Page 118 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

Flora:

You can tell them everything is fine, and that it was nice to meet them. And your parents.

But, most of all, you.

I left that part unwritten.

Ethan:

I will. I can’t believe your mom and sister were here all this time.

Flora:

I should have told you. And I realise it’s v weird that I didn’t. But my family is a… complex entity.

Ethan:

Aren’t they all?

I didn’t have the time – or the brainpower – to reply to the last message. It was too big a question for a quick response – especially after everything I’d learned about Mum’s past in the last couple of hours. I’d lived my whole life assuming my upbringing had been way shitter than average, but perhaps I’d been so hung up on the idiosyncrasies of my own immediate relatives that I’d never stopped to consider that there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ family.

I pocketed my phone, waving farewell to the receptionist as I took my final spin around the hotel’s revolving doors. She grinned and waved in return.

‘JFK Terminal 8, please,’ I said to the driver, climbing into the back of the vehicle.

‘Cash, yeah?’

‘Yup, all good.’

I buckled myself in, contemplating the last three words that had left my mouth. Everything wasn’t ‘good’, but perhaps most things were, in fact, better than they had been when I’d first arrived in this city just under a week ago. The only exception was how I’d left things with Ethan.

For a split second, I wondered whether I should get the cab to take me to Brooklyn rather than JFK. Ethan and I could pretend the last few hours had never happened, switch off our damn brains for once and let ourselves give in to the connection we were both craving.

But, as tempting as it was to divert the cab, I knew heading to the airport was the most sensible and mature thing to do. It wouldn’t be fair on Ethan to show up unannounced on his doorstep, overshadowing his brother’s wedding day yet again. The poor guy had already been forced to manage more than his fair share of my emotional baggage in the short time he’d known me. And, even though I longed to be with him one last time, at least the actual ‘last time’ hadn’t come with a mandatory serving of emotional devastation.

It’s time to go home, and leave Ethan in peace.

The thing was, I didn’t want to leave him – or New York – at all.

Chapter 25

Finding literally any warm or comfortable position in the pre-security departure zone of JFK had driven me to the brink of insanity. No wonder I’d ended up mentally composing an ode to the relative sanctuary of my bathtub bed to the tune of O, Christmas Tree:

O bathroom-tub,

O bathroom-tub,

How lovely are your curved sides!

The two saving graces were a) my noise-cancelling headphones were currently doubling up as effective earmuffs against the cold, and b) I’d been able to connect to the airport’s reliable Wi-Fi to stay in touch with Anneka, who’d been sending me updates about Mum. According to Anneka, she was totally conked out and back to her usual snoring self for the first time in days. Her hourly reassurances were all the confirmation I needed that me taking this shivery hit tonight was more than worth it, and there was no point wallowing in self-pity about my temporary surroundings.

I’m here, I exist, and that’s all that matters.

While tossing and turning on the world’s least ergonomic bench – and when I wasn’t silently trying to find a suitable rhyme for the word ‘porcelain’ – my mind automatically wandered to Ethan. I mean, he could show up here, right? He knew where I was and he knew I had time to kill. Just perhaps…

But whenever I found myself glancing towards the entranceway, I forced myself back to my hard-edged reality, mentally listing all the reasons why him showing up here would be far from ideal:

You look like a mess.