‘Yes please,’ Bryn says.
I take a moment before following the others in, reaching for Luke’s hand and holding him back. I’m dressed in the hugest of coats, the heaviest of boots, but I feel lighter than I have for many Christmases.
Chapter 44
Ember
‘I believe you that it’s paradise, but I can’t see a thing,’ Tonia says to me over a video call. I’m holding up my phone, trying to show her the brilliance of the view from my little cabin here in Jasper National Park, but the morning sun is dazzling directly at me, turning the snow into an iridescent carpet. ‘Send me photos later, and get to the good part.’
I settle down on the rocking chair on my porch, coffee in hand, blanket on my legs. The air is crispy and crunchy-cold, the snow so deep it reaches in powdery drifts up the side of the cabin and is layered over the porch floor itself, but I’m breathing deep and slow here.
Tonia wants to hear about my kiss with Alex, for the third time. I already called from the train yesterday, and it was the first thing she asked me about this morning. I hunker down in my blanket, unable to keep the smile from my face, glowing in the sunshine.
‘It was a really good kiss . . .’ I begin, rolling my head back at the memory, a smile playing on my lips like they’re imagining hers exploring them. I might never see Alex again, but I won’t forget how she made me feel. This smile isn’t going away for a while.
I’ve decided to stay here in Jasper for another week. There’s so much of the national park that I want to see. God, it’s good to be out here in nature again, in a wide-open space, under the stars and the sun.
After I’ve hung up the call, I lace on my hiking boots, fill a bag with my travel flask and tons of snacks, and follow one of the winter trails towards Maligne Canyon, where I spend the best part of the day walking, crunching, stepping, a little sliding, and a lot of laying my eyes on frozen waterfall after turquoise frozen waterfall. At one of them, deep in the canyon, I remove a glove and run my hand over an icicle, which hangs like hair over the side of the rocks, surrounding me.
My mum and dad would have liked it here. They would have liked that I was here, soaking all of this in. I can picture Mum laughing in delight at the sight of the waterfalls. She always laughed when she saw something that made her smile, like the smile was trying to jump forward out of her and touch it.
I hope I can carry that on, find something every day that makes me smile so hard it tries to burst out of me.
Cali checked in earlier, which was nice of her. Like Alex, like Bryn, like all of them, she has come in and out of my life now and that’s okay. I’m glad to have put any ill-feeling so very far away, because really, look at all of this. I inhale a lungful of big, clean mountain air. Sitting in thoughts of ‘what if’, not noticing all the amazing beauty the world has to offer, isn’t how I’m going to live my life.
There’s an awful lot of that amazing beauty still to see.
Chapter 45
Cali
One of the most beautiful things these eyes have ever seen, more beautiful than the Christmas lights over Regent Street, more beautiful than the sunrise glittering off the glass buildings in the City of London, is one of my best friends, on her wedding day, standing in the twinkling snow, under a big, blue Canadian sky.
The cabin we’re all staying in has an out-house which is adorned in white ribbons for the wedding, the inside transformed into a reception room that wouldn’t look out of place in an extremely fancy bridal magazine. In fact, I’m pretty sure their wedding photographer might work for an extremely fancy bridal magazine, because they keep talking about ‘the issue’ and I don’t think they’re referring to global warming, or that one of Ruby’s cousins has put a tiny suit on the cat and snuck her into the ceremony.
And right now, the bride and bride, in their white-as-snow dresses, are having photos taken with a stunning mountain backdrop. Most guests are staying in the warm, but me and my friends – yes, it’s early days, but I love that I can call them friends again – have donned coats over our wedding attire and are clasping crystal tumblers of steaming, spiced cider, our boots in the snow, enjoying watching Bryn in her new surroundings. Which, as great as our time at the townhouse was, this is clearly the place she’s meant to be.
Joss sniffs at her dress. ‘Do I smell like last night’s alcohol?’ she hisses, and we all say no to make her feel better.
Beside me, I spot Luke peeping at me.
‘What?’ I ask.
He is so bloody handsome in his suit. ‘I very nearly didn’t come to Canada.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘I just wanted to see you again. Even if you hated me, even if you had another boyfriend whose name may or may not have been Luke, even if, actually, you hadn’t turned up, I couldn’t not take the chance of seeing you. You’re like a magnet to me.’
I am pink with warmth despite the frostbite forming on every one of my toes. ‘Well I’m glad you chose to come. Because Fake Luke would have made a terrible wedding date.’
‘He can’t dance?’
‘No, it’s not that . . . he’s just really partial to sleeping with the bridesmaids.’
I put my mittened hand into Luke’s, my magnet. He and I have a lot to catch up, and the way we can’t stop looking at each other, smiling at each other, talking like there’s no tomorrow, I think we’re going to enjoy every minute of it. And this time, neither of us plan to let it only last a week.
Speaking of bridesmaids . . . Alex is looking lovely in her long, red-wine coloured dress. There’s the smallest hint of sadness on her face while she’s lost in thought, but then she catches my eye, does a small nod, and I see the sparkle return as she’s pulled into the photos by Bryn and Ruby. She’s going to be just fine, as will Ember.
