Page 14 of Away With You
Her eyes well up, and she frowns. Rosie has always been an empath; when others hurt, she feels it. “That’s awful.”
The image of Katie alone in her small, colourful flat sits heavy alongside my pasta in my stomach. “And I don’t think she has any other family. So, it’s just her.”
“That makes me want to cry,” she sniffles.
I squeeze her hand. “I mean, our parents are a nightmare, and don’t get me started on George”—her frown turns feral—“but we’ve got each other and dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles. We’ve got a community. And Katie…she seems to have nobody.”
A heavy silence sinks between us, and I can see from the look on my sister’s face that she’s rushing to fix it. Guaranteed, within the next ten minutes, she’ll be befriending Katie online and forging a friendship from there. Her soft heart won’t allow the idea of anyone to feel alone.
Right on cue, she asks, “What can we do to fix it?”, and her gleaming eyes suggest she has many, many solutions ready to go.
Again, I picture Katie’s flat, decorated in her quirky style, without an ounce of Christmas cheer to be seen.What did shesay about her lack of a Christmas tree? Something about sad, single gals and movies?
“I had an idea,” I say. Rosie leans in eagerly. “Katie was telling me how hard it is to get a Christmas tree up to her flat by herself, something aboutWhen Harry Met Sallyand being a sad, single gal…”
She puts her hand up. “I know exactly what she’s talking about. In the movies, if you’re alone at Christmas, it means you’re pulling a tree to your sad flat by yourself through the snow. It’s the most depressing depiction of being single during the holidays.”
“Right,” I say, though I’m still a little lost.Perhaps I need to watch one of these movies to understand the reference?“So, I was thinking, maybe I should offer to help her? I can be there to pull the Christmas tree through the snow with her.”
Her face positively glows at this suggestion. “This is the best. I love this idea. You totally have to do it. It will go perfectly with your re-meet cute.”
A re-meet cute?I still have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Do you think it’s a weird thing to offer, though?” I say. “Given we’ve only just reconnected and we’re not really friends?”
She sits back in her seat and rubs her belly with a contented sigh. “Oh, big brother. I don’t think you should offer. Katie will only say no. You need to turn up and make it happen. If you want to make this season more festive for her, then you’re going to have to just show up. She can’t turn you away.”
My mind flashes back to Katie and her firm refusal to have dinner with me tonight and wonder if this is true. But at the same time, Rosie’s plan means I can at least try to brighten up her Christmas season, and if I get to spend more time with her in the process? Well then, it’s a very Merry Christmas to me.
CHAPTER 5
KATIE
Sunday mornings are my favourite time of the week. It’s the day when I carve out a chunk of time to do nothing. Saturdays usually disappear in a flurry of chores and must-do-things that I neglect during the week. But Sundays? They are for lying in bed, with a cup of tea and my new favourite novel. I’m currently in a ‘I want to have my heart ripped out of my chest’ reading phase and am deep down the Kristin Hannah rabbit hole. I started withThe Great Aloneand am now crying my way throughThe Nightingale. With no intention of getting up and adulting until I’ve reached the bitter-sweet end.
“Katie? Are you up?”
Jade, it seems, has other plans for me. True to her word, last night she was waiting on my couch when I returned from meeting with Nathan, and we spent several hours dissecting every word, syllable and inflection of our two-hour, two-hot-chocolate conversation. She was less than thrilled that I turned down Nathan’s offer to have dinner, proclaiming it to be the height of stupidity, and we lapsed into a tense silence after that.
“Go away,” I yell now while burrowing deeper under my duvet.
“No can do!” She bounces into my room, a flash of bright purple and aquamarine, jumping into my bed and snuggling in beside me. Clearly, I’ve been forgiven for sins against romance (her words, not mine), and she’s here to make up.
Or make trouble. Either way, she’s here.
“What are we doing today?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. Jade is a social butterfly and is booked solid most days. Sundays for her generally involve some sort of exercise (ugh) and going outside (also, ugh). So, I’m not entirely sure what she’s doing here with me.
Picking up my book, I wave it in front of her. “Thisis what I’m doing today. I have no plans, other than to rot in bed and sob over these two sisters and all they endured during World War Two.”
My friend looks baffled, her eyes flitting from the book in my hands to the expression on my face. “Oh no, this will not do. You need to leave your bed and go out.”
“I went out yesterday,” I whine.
She grins. “Oh, I remember. You went on a date with Nathan Jackson.”
My insides take a tumble, intestines twisting around my liver and making their way up to my heart. At least that’s how it feels whenever she says stuff like that. No matter how many times I argue it was just a catch-up between two old friends, she argues back—louder—that you can’t just be friends with a man like that.
