He smiled so widely and I tried to mirror it, but I feared it was a dim approximation, and that made it falter even more because I knew I should want to smile just as wide.
Instead, I busied myself with the box sitting between us, which reminded me–
“Oh, before I forget,” I said, jumping to my feet, leaving Patrick sitting there with a bemused expression on his face.
I dashed out to the hall, rummaged through my bag and padded back into the living room, clutching the small parcel I’d brought with me, but not because I’d thought it would be weird to not get my–my boyfriend a present on Christmas, but just because it seemed like something he’d like.
“Here,” I said, holding out the messily wrapped present, warmth blooming across my cheeks. He smiled at me as if I’d handed him the keys to Buckingham Palace.
“You first,” he nudged my present back towards me as I sat down.
“Together?” I suggested instead, and he nodded in easy agreement.
I pulled the ribbon off the box as he tore into the wrapping paper. I pulled the lid off the box and found a scarf nestled inside. It was varying shades of grey shot through with silver. It looked like a storm cloud. I reached out to touch it. It was made of the softest wool, almost silk-like.
“I hope you like it,” Patrick said, and I raised my eyes to meet his where he watched me carefully. “You’re always forgetting yours. I hope the colour is alright, I saw it when I was in Covent Garden last week, and I thought it would suit you… Ky? Have I done something wrong? Was it the girlfriend thing?”
He leaned forward to touch my knee.
“No, no!” I waved my hands. “It’s perfect, I love it, really. It just reminded me of something. Must be the lighting,” I forced myself to chuckle. “I really do love it. Thank you.”
I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“Was that alright?” I motioned at his hands, where he held his now-unwrapped gift. “The lady in the store said you lot are always losing the cards, but it seemed a bit silly to only get you those, so, I hoped–”
“I love it,” he cut me off, “thank you. And she was right, us photogs are always losing SD cards, but it’s not our fault. They ought to stop making them with legs, maybe they’d stop walking off. And this, I love this.” He held out the leather camera strap I’d gotten him.
“Well, you needed a new one,” I said, running my fingers over the scarf. I couldn’t seem to stop touching it. “Yours is falling to bits.”
“Thank you for noticing.” He grinned at me in a way I didn’t feel like I deserved.
“Merry Christmas, Thompson.” He leaned towards me, pressing his lips against mine.
It had been three years and twenty days since I’d left LA.
Flying back into LAX was like stepping back in time, except for the remnants of Covid that had left it’s mark. Tattered posters on the wall reminding people to keep six feet apart, unmanned hand sanitiser stations, and scuffed markings on the floor to show where to stand.
It was surreal to think about what life might have looked like, had I stayed until my contract expired. I would have seen it all happen here, instead of going home to my parents.
When I’d left LA, everything had been so different. I’d been different, and for a moment, as I stood marooned in a sea of people, the world seemed to glitch around me. For the barest moment, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, I was back there. In a world where I was leaving LA to make a life in Korea. It almost pulled me under. It would have, had someone not thrown me a life jacket.
“Babes!”
A petite, blonde pushed her way through crowds of people twice her size, looking for all the world like a gerbil digging a tunnel, until she tackled me.
“Oh shi-”
We tumbled to the ground in a heap of padded jackets and a once stolen duffle bag.
She was sobbing. Real, shoulder heaving sobs, clinging onto me as if she’d fall apart should she let me go, and even though I was winded, and possibly concussed, I reached for her, too.
It was mad, but that’s where we stayed. At least, until an airport employee came and demanded we get up and leave.
Eventually, we were upright, and standing face to face for the first time in years, and it was simultaneously like yesterday, and like a thousand lifetimes ago that I’d laid eyes on her. I saw in her all the little ways that life had happened. Her new glasses, a scar on her chin that she’d gotten from falling while trying to learn how to rollerblade around the apartment. Even her hair was slightly less blonde.
But past all that, I saw the one person in my life that I would consider my soul mate. My best friend. The person I loved, even when I didn’t like her in that moment.
We didn’t speak for several minutes, and I knew she was seeing all the changes life had wrought on me, too.
