‘Haf,’ Kit says, stopping her in her spiral. ‘I get it. It wasn’t... the most upfront communication of my life. I probably shouldn’t have relied on a notecard.’
‘Wait, how did you—?’
‘Bryn texted me,’ Ambrose pipes up. ‘And I told her, because she was freaking out.’
‘Have you all been conspiring?’ Haf asks.
‘Yes,’ they chorus.
‘Look, I should have just told you,’ Kit says.
‘That’s what you were supposed to do, not have a snowball fight,’ huffs Laurel behind them.
Kit rolls her eyes, but smiles. ‘Let me do it now, okay?’
Haf nods silently and Kit takes a deep breath in.
‘For days, I’d been trying to squash how I felt. My life is complicated, Haf – my job, my health, happiness. And I know it keeps me contained, and I keep my barriers up, but that’s worked for me so far. And you bring so much chaos.’ She laughs, her eyes sparkling. ‘I mean you waded into a fucking duck pond to fight a goose, for fuck’s sake. Who does that?’
‘It was to rescue a reindeer,’ Haf interrupts.
With a laugh, Kit continues, ‘The thing is, all this mess, how ridiculous and silly you can be, and loyal to a fault way beyond logic... That all scares the shit out of me. But those are also the things I love about you.’ Her dark eyes shine in the Christmas lights.
At this, Haf starts crying too, and she takes Kit’s hand in her own.
Shelovesher.
‘I know it’s only been five days, which has to be some kind of U-Haul record.’ Kit laughs softly. ‘But somehow it feels like the most normal thing that happened this Christmas.’ She pauses, and when she speaks again she’s slower, more serious. ‘You have so many decisions to make about your life – like quitting your horrible, fucking job – but I want to be one of your choices. But, just in case I’ve got this all wrong, and you really were going to just run away from it all, just let me down gently, okay?’
‘I promise you, I wasn’t running away from you. I mean, Iwas,but only to your house. I just needed to calm down, process some stuff. But, your mum was just sofurious—’
‘Haf,’ Kit says, stilling her. ‘I just need to know that I’m not foolish for literally running across the fucking country for you.’
‘You’re not!’ she cries.
Christopher, Ambrose and Laurel huddle together beside them, watching with hopeful eyes.
‘Go on,’she sees Christopher mouth from the corner of her eye.
Haf takes a deep breath and looks up at Kit, at the woman she loves. This brave, beautiful, smart woman with the foulest mouth in the world who just admitted that she loves her too.
‘This has all been such a mess. I really didn’t know that you’d made up your mind and chosen me. If I had, I would have jumped out the taxi.’ They both laugh. ‘I am a bit scared, you know? Over the last year, I feel like every choice I made hasbackfired on me, but that’s because I was so caught up in the bad parts, and not dealing with my feelings about them... And that made me afraid of all the good things I already had, and the things Icouldhave. You’re right my life is a mess. I’m constantly grasping at straws and things feel really hard all the time, and I just don’t know what I’m doing with myself. I don’t have much to offer you. But when I look at you, I don’t just see now. It was never just kisses in the snow, or the cupboard—’
At this, she hears Christopher mutter ‘The cupboard?’ which sets her and Kit giggling like drunk teenagers.
‘I want forever for us. I want to grow into the person you deserve me to be. I love you, and I want that lifetime with you.’
‘Then what are you waiting for?’ Kit whispers, that ever-familiar smirk on her lips.
They kiss, and it’s starlight and magic. That other universe where they can be together turned out to be this one, and a future opens up before them like a truth she can touch. A lifetime of dancing in the kitchen, of falling asleep together, of whatever they want it to be.
Their tears smear on each other’s cheeks as they embrace, and between glorious kisses they laugh with relief. It’s a moment plucked from her wildest dreams.
Huddled together arm in arm, Ambrose and Laurel bawl their eyes out.
‘It’s just—’
‘So beautiful.’
