‘Doesn’t she?’ Sara raises an eyebrow.
Hmm, this sounds light-hearted, but I’m quite good at reading people, I think, and suddenly the red wine feels like it’s dehydrated my mouth.
I’m stupid for thinking everything could be magically fixed, just like that.
Outside the train it’s started to snow, fat, heavy flakes that make the mountains look like phantoms. We fall into a hushed lull, watching the snow falling, faint Christmas music in the background, the train endlessly ploughing forward. The wine is polished off. Luke and Joe go and get some more. Then a little later, I go and get another couple of bottles, and a little later again, so does Joss, and the whole time the snow doesn’t let up. Then it begins to pile on the window frames.
‘We should be getting into Whistler in a couple of hours,’ Alex says, checking the time on her phone. ‘I might call that it for this afternoon’s drinking, otherwise I’ll be falling asleep early. And I don’t want to miss out on any of the last night fun.’ She looks at Ember, who rolls her eyes, laughing.
Joe stands up and stretches. ‘You’re right. I might take a nap—’
I don’t want it to end like this, everything was going so well, we were getting somewhere, we were getting along. ‘Wait, don’t go. Let’s have another drink. Let’s talk.’
Joss moans. ‘Cali . . . don’t be . . .’ She trails off.
There’s silence in the group for a moment.
‘Don’t be what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t be what?’ I demand, hopefully sounding more confident than I feel. And why should I have to worry about feeling confident anyway? This was my friend, once. Is that really impossible to get back?
Joss looks to the others. ‘I’m just saying, let whatever happens happen. I know what you’re trying to do, but you need to grow up and stop being so . . . clingy.’
I sit back, woozy in the head, and my finger runs over and over the blistered skin of my spot. ‘I’m not clingy,’ I say. I’m not needy, I’m not pathetic just because I need – want – my friends around. This is exactly what they said to me back in Spain. I want them to stop saying that.
‘Joss,’ Luke says, his tone warning, his arm coming around the back of me. ‘Don’t be an arsehole.’
Shaking her head, Joss sighs, breaking away her gaze. ‘I don’t want to get into all this again. I didn’t mean to say anything.’
‘But you did. You always “just have to say something”.’
‘Believe me, I don’t.’
I see Alex meet Ember’s eye, who shrugs.
‘You do, actually,’ says Sara. ‘I don’t think anyone needed the last word more than you on that holiday, Joss.’
‘Do we have to talk about Spain again?’ Joe sighs.
‘But we don’t talk about it,’ Luke adds, speaking up, his voice cutting through the group. ‘We didn’t talk about it then, and we haven’t talked about it now, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why none of us can move forward.’
The table erupts into an argument all at once, drowning out the Christmas music.
‘I have moved forward – I am just fine without you all,’ stamps Joss, causing a wine glass to topple and the stem to break off.
‘Don’t speak for me, you all made it perfectly clear I’m not part of this gang,’ says Sara, getting up to leave.
Joe groans. ‘Sara, you’re such a broken record.’
She turns back. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, did someone say something or was it just Joss’s shadow?’
I can’t bear it, and I’m just plucking enough rage from deep within me, when—
Screeeeeeeeeeeech.
Like a long, slow, painful death, the train comes to a complete halt, we all still, and shut the hell up, and silence fills the carriage.
