Page 8 of The Christmas Letter

A cyclist in the wrong lane? He really didn’t like that. Or maybe he couldn’t find something he needed to pack for Prague?

‘Are you at home?’ Daniel asked, his words tumbling into one another.

‘Err, yes . . .’

‘Ok . . . Look, I’m five minutes away. Can I come by?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be packing?’ It was the reason he’d given for not wanting to see her earlier, when she’d suggested they meet up before he left for Prague. His flight was going out first thing tomorrow – Christmas Eve was cheaper, apparently.

‘I know, I just . . . Look, Holly, I really need to talk to you.’

‘Ok, well, come on over!’ She didn’t like his tone, but she kept hers optimistically bright. There was no reason to freak out, none at all.

A few minutes later, Daniel let himself in the front door. She’d given him a key and the code to the block of flats about six months ago – another of those steps she’d thought she ought to take. She stood up as he shut the door behind him, noticing the letters stuffed through the letterbox, ones she hadn’t got round to sorting yet. Some of them must be Abi’s – she still hadn’t changed her address, though not through lack of organisation, but rather, Holly knew, a worry that things wouldn’t work – that however much she loved James, living together would uncover some incompatibility that they’d never noticed before.

Holly conjured up a smile for Daniel, who was wearing that oversized expensive black coat he’d bought two years ago. It didn’t fit him very well and the black made him look washed out, especially in winter, but she’d never said anything.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Holly asked. ‘I’ve got those lemon and ginger teabags that you like.’ She headed for the kitchen – kitchenette, really – which joined on to the living room. But he didn’t follow her.

She turned back around. He was patting his blond hair, the way he did when he was nervous, making it even flatter and highlighting the fact it was thinning out on top – something he was self-conscious about, she knew, but which she’d told him, repeatedly, didn’t bother her.

‘Daniel? What’s up?’

He took a breath, his chest expanding with the motion. ‘Holly.’ His voice was a little strangled. ‘This isn’t working.’

Holly frowned. ‘What isn’t working? The tea?’

He shifted from foot to foot. He hadn’t taken off his shoes, Holly noticed – still in those chunky walking boots that were his go-to in winter. ‘Us.’

She looked at him blankly, genuinely baffled. ‘What do you mean, us?’

He closed his eyes briefly – a pale blue. ‘Sorry.’ He patted down his hair again. ‘God, sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.’

‘Blurt what out?’

‘I don’t think . . . That is to say, you and I . . .’

She stared at him – at the thinning hair, the eyes that wouldn’t quite meet her gaze, the crooked nose from breaking it as a child after falling out of a tree – and felt a dawning realisation. ‘Wait, wait, wait . . . Are you . . . Is this a break-up?’

His grimace was enough to confirm it.

‘What the hell, Daniel!’ She took a breath, tried to take the snap out of her voice – that was unlikely to help anything. ‘Where has this come from?’

‘It’s . . .’ He swallowed. ‘It’s been coming a while.’

‘For a while?’ And there she’d been, postponing looking for a flatmate under the assumption that sooner or later they’d be living together. ‘Well, thanks a lot for clueing me in on that.’ She pulled both hands through her hair, only realising then that she hadn’t brushed it today. ‘Why?’

‘I . . .’ He dropped his gaze to the beige carpet. ‘I don’t think your heart’s in it.’

‘Are you serious?’ She felt her temper rising again. ‘You’re showing up here, the day before Christmas Eve to break up with me and you’re blaming me?’

‘I didn’t want to wait to talk to you about it,’ Daniel said, his words rushed. ‘I mean, I was going to wait until the new year, but I was talking to my mate and he pointed out we’d do all the presents, the whole shebang, over Christmas and it didn’t feel right to go through that, when I knew . . .’

She could only stare at him. How had she not seen this coming? How had she not even had an inkling?

‘And at least this way,’ he continued, ‘we have a few weeks before we’ll see each other again at work.’

‘Oh yes,’ Holly said bitterly. ‘Very considerate of you.’ She turned from him, heading for the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. She didn’t know what to do. What were you supposed to do, in this situation? She’d never actually had someone break up with her before – all her relationships before Daniel had been short-lived, and they’d just sort of . . . fizzled out.