Page 30 of The Christmas Express
Maybe this is why it’s an old habit of ours, or maybe mine, to always take her lead with decisions. It’s just easier that way. I never believed I was being a doormat. Despite what the others said.
‘Shall I take the bottom, then?’ I prompt, gritted teeth.
‘And leave me to fall out? Fuck off.’ Joss steadies herself with a breath, which is something new. Perhaps she’s been meditating? ‘I’ll take the bottom. Please.’
We study the instructions on the wall on how to convert the two seats in our compartment into a pair of beds. Joss’s brow is creased when I glance at her out of the side of my eye. This trip is harder on her than me, I can tell, though she’d never admit it, or why.
My sister reaches for a lever and yanks, but the chair won’t budge. She kicks at it with her foot.
‘You need to—’
‘I can do it,’ she snaps.
After a fair amount of clonking and pulling, arguing and ignoring, we manage to make the two bunks. It’s nice, actually. Cosy. For the past couple of years I’ve lived in Bristol, near the train station, and something about the sound brings back home. I climb up into my bunk, about ready to call it a night, even if it’s only . . . eight fifteen.
Beneath me, Joss potters about, grumbling. Something about Cali being stupid and Luke being smug and me not helping or having her back. I open my phone and scroll, refusing to listen, letting it play out. God, I haven’t missed this side of her. Or this side of me, to be honest. I think I’ve come into my own living away from her, and I don’t want to be her shadow again.
In fairness to my sister, she never used to ask that of me, they were roles we fell into, me being naturally more passive, her more, well, aggressive, I guess.
She climbs onto her bunk, too, and I glance at her in the mirror opposite. She’s opened her phone and is looking back at photos from a night out we did for her twenty-fourth birthday. It was Great Gatsby-themed (even though none of us had actually read the book or seen the film). I watch her candidly for a couple of minutes, as she scrolls back through photo after photo, where we’re all laughing and posing and pretending to smoke, holding martini glasses up in the air. She zooms in on one of her and Luke just as he’s said something to crack her up, and a smile crosses her face as she lies there in the dim light, swaying to the movement of the train.
The worst thing about my sister is her pride when she lets it rage. The best thing is the soft moments like this, when her pride shines.
Chapter 16
Ember
My carriage is dark, save for a few, low, overhead lamps illuminating the books on people’s laps. Chatter has died down, and the rhythmic sound of the train gliding along its tracks, in the darkness of the outside world, has become the soundscape in the background. That, and Gwen’s snoring.
I flex my back in my reclined seat, and pull my blanket over me since it keeps sliding off and dusting the floor. Outside, the world is black, and I’m not sure if we’re surrounded by trees, or just a whole lot of nighttime.
Snorrrrt. Gwen wakes herself up and peers at me in the dark.
‘Still awake?’ she asks. ‘Why?’
‘Who can say?’
She’s asleep again before my sarcasm soundwave even hits her.
What am I doing here? In the middle of who-knowswhere in the Canadian wilderness, rushing to my ex-girlfriend who doesn’t even know I’m on my way to her.
I take out my phone and turn the brightness down in the dark, scrolling back to a photo of Bryn and me on the riverbank of the Thames, Tower Bridge lit up behind us in the night sky. I don’t miss city life, but I miss life with her.
I zoom in on her face, a wallowing pulling at my chest. For a while, I really, truly thought she was going to be my person, for our whole lives. Bryn had this way of making sure nobody ever felt lonely, and that day I left her flat for the last time, it was as if her warmth had been snatched away. I was cold, and alone. And all because of a little thing called wanting different things out of our lives. It was a sucky break-up, with a sea full of tears, but at the time it felt like the only way we could both move forward.
Would anyone be able to love me like she did? Will I ever want to give anyone the chance? I sigh and shuffle in my seat again, kicking my legs into the aisle and closing my eyes.
This is why I have to see her. I need to know if she still feels the same. I can’t stop thinking about her walking down an aisle in a wedding dress, and my soul feels heavy at the thought of not being the one there with her.
My eyelids pop open again, much to my own annoyance. Alright, I’m clearly not going to sleep anytime soon. I extract my shoulder from under Gwen’s lolling head and step into the aisle, cricking my back. I grab my blanket, headphones and baseball cap, and make my way past sleeping passengers, avoiding eye contact with the night owls like myself.
At the celestial carriage, up the steps I climb, and before I even reach the top, I look up at a dome of stars overhead. I stop. Right on the stairs. And stare.
It’s like being home again, on the beach, at night. That big wide openness that makes me feel insignificant but alive, all in good ways. I let out a long exhalation, already calmer.
Climbing the last couple of steps, I enter the near-empty viewing car. My eyebrows raise. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up here at this time, but one person is. I hope it’s not one of Bryn’s friends – the thought of dealing with them right now makes me want to retreat straight back down the stairs again.
Then the person turns, and under the starlight, her eyes meet mine for the second time.
