Page 56 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Kate finished making the whiskey and raspberry ganache and placed all three bowls on a cold marble slab in the larder to set. She leafed through her sketches on the table, but she couldn’t concentrate. Instead she went into the lounge and built a fire in the hearth and sat on the sofa with her bar of chocolate for company.
Kate and Laura had gone to Liverpool University together: Kate to study fine art and textiles and Laura, business and tourism. Matt went to Manchester to study accounting and finance.
It was inevitable, Kate had supposed, that they should drift a littlefrom one another. What Kate hadn’t expected was Matt’s reluctance to keepanycontact. On the rare occasions Kate managed to fix a weekend to meet up, Matt wasn’t the same; he was distant, disdainful even. They bickered. Not so much Matt and Laura—they had never been as close—but oftentimes with Kate, it was as though he couldn’t help but say things that would drive her further away.
One weekend Matt came down to Liverpool, grumpy as usual, to find Laura away visiting Ben and Kate nursing a wounded heart from a breakup with an intense classics student named John.
Kate and Matt went out drinking. They drank hard. One thing led to another.
They woke up the next morning in Kate’s bed, awkward and embarrassed, a poster of Frida Kahlo glaring down at them from the sloping ceiling above the bed in her attic room. The smell of burning toast drifted up the staircase. Someone yelled something from the bedroom below. Matt couldn’t get out of Kate’s room and out of Liverpool quick enough.
After that their friendship quickly deteriorated. It wasn’t that Kate had expected anything from Matt, but his dismissive attitude toward her was hurtful. She didn’t want a declaration of love, just an acknowledgment that it had happened, so that they could move forward.
After three weeks of being treated like an infectious disease, Kate traveled to Manchester to have it out with him.
“I’m not saying it meant anything,” said Kate. “But it was something. It did happen. And I think we should discuss it.”
“Can’t we just forget it ever happened?” asked Matt.
“Fine, then,” said Kate. “Why don’t we talk about what’s going on with you instead? Even before this you were distant, I rarely see you anymore and when wedomeet up, you’re always moody!”
“Oh, I’m always moody,” said Matt. “I wonder why that could be?”
“Yeah, I know,” said Kate. “I know it’s been horrific, but...”
“But what?” said Matt. “How do you know what’s it been like for me? Is your family dead?”
“Matt, I...” Kate started, but Matt cut her off.
“Is your family dead?”
“No,” said Kate. “But...”
“No,” said Matt. “They’re not. When they are, you can lecture me on mood swings.”
Kate closed her eyes. “You’re right that I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through, or how much pain you’ve been in. But your grief is not an excuse to behave like an arsehole, Matt! Sooner or later you’ve got to start taking responsibility for your actions.”
“Ahh, there it is!” said Matt. “That’s what this is really about: taking responsibility. So we had sex. So what? Now you want to be my girlfriend? You want to get married? What, Kate? What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop being such a selfish twat!” Kate yelled.
“Shit happens,” said Matt.
“Brilliant,” said Kate. “Let’s just sweep it under the carpet and pretend like everything’s normal. For Christ’s sake, Matt, I just want my friend back.”
“But I don’t want you,” said Matt.
“What?” Kate asked. His statement knocked the wind out of her. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” said Matt. “It’s time to grow up, Kate. Did you really think we’d be best friends forever? Me, you, Ben, and Laura? All living in a big house together in Blexford like the fucking Brady Bunch?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” said Kate. “We’re too old to be friends anymore? That’s stupid!”
“Stupid or not,” said Matt, “that’s the way it is.”
He was as good as his word. He ignored Kate’s phone calls and emails until she had no choice but to accept that they were indeed no longer friends.
It knocked her confidence. He’d always been there. And now suddenly he wasn’t, like an annoying brother who you fought with all the time and then missed when he wasn’t there to spar with.
