an excellent place to hide out this year.’ I laughed, and he continued, meeting my eye and smiling. ‘Were you going for a “keep your enemies close” kinda theme this season?’
‘Something like that.’ I smiled, looking away from him and back up at the green hues above.
‘I’m sorry, though,’ he said, softer.
‘What for?’
‘I’m sorry you’ve been through some stuff. I’m sorry you feel this way.’
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m actually kind of embarrassed to talk about it because I don’t have it bad at all. Some people have really horrible Christmases and my experiences seem so … petty. It’s just that … ’
‘Those areyourexperiences. I’m sure whatever they were meant something to you and you can’t feel bad about feeling the way you do.’
As if to prove him wrong, I turned to him and countered with, ‘Well, would you give up Christmas because you once went to a school dance and the guy you thought you were in love with was kissing your friend?’
At the word kissing, I saw his eyes do that thing where they flicked down to my lips. He hesitated for a moment, before his mouth curved into a smile. ‘Wait, is that what youwere remembering at the party, on the edge of the dance floor, when “Bleeding Love” was playing?’
‘Busted,’ I laughed and covered my face with my hands, wetting it with the snow on my mittens. Oops.
Josh looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe it’s not about trying to forget the past, but about finding a way to … I don’t know … make peace with it? Sometimes it can help to try and reframe things, I guess?’
I nodded, but it didn’t feel that easy. How could I make peace with all those things to the point they didn’t cause a black cloud to follow me around at this time every year? Where was the sunshine? ‘Maybe,’ I said, eventually.
‘So do you wish you were still with this guy now?’ he asked, and the thought struck me as funny.
‘No. We’re barely even in touch any more. Thinking about it, it was the best thing for me at the time, because I followedmyfuture, whereas back then, knowing how I felt, knowing who I was, I very possibly would have tried to tag along with his. So, I had to move on somehow, I guess. No, I don’t wish things had turned out differently, not at all … Anyway, that was just one example, really. There are others, some a little harder to swallow.’
‘Do you want to tell me about them?’
‘Yeah, maybe I do,’ I said, surprising myself. I was so used to only discussing all this with my family, or Willow and Max, and if I mentioned it to anyone else, I would always joke over the details. It would be nice to open up to someone new, and there was something about Josh, perhaps his own openness, that made me want it to be him.
At that point though, three of the group walked over to warm their hands around the fire, so we sat up and I started fiddling about with kindling.
One of the group – a girl in her late teens who I think was a little besotted with Josh (weren’t we all) – came over to him and asked, ‘Excuse me, Josh, could you show me again the ISO setting on my mum’s camera to get the best shots if I want to try a time-lapse?’
‘Sure,’ Josh said, leaping up, always on hand to help out.
He walked off and I made small talk with the guests warming their hands while I cooked a batch of sausages over the fire. I liked that he was good at photography. It was a little link we shared.
When Josh returned, along with the other guests, the only space for him to sit was opposite, so while I tried to keep my eyes on the fire I was stoking, I couldn’t help but keep meeting his across the flames.
Why was I so drawn to him? We had very little in common. We lived in different countries. We didn’t even know each other that well. But although I hadn’t realised it at the time, ever since we’d met on the plane we’d forged this tiny connection and I couldn’t help but wonder if, somehow, he was going to change my life.
