Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
“ W e’re so looking forward to having you work here, Natalie. See you on Monday?”
“I can’t wait,” Natalie said, rising to take the hand of the owner of the bakery where she’d just interviewed for the position of manager. The two of them had spoken on the phone twice prior to today's meeting, which ended up being a formality—the job was Natalie’s, if she wanted it.
Which she did. Sort of.
“And Natalie?” the owner said as Natalie made her way to the door. When she turned, the other woman offered her a warm smile. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” Natalie tried not to sound as half-hearted as she felt, and as she headed out the door, she averted her eyes from the gingerbread house display in the bakery’s front window. Not that it mattered, of course, because as soon as she stepped outside, she found herself in the middle of a crowd watching a Christmas Eve parade pass by, Santa bringing up the rear, perched in a firetruck and waving to the kids screaming in excitement. An elf hurling bags of candy managed to knock her right in the nose, and she winced and tried to rub away the pain before slipping through the crowd, head bowed against the chilly air.
Only one more day, she reminded herself. A little more than twenty-four hours from now, she wouldn’t have to think about Christmas again for an entire year.
Her cell phone chimed with a text message, and she slid it out of her pocket.
I’m here. Grabbed us a table by the window. Can’t wait to see you. XX
Natalie stared down at the message for several seconds, her heart in her throat. Then, with a sigh of resignation, she checked the directions she’d written on a square of paper prior to the interview. To his credit, Devin had agreed to meet her at a coffee shop only a few blocks from the bakery, which was more than two hours from his home. The drive certainly wouldn’t have been an easy one, especially on Christmas Eve, and with the forecasters warning of a white Christmas. Fortunately, Natalie didn’t have to worry about the weather—for the time being, she was staying in a hotel room in the city, with plans to find a more permanent place to live after the new year.
As she strode through the city streets, nose burning from the cold, she couldn’t help but notice how the passersby just… well, passed her by. They were staring at the ground, or else their noses were buried in their phones, and not a single person greeted her, or even glanced her way as they hurried about their business. Not like in Chestnut Cove, where Natalie couldn’t walk more than a few feet before running into someone she knew—or someone she was about to know, because strangers very quickly became friends.
She missed it. More than she thought she would, like a constant ache in the pit of her stomach. And she missed Gabe. She missed him terribly, and?—
No , she reminded herself firmly. Do not go there . Gabe was in the past—a brief but beautiful memory, something to hold on to in the darkest hours of the night, and nothing more.
Natalie’s stomach dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her feet as she approached the coffee shop and saw her ex-fiancé through the window, his head bent over his phone, a mug of coffee in front of him. He looked so comfortable, so at ease, while Natalie’s heart was slamming so hard against her ribcage she feared that something might break. Her mind wandered unconsciously to Humphrey the reindeer, and an unexpected wave of longing washed over her. Despite their tenuous relationship, she even missed glaring at him from across the room when none of the children were looking, and okay, yes, she might have slipped him a cookie or two, or two dozen, because he was pretty cute. In a beastly sort of way.
A rush of warm, fragrant air greeted her as she shouldered open the door to the coffee shop, but instead of heading to the counter to order, she walked directly to Devin’s table, yanked out the chair across from him, and sat down.
He glanced up, startled, and then his eyes softened as they roamed over her face hungrily. “Hi,” he said, reaching across the table for her hands. She stared at his outstretched hands for a moment, then tucked hers firmly into her lap. He winced. “Okay, sure, I definitely deserve that.” Letting out a long breath, he raked his fingers through his hair. “Thanks for meeting me,” he said. “I was hoping we could… you know. Talk.”
“So talk.” Natalie could feel a tic going in her jaw as she looked at him, the man she had loved, and adored, and planned a life with before he burned it all to the ground. She had no intentions of making this easy on him, because he certainly hadn’t given her that same consideration when he blew up her life without warning.
And ultimately, sent her into the arms of the man she was always meant to be with.
Her eyes burned with tears as she thought of Gabe, the agony scrawled across his face that last night together, when she told him she was leaving. More than a week had passed since she’d last seen him, or heard his voice, and the void he left in her heart—no, her soul —was bottomless.
“Oh, Natalie, I’m so sorry.” This time Devin managed to successfully grab her hand. He looked pained as he reached across the table to brush away her tears. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, I must have been out of my mind…” He shook his head roughly. “I’ve gone through ev erything over and over in my head, and I guess—I don’t know, I guess I got cold feet? The prospect of spending a lifetime together just made me freak out, and that’s not your fault, it’s mine. But it only took five minutes after you walked out that door for me to come to my senses, and ever since then, I’ve been missing you like crazy.”
He paused, presumably waiting for her to say something. When she remained silent, he squeezed her hands tightly. “I want a do-over. I want to make things right.” He brushed away the fresh wave of tears that had formed and were now trickling down her cheeks. His voice softened. “I don’t ever want to make you cry again.”
At this, she looked up, her expression hardening. “I’m not crying over you, Devin. And I haven’t been crying over you for weeks.” His face went slack, but her voice was steel. “I only agreed to meet with you today so I could tell you in person to stop calling me. Stop texting me. Stop believing for even a single second that I would consider taking you back. Seven years, Devin. Seven years , and you discarded me on the sidewalk like a piece of trash.”
She stood from the table, tucking her purse over her shoulder, ignoring the curious stares of the other patrons. “I also wanted you to know something else. While it’s true that I loved you for the past seven years, it’s only taken a few weeks for me to realize that I was never in love with you. And you were never in love with me, either, because if you were…” Gabe’s face was in her mind again, and the words were stuck at the base of her throat. “If you were, you would have begged me to stay.”
She took a step back from the table. “So goodbye, Devin, and… have a nice life. I mean that. Truly. Because at the end of the day, that’s what each of us deserves.”
And then, without further ado, she was gone, closing the door to the coffee shop—and closing that chapter of her life, forever.
The Christmas Eve parade had largely dispersed by the time Natalie was headed back to her hotel, though many children and their parents had lingered downtown, exploring the shops that were still open, or exclaiming over the window displays—though they were a poor comparison to Chestnut Cove’s, Natalie thought. After sidestepping a little boy belting out “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” to anyone who would listen, and then giggling hysterically, Natalie rounded the corner and came face to face with a little girl of around eight huddled up on a bench with her parents, the three of them enjoying hot cocoa and candy canes.
Natalie winced; their perfect little family was a dagger to the heart, so reminiscent of her own before it all went so horribly wrong. Her parents had lived for Christmas—every year, it was a weeks-long event that started the day after Thanksgiving and continued well into the new year.
Once, when Natalie was six, she’d begged her father to leave up the Christmas tree, and he had obliged—by the time the Fourth of July had rolled around, they were decorating it with red, white, and blue bows, and by Halloween, her mother declared that a haunted Christmas tree would be the perfect addition to their spooky décor. She could so clearly remember the two of them making ghosts out of Styrofoam balls, white garbage bags, and twist ties, then hanging so many from the tree its boughs were bent almost to the ground.
What would her mother think of her now?
That last thought shot through Natalie like a bullet, her lungs constricting to the size of pinholes as countless Christmas memories unfurled in her mind like a ball of yarn coming undone. Old records on the stereo, Bing’s voice filling every nook and cranny of the house. Sugar cookies baking in the oven, the air redolent with the scent of almond and vanilla, Natalie’s lips stained green from the spoonfuls of icing she’d snuck whenever her mother turned her head. Her father humming carols to himself as he unwound countless strands of lights while Natalie sat at the old piano, plinking out notes, trying to match the song.
They’d poured so much time into the holidays, so much love… how would they feel, knowing that their only daughter could no longer bear to celebrate the day that meant so much to them as a family?
They’d be devastated, Natalie knew. Absolutely devastated.
Another memory then, this time of her grandmother, the old woman’s wrinkled face wet with tears as she presented Natalie with the angel that had somehow survived the fire untouched. “It’s a Christmas miracle,” she’d whispered, her voice filled with wonder as she held Natalie tight. “A sign from your parents that they love you, and that they’re all right.”
Natalie had never believed that. For her, that angel was simply a fluke, something that had been in the right place at the right time. Nothing more, nothing less.
Her heart squeezed painfully as she pictured its face, so perfect, so peaceful, having survived an unimaginable tragedy. For thirty years, she’d carried it with her, a reminder of all that she had lost, a final connection to the parents she missed so desperately.
But… what if her grandmother had been right? What if that angel was one last message from her parents, reminding her that miracles did exist, even in the darkest of times… and that she should live her life to the fullest, with love and hope and joy, until they could meet again.
As she was lost in thought, and lost in memories, Natalie’s feet had carried her to the hotel where she was temporarily staying. She hurried through the lobby, then jammed her finger repeatedly on the elevator button until the doors opened. Her mind was on her suitcase, on that little angel tucked safely inside… the angel she now needed to see, to touch, to hold, a desperate need, instinctual.
Out of the elevator, down the hall, into her room, then Natalie fell to her knees in front of the suitcase, pawing through it, pushing aside clothes and shoes and toiletries… and then her search became more frantic when that red velvet box was nowhere to be se en. She searched the suitcase once, twice, three times, her pulse racing, then the blood in her veins turned to ice as she realized the angel wasn’t there.
The last gift from her parents, her most treasured possession. Gone.