Page 85 of The Best Little Christmas Shop
I followed him through and a few minutes later I was sat on the cosy sofa, a blanket over me and fire crackling gently in the grate, warming up the already snug room. Silently, we sipped our drinks and I felt the soothing heat fromit spread inside me.
Neither of us spoke as we drank but the room and the company were soothing. Gradually the tension began to release from my body, with the drink and pastries helping to settle my insides and sugar levels.
‘Thank you,’ I said, facing Cal as I sat round a little on the sofa.
‘You’re very welcome. I’m glad you were here and I could help.’
‘I don’t normally go to pieces likethat.’
‘You didn’t go to pieces.’ His hand went to mine and I let it.
‘I don’t know if getting a phone call or seeing it happen in the moment is the worse option.’
‘I don’t suppose either is easy.’ Cal’s hand tightened for a moment.
‘I know you watch Formula One. Did you see the race where Marco had his big accident?’
Cal nodded. ‘I did. He was lucky to come away from that, I think.’
‘Hewas,’ I said, my voice breaking and tears threatening once again, emotions I’d been working to keep in check having free rein after the shock of earlier. The memories of that day at the track, and later the hurt on Marco’s face when I’d told him I was leaving, and the knowledge of exactly what it was I was pushing away right now were all colliding in my head.
Cal was right. Marco had been extremelylucky that day. The memory of it still brought a chill to my spine. Sat in the pit garage, we’d all watched in mute shock as a clip with another car had sent Marco careering off the track at speed, a freak chance causing the car to flip in almost every direction, finally stopping when it hit a crane that had been positioned to remove another car that had come off earlier at the same point.
Thesudden impact caused Marco’s car to halt its progress with such suddenness, it had literally dropped to the ground like a stone. A silence like I had never known – and hoped never to again – had descended over the paddock. We all knew that despite the incredible steps forward made in the racing industry in terms of safety, it could still be a highly dangerous sport. You couldn’t hope to accountfor every single possibility. There was always that chance. That freak moment.
Everyone had just stared at the screen, hoping for the best and fearing, almost knowing, the worst. Nobody came to a halt that suddenly, that violently, and survived. At least, not intact. It had happened once before and ended in tragedy. In that moment, the world was watching and wondering how it could have happenedagain. I’d gone out the back of the garage, thrown up, and sat hugging my knees, waiting for news. Wanting it, but at the same time, not wanting to know.
To the shock of everyone who’d witnessed it, Marco survived the crash. Bruised and out for several races, he defied the odds and although not literally at the time, he had walked away. When I’d first seen him in the hospital, I hadn’t knownwhether to hug him or punch him for scaring the life out of me so completely.
But the look he gave me, the look he’d kept hidden from the press and from most of his other visitors, had me rushing across the room to give the former. He knew just how lucky he’d been, and it had scared him. It brought it home that despite everything, despite all the accidents every driver had walked away from asthey’d gone from karting, transitioning through every stage to reach the top level they now drove at, they were all just as fallible as anyone else, no matter how much skill and protection they had.
‘Marco and I had been seeing each other for about a year by then. We were having fun, enjoying each other’s company but neither of us had serious plans. It was kind of hard to make those sort of plans– our lives were so busy and chaotic and Marco was never one for serious. He loves that life. The racing, of course but also the glitz of it. The parties. All the beautiful people. I never felt comfortable with all that.
‘But everything changed that day. Marco knew just how close he had come and it was as if with that knowledge came a wish to make the most of every moment he’d been given. A fewdays after the accident, I was just sat on the bed next to him in the hospital room, and he asked me to marry him.
‘I never should have said yes to his proposal,’ I told Cal, who was listening quietly, his large, warm hand still wrapped around mine, providing comfort but not pressure.
‘We were both so caught up in the emotional aftermath of something that we knew could have ended very differently.’
‘You didn’t love him?’
‘I did. But I realised after a while that it wasn’t in the right way. Or if in the right way, maybe just not quite enough. Not in the way I really should have if I was going to make a commitment like that. It wasn’t fair on me and it certainly wasn’t fair on him. He deserved so much more than that from me.’
‘It can’t have been an easy time. You shouldn’t be so hard onyourself.’
I pulled a face, sniffed, and blew my nose, knowing I must look a complete state and glad of the low lighting in the cosy room.
‘Can I ask you something?’
I smiled and rolled my head, now resting on the back of the sofa, to face him. ‘It would be a little hypocritical of me to say no, wouldn’t it?’
He returned the smile and held my gaze. ‘Is what happened with Marco why you’re frightenedto let something happen between us?’
I couldn’t stop the tear that trickled down the side of my cheek, nor the one that followed. ‘You have to believe me, Cal. I’m not right for you. It won’t work.’
He lifted his hand, the slightest touch brushing away the tears. ‘I know you say that it’s because you’ll be going away, and that it will be hard to see each other, which I understand. But I thinkyou like me.’ I knew the look on my face confirmed his statement. ‘And I really like you, Lexi. More than I’ve ever liked anyone else in my life. More than I’ve ever let myself like anyone. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s more than that. Which is why I’d rearrange the stars to make it work with you. So you have to give me more reason than you have to convince me it won’t.’
‘Cal. I can’t have children.’
