Page 28 of The Christmas Express
She steps aside and I squeeze past, noticing her smell (fresh, like an outdoor shower), the slight height difference (she’s an inch or two taller than I am), and that her honey smile hasn’t budged.
I don’t look back. Sometimes you just have a moment with a hot stranger and then keep travelling in different directions.
It doesn’t stop me from watching her reflection slide away when I reach the glass door dividing the carriages though. Or notice that she’s watching me leave.
Chapter 14
Cali
‘Uuuuugggghhhh,’ I scream (quietly) into my hands as Ontario rushes by, snowy fir trees towering high above the glass-domed ceiling of the celestial carriage. Thankfully I’m alone up here at the moment, so I can merrily stew in my stupidity without any witnesses.
Why oh why oh why did I say I have a boyfriend? I could have said no, I didn’t. At the very least I could have said he was called anything other than Luke. But when Sara asked if I was seeing anyone, and Luke had so adamantly stated that we’d both moved on, I couldn’t stop myself saying yes. I just . . . didn’t want him to be all loved up and think I had no one. And now I’ve got myself stuck in an eight-month relationship with Fake Luke with the top-secret job.
Maybe it’s a good thing the five of us are barely talking, because I shouldn’t have to answer too many more questions.
I shake my head and take a big gulp of Canadian, well, train, air, and try and pull myself back into the present. The celestial carriage has huge glass windows that curve all the way overhead, and I have a panoramic view of the forests, the snow feeling thicker the further we move away from the coast. It’s so beautiful, and it’s quite calming. Like I’m in the BFI IMAX in London.
He has a girlfriend. They’re probably in love. They probably have sex.
And what would Fake Luke even look like? Like Real Luke, or totally different?
No, don’t think about that.
An eight-month relationship sounds lovely, I have to admit. I bet Fake Luke and I would be talking about moving in together. I wonder what I would have got him for Christmas. Maybe next Christmas we’d spend it together, assuming we’re still together, of course.
I rest my cheek against the train window, the cold of the glass pleasant against my still-blushing face.
Oh my God, what if Luke has a whole new set of mates and this girl was his will-they-won’t-they in that friendship group, only they lasted the distance, and I’m just a really distant memory of something that was never really much more than nothing?
I should look for this ‘Barbara’ on Instagram.
No. I. Should. Not.
I shake the thoughts from my head, clonking my brow against the window as I do so. It’s Christmas Eve the day after tomorrow, and that means Christmas Day will be our last full day on the train. It’s very Bryn to decide she knows best for all of us, and to make the decision to force us together for the holidays in a mode of transport we can’t just jump off without getting lost in the Canadian wilderness. I would have liked to have had Christmas in that big cabin, my own room, a window that would open out to a vista of calm, quietly twinkling snow rising up the side of a mountain.
Instead, all I have are thoughts of dear Fake Luke to keep me company.
It was already nightfall when we pulled into the station of White River, Ontario, for a short break. I haven’t seen darkness like this in, I don’t know, around a billion years? I kick at the terra firma, moving settled snow over the concrete, and pull my coat in closer to me using my pockets.
Now I have my back to the streak of red that is the train, running alongside the lamppost-lit track, and I’m looking outwards, past the small ticket office, and into the blackness beyond. My breath is just visible, and my nose tingles in the icy air.
Someone edges up beside me, and I half expect it to be Ember since none of the rest of them are giving her the time of day. But then he speaks.
‘Hey.’
‘Hello, Luke.’
He stands beside me, looking out, and it’s taking all I have not to glance over, or try and fix my hair which is probably frizzing in the cold.
What shall I say? Where have all my thoughts gone?
Hello, in there?
After ten billion years, he says, ‘It’s cold, huh? You kind of forget when you’re on the train just how cold it is outside, I mean. Are you cold?’
‘No,’ I lie. ‘I’m fine. Are you?’
We used to talk and talk and talk, about stupid, silly things, like who did the better impression of Christopher Walken, or sometimes serious stuff, like what had someone done to make the other feel bad. We’d be able to fill silences with questions or chatter, or we’d let the silence sit, and we’d nestle into it, lean into each other, I’d rest my head on his shoulder, he’d start snoring with his arm draped around my neck.
