AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You don’t get to touch me,’ she says, as though the idea is repugnant to her when I know otherwise.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Bec
ause I love you.’ She says the words as though they offend her. ‘I can’t be with you, Noah, and God, you make me madder than hell.’ I see then that she’s been crying and my chest heaves. I ache for her. ‘Maybe you were right about everything in my office today.’ It’s just a whisper, an admission that I am desperate to rebut. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.’
It’s the last thing I expect her to say.
‘It doesn’t mean I don’t still want to help you.’
‘Come inside,’ I say gruffly, but she shakes her head.
‘No. I don’t... I don’t ever want to go into your house again.’ She swallows, her beautiful throat bobbing with the action. ‘But I’m going to make an appointment for you with Dr Chesser.’
‘No.’ I’m emphatic. ‘No more doctors.’
‘He’s great at what he does. You won’t be able to pull your crap with him.’
‘I said no.’ The words are forceful. ‘If you’re not going to come inside, Holly, then go home. This conversation is over.’
I give her a second to agree, to join me, and when she doesn’t I storm into my home and shut the door. As before, I lean against it, waiting for my breathing to return to normal, waiting to feel like myself.
I don’t. I don’t know how long passes with me standing like that, but eventually I straighten. I wrench the door inwards, wondering if she’s still there, not knowing what I’ll say if she is.
She’s not, but a carrier bag is on the top step. I hadn’t noticed it before.
I reach for it automatically. It has the Rivière logo on it. I peer inside. A dozen oysters and a small bottle of champagne, as well as a little box. My heart races as I open it. There’s a single ornament inside. A turtle dove made of silver, with a red velvet ribbon and a bell at its base. It twinkles as I shove it back in the bag and then my fingers curl around a piece of card. A business card, as it turns out. Her name is on the front, and on the back...
This isn’t over, Noah.
She obviously wrote it before tonight. Before this.
And maybe she believed it when she wrote it. But I’d sure shown her. She walked away from me like everyone else—but only after I made it impossible for her not to.
* * *
I had Christmas lunch around the corner from her house.
I had Christmas lunch surrounded by happy families, couples, people drinking and eating turkey, ham and pudding, and now I am here, half-cut, staring at her door with a belligerent rage. A rage at how beautiful her house is. At how picture-perfect, like all those houses I coveted as a child. A big, fluffy green wreath on her door, made of holly and ivy, and more strung down the steps that lead to it.
The windows are glowing now, the light from within warm, and my heart achingly cold, like the rest of me.
I nurse the bottle of beer against my gut, leaning on a fence across the street from Holly’s perfect house, biding my time.
It underscores how bad I am for her. How wrong. Wrong in every way. Holly is beautiful, smart, with a daughter just like her. Holly has suffered enough. Holly has a great job and a beautiful home and she deserves to be with someone who will slide into this lovely life of hers. Who’ll sit by her side and eat roast turkey and sing carols and laugh with her.
My stomach has a stitch deep in its lining. It’s not me. That will never be me.
Eventually, another couple leaves and I’m sure this must be the last of them. I stare at her house, waiting to catch a glimpse of Holly, just a glimpse.
She is my kryptonite and I am hers. She talks of love, but that’s not how it’s meant to be, is it? Love is meant to strengthen people, not weaken them, and Holly has unpicked me to the end.
Or is it the absence of Holly?
My needing Holly?
I grimace and cross the street unsteadily, waiting on her doorstep to see if I hear noises within but catching only the faint rasp of Christmas carols.
