Chapter 35
December
Not that I didn’t enjoy spending time with them, of course I did, but there was a distinct difference between living at home and visiting home, and somehow the difference was the sense of claustrophobia you got when you’re there for a brief visit.
It felt like my world had expanded once I’d moved out, and trying to shove it back into the confines of my parent’s home, even for a week, felt exhausting.
Mum was still in remission, and Dad had presented her with tickets to a Viking River Cruise for next year. They were still so in love, and while I loved that, it was hard to be around sometimes.
Mum had ventured to ask if I was seeing anyone, but I hadn’t felt comfortable telling her about Patrick. It was too soon, and being back in my parent’s house at Christmas, talking about boys… it felt like I was chasing echoes.
Patrick opened the door, his smile growing broad as he looked down at me from where I stood on his doorstep.
“Is that the ghost of Christmas past?”
“I’m cold, not dead, let me in,” I grumbled.
He moved to the side and opened the door wider, letting me step through so I could stomp the wet slush off my boots onto the mat. It never really snowed in London, but that didn’t stop it sleeting. Horrible, wet little daggers, part rain, part ice, all awful.
“Come on, Rudolph, let me help you with your coat.”
He turned me around and helped me shrug the heavy coat from my arms before hanging it up. It dripped, making little puddles on the mat .
“Rudolph?” I asked, turning to face him as I peeled off my gloves, and toed off my wet shoes.
“Your nose,” he teased, tapping the end of it. “It’s all red.”
Self consciously, I reached up to touch my face, becoming aware of how cold it was. I probably looked like one of Santa’s elves.
“Come on,” he said, reaching for my hand to pull me further into the house, “I made dinner. I hope you’re hungry.”
“No more turkey, please,” I groaned.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Pasta al forno alright, then? Not a single turkey harmed in the making.”
“Perfect,” I sighed.
After eating, we sprawled out in his living room, where he’d built a fire in the tiled hearth that crackled merrily away, warming me more effectively than any modern radiator.
Patrick lived in a Victorian terraced house, a common enough sight in London.
He shared the house with two others, but they’d both gone home for Christmas.
“I got you this,” he said, surprising me by reaching under the Christmas tree and pulling out a box tied up in a neat green ribbon. He slid it towards me, and I tentatively reached for it.
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” I protested weakly.
“Be a bit weird if I didn’t get my girlfriend anything for Christmas,” he said with half a shrug that seemed to be part self-deprecation, and part something else.
My fingers stilled where they’d been pulling at the ribbon.
“Is that alright?” He asked, his eyes finding mine for half a second before they roamed over my face.
“Calling you my girlfriend? I know I didn’t ask, I didn’t know if, I dunno, if you’d thought about it.
Because, you know, I’m not seeing anyone else, or anything like that and I wasn’t sure if you were or… .”
Patrick looked away and ran a hand along the back of his neck.
“I know we didn’t have a conversation about it, so it’s alright if, y’know-”
I reached forward and pressed my fingers to his mouth, halting the stream of unfiltered consciousness that seemed to be falling out of it.
“It’s fine,” I said, but quietly as the words were barely able to squeeze past the lump in my throat.
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.
“You’re the same,” she declared, eventually.
“So are you,” I agreed.
Even though, neither of us was, not really. We were the same to each other.
We stood on the pavement outside Becka’s building, staring up at the windows we’d shared for a brief a period. It looked the same.
“Milo’s pee patch looks remarkably verdant.”
I pointed at the little square of grass, home to a dwarf tree and now several wildflowers. It had always been a bit of a scraggly area of greenery, owing to it being the unofficial peeing area for Milo – a geriatric little Chihuahua that belonged to Becka’s downstairs neighbour.
“Milo died,” Becka said in a hushed voice.
I gasped. “No!”
She nodded. “In the spring. He had a good run.”
“He had a nice life,” I agreed.
In his later years, he’d taken a shine to Becka, which largely seemed to involve trying to mark her by peeing on her.
“May he rest in peace,” I said solemnly.
“Come on.” She nudged me, and together we walked inside, out of the chilly LA morning.
The apartment looked as though I had just gotten home working a day at Pisces.
“It’s the same,” I remarked with some surprise, noting only after that I’d said that same phrase half a dozen times since the airport.
It was true, though. I’d kind of expected it to reflect some difference from the past two years, including her cohabitation with Ben, her again ex-boyfriend.
“New couch,” she said lightly.
“You bought the same one?” I asked dubiously.