This is our moment, our night. That is what she chose to immerse herself in this weekend, to relive.
A raw memory of what could have been and wasn’t.
“Erie, isn’t it?”
My head whips toward her rasp, frowning at her bloodshot eyes, clean of the dark makeup she wore tonight.
She sets her towel on the counter as she steps from the bathroom, hair wet and sticking to her back. Noel slowly looks around the space. “Stepping back in time as if nothing has changed, when really, nothing is the same.”
She hasn’t faced my way, but I track her every step across the room. Her eyes flicking to the little wooden box on the bedside table, not identical to the one I used to own, but that’s what it’s meant to represent, then quickly fall to the floor as she walks out into the small living space.
My body turns on its own accord, still half slumped on the wall but compelled by a desperate need to keep her in sight.
“This room.” She glances around. “It’s what dreams are made of. Someone will say I love you for the first time in front of this fire. Someone will have sex for the first time with the man they never want to let go in this bed. And someone will look into the eyes of the person who wants to spend the rest of their life with them and say ‘yes.’” Her tone is agonizingly emotionless, creating a sharp sting within me. “It’s a strange sentiment, considering the mess we made of the holiday and all it entails.”
“Noel—”
“Do you remember what you put in here that night?” she cuts me off, fingers grazing over the hem of the fluffiest point of the stocking hanging on the silver hook above the electric fireplace.
“Kitten—”
“Do you remember?” Her hand falls, back straightening as she turns to face me, her expression completely blank. Numb.
My chest cracks a little more. I shake my head.
“Shame.” Noel shrugs, walking past me to the mini bar in the corner, where she grabs a half-empty bottle of wine from the fridge. Pouring two glasses, she finally turns, offering one to me. “I wonder about that sometimes.”
She takes a sip, holding the other glass out farther, higher, and I force myself to stand, my feet heavy as I make my way to her.
I reach out, and seconds before my fingers meet the glass, she throws the drink in my face, cool, sweet liquid stinging my eyes and dripping down my chin. I blink through it, catching the tremble of her lower lip before she can force it still.
Noel darts away, but I quickly block her escape, capturing her around the middle, swiftly stealing and setting her glass down so I can lock my arms around her tighter.
She fights me, banging her fists into my chest, yanking against my shirt, but it doesn’t take long for her forehead to fall forward, her arms to tuck themselves in, subconsciously cradling herself into my protective hold. Soft sobs shake her shoulders, her fists clenching and unclenching my button-up.
Several minutes go by, my shirt soaked and sticking to me from both the merlot and her tears when she finally looks up, brown eyes beaten and begging for something, though I would bet she has no idea what exactly it is she wants.
So I give her a little of what I want her to know. “I thought of you all the time. Wrote letters to you I never sent,” I admit. “Bought at least a dozen one-way tickets home, made it all the way to the boarding gate a few of those times, too, but could never bring myself to walk through it. I know you were hurt by what happened, but I think deep down, you know I never wanted that.”
Warm tears spill from her eyes, and when I reach up to wipe them away, she allows it, her eyes closing, though only for a moment.
“You were my best friend,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“And you kissed me.”
“I did.”
“A week before my wedding.”
“A wedding you didn’t plan to go through with, to a man you didn’t love, who didn’t love you.”
“To your brother.”
“To an asshole who took his assistant to a hotel and left you alone on Christmas Eve.” Anger and betrayal boils in my blood, sending a flash of heat across my skin. “I’ve hated him since the day he found the same letter you did, and asked you out the next day, but he stopped being my brother the second he hurt you. Hurting me, I could handle. Hurting you was something entirely different.”
“But you hurt me, too. You told me not to come back, but I did. I came back not eight hours later, and you were already gone.”
A sharp ache drills into my chest at her words, at my very own haunting memory of watching the woman I finally had in my arms, walk out of them to head back to a man who cheated and felt no shame for it. “Like you, Kitten, I broke that night, too. And I’ve been breaking a little more each day since.”