Page 91 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘You signed up to Hinge, Will! What did you think would happen? You’d meet up with people to swap DIY tips?!’

‘I was just trying something new. I was only looking for something casual.’

‘You’ve never been casual about anything in your whole life! Jesus, you wore a three-piece suit to your first university lecture!’

‘But that’s exactly the point! I needed to see where the wind took me for once in my life.’

‘The wind brought both of us here, as it happens.’

‘Yeah, what a crazy breeze. I’m glad it did, though.’

My eyes flicked up to his in surprise. ‘You are?’

‘Yeah. We needed to talk, didn’t we? And it feels oddly apt to have this conversation here, in New York.’

‘Oh. You mean, our last ever conversation?’

‘No! You’re so dramatic sometimes, Flor. Of course we’ll talk again! At the very least, we’re both Noah and Nancy’s godparents. But is this our last ever conversation about… us? Probably.’

I took a sip of my hot chocolate – now cold – allowing the sweetness of it to distract me from my sadness, which – I couldn’t help but notice – was no longer all-consuming devastation.

‘Were you ever in love with me, Will?’ My question took me by surprise, but Will didn’t seem shocked by it, clasping both my hands with his.

‘Flora. When we met, I cared about you more than anyone else I’d ever met in my life – and I knew for sure that you felt the same way about me. That meant so much to me. And our relationship had a lot of love attached to it.’

‘But how you feel about Briony is… different?’

Will opened his mouth and closed it again. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘The truth. Please.’

‘Okay. Yeah, how I feel about Briony is different. I’m sorry.’

I wiped away another tear. ‘Does she know about me? About the wedding?’

‘She knows everything.’

‘Right. This is going to sound strange but… can you tell me how it’s different?’

‘Jeez, Flora, are you sure you want to know?’

I nodded, because I wanted him to confirm what I already suspected.

‘Okay. Well, I guess the point is that I can’t tell you how it’s different, because the way I feel about Briony isn’t something I can easily summarise. Like, you know how you and me used to dissect every little thing about each other?’

‘Yeah, Anneka used to say that our relationship reminded her of how the characters in Dawson’s Creek used to talk to each other.’

‘Right?! Well, I’ve never done that with Briony. The feelings I have for her are just there. Like, they don’t need to be intellectualised into existence and there’s been no trauma-bonding or anything like that. Being with her just feels completely…’

‘Easy?’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it. She… likes the same games as me. We play them every night.’

I didn’t know it was possible to feel disappointment and an undeniable sense of release at the same time, yet here I was.

‘I understand.’

I really did. Because the words he used to describe being with Briony captured precisely how I felt about being with Ethan. Even though I’d only known him for a few days, every second spent in his company didn’t make me feel safe and grounded in the way that life with Will had once felt. Instead, being with him made me feel alive. It made me feel like me.