Page 126 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

And there he was. He was dressed in the suit he’d worn to his brother’s wedding, as if everything that had happened between that night and this one had been a time blip. For a split second, we were still in New York – me having never freaked out on that Brooklyn sidewalk, and Mum never having willingly microdosed plant-based poison. But all of that stuff had needed to happen, hadn’t it? Mum’s hospital trip had made the three of us closer than we’d ever been. And me leaving Ethan the way I did had brought him here.

As soon as he caught sight of me, Ethan jogged towards me for the final few metres and scooped me into his arms just as the first bell of midnight struck. And then time, sound and pretty much everything stopped, as if we were cocooned inside our own private noise-cancelled bubble.

‘How are you here?’ I asked, when we finally paused for breath, the bells still chiming, the sky lit up with fireworks.

‘You didn’t get my postcard?’ he murmured, re-wrapping my scarf around my exposed neck that had flapped loose during my desperate dash towards him.

‘Evidently I did,’ I said, removing a pair of gloves from my pockets and putting them on his freezing cold hands. ‘To be honest, the idea of a living, breathing rasher of bacon seems more likely than you getting on a plane.’

‘I made an extremely bold exception thanks to the intervention of a hypnotherapist. And I may be slightly high on edibles right now.’

‘Ethan!’

‘Worth it. Y’see, I actually got a cab to JFK that day you flew out, but this stupid brain of mine wouldn’t let me make it through the door. I’m sorry.’

‘Your brain isn’t stupid,’ I said, removing his tapping fingertip from his temple.

‘No?’

‘No. It’s just… yours.’ I brushed his floppy fringe away from his eyes and gazed into them.

He’s here. And I have so much I want to say to him.

In that instant, I remembered the speech I’d spent the last few days writing to untangle everything I was feeling, prompted by Anneka’s suggestion. The latest version was sitting in my email drafts – I’d been on the verge of sending it to Ethan yesterday, but I’d decided to wait until the new year.

Well, it’s the new year, now.

With shaking hands, I removed my phone from my pocket and opened up the draft email in question.

‘Are you okay, Flora?’

‘Umm, I have something I’d like to read to you if that’s okay?’

‘Flora Bell, are you about to… give a speech?’

‘Yeah, kinda.’

‘Oh, Flor, you don’t have—’

‘Please – I want to,’ I said, interrupting him.

‘Okay.’ He squeezed my shoulders before dropping his hands, sliding them into his pockets and looking at me, shyly but expectantly.

I took a small pace backwards, away from him, so my words would have the space they needed. It made me feel more powerful and more vulnerable at the same time. And then I began to speak.

‘Once upon a time, I was dragged to New York by my chaotic yet well-meaning mum and sister. I’d always dreamed of visiting New York at Christmas, but going to New York that Christmas was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. It had been the worst year of my life and I was perfectly happy to spend the season rotting on the sofa with an orange cat. But, as soon as I arrived in the city, something inside me started to shift. And then I met you.

‘You didn’t know I’d been brought to the city you called home against my will. You thought I was a confident, put-together woman who’d flown across the Atlantic alone for a solo trip.’

Ethan opened his mouth to speak – no doubt to remind me about all the croissant crumbs – but I shot him a look and he closed it.

‘But the more time I spent with you, the more I began to feel like the woman I was pretending to be. Being with you felt easy. More than that, actually. Being with you finally made me feel… free.’

I paused for a moment, taking another gulp of air.

‘But then I freaked out. When you told me about what happened between you and your ex, I did my usual thing and automatically jumped to the worst possible conclusion. I took the wrong turn from that pavement – that sidewalk – in Brooklyn. I know that now.

‘Ethan.’ I took the tiniest step towards him. ‘The truth is this: I was lying when I said it would be easiest if we didn’t see each other again. Because it’s not easy at all. I want to see you every single day. I don’t regret a second of the time we spent together, even if – in a different version of this story – it could have ended much more happily.