Or maybe that’s just me?
I think ithasto be just me, because I’m just over a week into ‘living for the moment’ with Elliot, and if my life was a movie, I guess this would be the montage scene.
The snow keeps falling, turning the village into a scene from a Christmas card. We go for walks in it, our hands linked, even though our fingers feel like they’re about to fall off from the cold by the time we head back indoors. We drink mugs of hot chocolate in cozy pubs, with log fires and Christmas carols playing in the background. (I draw the line at mulled wine, but I can’t deny the vibes are still the same… ) We spend long afternoons curled up in Elliot’s sagging double bed inhis hotel room; me reading, him writing, both of us just marking time until we can reasonably forget everything else and fall into each other’s arms again.
It’s amazing. It’s perfect, actually. Even the days when I have to work at the bookstore, and Elliot comes and sits at the counter with me, while Dad glares at us from between the bookshelves like a soap opera spy, have a slightly surreal, dreamlike feeling to them, which has me constantly questioning when I’m going to wake up.
And the entire time it’s happening, the knowledge that there’s a time-limit to it all hangs above us like a noose. I try my best to ignore it, because I know perfectly well that’s not how this is supposed to work; that over-thinking everything doesn’t exactly meet the criteria of ‘living in the moment’. That we’re having a fling, not falling in love. But then, every time I meet Elliot’s eye, and he gives me one of those smiles of his, I realize this doesn’t feel like ‘just a fling’ at all; and the thought of his imminent departure becomes a rogue full-stop in the middle of a sentence I wanted to read to the end.
I don’t tell Elliot any of this, though. There isn’t much point. He’s leaving, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it; so I just smile back, and kiss him as if I haven’t realized there’s an upper limit on the number of times we’ll do this.
But there is.
I don’t know what the exact number is, but from the moment we met, Elliot and I were destined to have only a set number of kisses, a certain amount of walks in the snow, and only a handful of days together.
One day soon, all of this will end. And it won’t be anything like losing Mum, because Elliot will still be somewhere out there in theworld, but it will still hurt — which is why, I tell myself I’mliving in the moment, but, the entire time I’m holding a little of myself back. Telling myself this isn’t serious. That we’re just having fun; orenjoying each other’s company, as Elliot put it.
I tell myself I can do this. That some people are just meant to be a single chapter of your life; even the ones who seem like they’re going to be one of the main characters. That’s how it is for me and Elliot. We’re a short story, nothing more. A one-season romance that will end along with the winter.
And that’s why I can never let him know that, in my head, I’ve been secretly imagining a different ending.”
“So? What do you think?”
We’re lying in Elliot’s bed again, our feet intertwined as I finish reading the latest pages of his manuscript. I put them down beside me and turn to face him.
“I like it,” I say carefully. “I think the characterization is amazing. Your great -grandfather — Luke — especially. I feel like I know him.”
“But…?” Elliot looks at me anxiously. “I’m not wrong, am I? There’s something missing?”
I prop myself up on one elbow and rummage through the piles of paper scattered on the bed until I find what I’m looking for.
“I think it needs something more,” I tell him, holding up the photo of the couple in the square, so he can see it. “I think it needs this.Her. Or someone like her, anyway.”
“Her?” He looks at the photo, then back at me. “The woman in the photo? You think I should turn it into a love story?”
He pulls a face, as if the thought doesn’t exactly appeal to him.
“Not exactly,” I say, smiling as I place the photo back down on top of the others. “It doesn’t have to be the whole story. But maybe a sub plot? Something to, I don’t know, kind of pull people through it? Give them something to hope for — other than that he makes it through the war alive, I mean? I don’t know. It’s just an idea. You’re the writer, here; I just read.”
“Hey. Don’t do that,” Elliot says seriously. “Don’t put yourself down. I asked you to take a look at it because I value your opinion. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
I force a smile, stoically resisting the ever-present impulse to say something self-deprecating, and completely spoil the moment. Because that’s not what ‘live for the moment’ Holly would do, and that’s the Holly I’m currently pretending to be.
“You’re smart, Holly,” Elliot insists, refusing to let me off the hook. “I don’t understand why you seem to think you’re not. Did someone tell you that? Is that why you doubt yourself so much?”
He sits up, as if he’s prepared to leap out of bed and fight them, if I say they did. This time, my smile is genuine.
“No one said that,” I assure him, giggling at the fierce look on his face. “It’s just… well,me, I guess.Itell myself that. Look, I didn’t go to college like you did. Or like all of my friends did. I just stayed at the bookshop. And then the people I grew up with all graduated andmoved away, and I’m still here; still in that bookshop, still doing exactly what I’ve always done.”
I do my best to keep my tone light, but Elliot isn’t fooled.
“Well, for one thing, there’s nothing wrong with the bookstore,” he says firmly. “I think it’s pretty cool, actually. And, for another—” he reaches out and threads his fingers through mine — “Just because you’re here right now, it doesn’t mean this is where you’ll always be. There’s a big old world out there, you know. Maybe it’s time to think about seeing some of it?”
The words hang in the air between us. I think about Florida, with its orange groves and theme parks; about California palm trees swaying in the sun. I think about sunshine; the kind of heat that feels like a physical presence — a wall of warmth that hits you as you step off the plane.
Then I think about Dad, trying to manage the bookstore alone; going home each night to an empty flat; getting a little older, and a whole lot lonelier with every year that passes.
The sunshine and the six-lane highways abruptly disappear, like the mirage that they are.
