Page 19 of The Christmas Express
My hotel room, despite its huge bed and generous floor space and big windows, feels claustrophobic tonight. I stand from where I’ve been slumped on my bed and move to the window, the only sound being my feet moving across the carpet. I have a great view of winter in the city, the spindle of Toronto’s CN Tower poking above the other buildings, lit from within.
‘Once the world’s tallest freestanding structure,’ I point it out to myself, pressing my fingertip against the window. I thank myself for this interesting fact, and sigh, misting the glass.
I should have just not come. I even refused Bryn at first, knowing I should keep that door closed, but she called me almost instantly, surprising me by how recognisable her voice still was to me.
‘You have to come,’ she’d said, by way of an argument. ‘Everyone else has agreed to.’
‘They have? All of them?’
She paused long enough for me to suspect that she hadn’t actually had confirmation from all five of us as yet, but swiftly added, in Bryn fashion, a confident, ‘Of course they’re all coming, and so are you. It’s my wedding. Please. Please don’t be a selfish knob about this.’
Always one with a gift for persuasion, and, well, here I am. I guess if I’d really not wanted to come, I wouldn’t have.
There’s a wariness between us all though, and I don’t know how to navigate it. I don’t know how to be with these people and not be tightknit with them. I don’t know how to be a stranger to them when they know everything about me. I don’t know who I am to them any more, especially her.
Shutting myself in here in a stupid, lonely, protest-huff isn’t doing anything to clear my mind, though. I grab my room key, my wallet, my phone, my muddled brain and head out into the night.
After wandering alone for an hour or so, I made my way towards the famous CN Tower. Some thought about the altitude keeping me from falling asleep too early.
As the glass-windowed elevator rises, the ascent taking about a minute, the lit-up city shrinks away from me. I rest my head against the wall of the lift, a weird feeling washing over me that I’m back in the plane, soaring away from here. I don’t want that though, I don’t really want to go home yet, do I? It’s like Cali always used to say – the worst part of the holiday is the travel, but the best part is that first morning when you wake up and realise you’re here and it’s exciting and you have the whole trip ahead of you. Any adventure could await you . . .
We reach the top and are directed out of the lift, and the view takes my breath from me. The skyscrapers, the roads, the cars, the hum of Ontario’s capital is stretched in front of me. I stroll the Main Observation Level for a while, taking in the glittering sweeps of cityscape laced with black pools where the harbour meets the land. It’s relatively quiet up here, not many tourists at this time, despite the stunning sights. Just a few families, a happy couple or three, some solo viewers lost in thought, like me.
I make my way to the thick, glass-floor section of the Lower Observation Level, and, since there aren’t many people around, sit down on it, as if I’m floating above the city, watching life happen down there without me.
This floor can hold the weight of thirty-five moose, apparently. I know a girl who’d love that fact.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ some guy says, hovering above me. He’s holding up a massive camera to the view. ‘Especially with all the Christmas lights.’
‘Beautiful,’ I agree. I can’t think of anything else to say.
Usually I’m good at conversation, I ask questions, I listen. But my thoughts are overtaken today, my head – literally and metaphorically – in the clouds. And as my phone starts to ring in my pocket, I think how I should be at home, spending Christmas with the important people that I love, and that are in my life now.
‘A little scary though, right? Standing over it like this?’
‘I think that’s why I’m doing it. Keeps the mind off the jet lag.’ I pull out my phone and look at the screen, but I’ve just missed the incoming call from the UK. Rather than ring back, I drop my head again and go back to gazing down.
I’m high, high above the city, and she’s out there somewhere. Cali. Just as she’s always been in London, but this feels different, she feels closer, like there’s a pull to find her and to connect with her and that pull shouldn’t be there, it can’t be there. It’s over.
Yet here we are.
Chapter 11
Ember
Why oh why oh why did I let myself get roped into this? I don’t want to spend four days jammed in a train with these people. I can already feel the walls closing in on me.
They don’t care about me. They don’t want me there with them.
I walk through Toronto, lit up as far as the eye can see with strings of Christmas lights, though I pass them, barely noticing. My eyes are down, my stride fast, my mouth set in a line, my nose cold. I’m so stupid for agreeing to this. I just want to go home.
The city reminds me of London at Christmastime. Beautiful, lively, musical, but something I left behind. I walk past tall glass buildings and the statuesque CN Tower. I don’t slow my stride except to cross street after street. I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know where I’m going.
What the hell am I doing out here?
I sniffle into the cold. I miss my friends, my home. I miss the beach and the water. I miss my family. I miss having anyone to love me.
