It doesn’t seem real. Itcan’tbe real.
I, Holly Hart, have somehow managed to land the ghostwriting gig of a lifetime.
It’s anactualChristmas miracle.
And I’m not allowed to tell anyone about it.
Which is just fine, as it happens: because when I finally look up from the computer screen, my fingers still trembling on the keyboard, I find that Elliot Sinclair has already gone.
10
PAST
DECEMBER, 10 YEARS AGO
As it turns out, I’m not particularly good at living ‘in the moment’.
For most people, living each day as if it’s your last means living with gay abandon, and little regard for the consequences. And good for them. I wish they could teach me their ways, because, in reality, it’s kind of exhausting, really, living each day as if it’s your last. Always worrying if you’re enjoying things enough; if you’re truly experiencing life to itsabsolutefullest, or if there’s perhaps something more you could be doing to ensure you’re appreciating it all appropriately.
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 ofhot 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 in his 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 the world, 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.”
