One Day in December

“You tread lightly through life, but you leave deep footprints that are hard for other people to fill.”

“There comes a point where you have to make the choice to be happy, because being sad for too long is exhausting.”

“Sometimes you just meet the right person at the wrong time,”

“There’s something about living in a different place that allows you to be whoever you want to be.”

“I’m not a bitch though; or maybe I’m just a quiet one inside my own head. Isn’t everyone?”

“Despite the fairy-tale snowstorm out there, this isn’t Narnia. This is London, real life, where hearts get kicked and bruised and broken, but somehow they still keep beating.”

“That's the thing about flowers, isn't it? They're lush and extravagant and demand your attention, and you think they're the most exquisite thing, but then in the shortest time they're not very lovely at all. They wilt and they turn the water brown, and soon you can't hold on to them any longer.”

“I know how painful it can be letting someone you think you love go, but that I don’t believe there’s only one person in the world for each of us. It’s too fanciful, too limiting.”

“If anyone ever asks if I've ever fallen in love at first sight, I shall say yes. For one glorious moment on the 21st of December 2006.”

“It’s strange, but you never stop caring about someone, even if you don’t want to be with them any more.”

“I'll tell you what I think. Your place isn't somewhere. It's someone.”

“We are a triangle, but our sides have kept changing length. Nothing has ever quite been equal. Perhaps it’s time to learn how to stand on our own, rather than lean on each other.”

“told him that there comes a point where you have to make the choice to be happy, because being sad for too long is exhausting. And that one day, you’ll look back, and you’ll not be able to remember exactly what it was you loved about that person.”

“Sarah is my best friend in the entire world, and however much and for however long it kills me, I’ll never silently, secretly hold up signs to tell Jack O’Mara, without hope or agenda, that to me he is perfect, and that my wasted heart will always love him.”

“We sit there for a while longer, huddled together, watching as the first flakes of snow drift down from the midnight sky. There are no rings to give back, no possessions to tussle over, no kids to hand over in blustery car parks. Just two people, about to part ways.”

“into the woman you are today, someone with such incredible poise, someone spectacularly kind; you have a way of making every single person feel like the most important person in the world.”

“Sometimes you just meet the right person at the wrong time,” I say softly. “Yeah,” he says. “And then you spend every day afterward wishing that time could be rearranged.”

“I wanted you to kiss me, Jack," I say, bereft. It's not as if he isn't aware what I wanted back there; to be coy would be pointless. "I don't like myself for it." He strokes my hair, cups my chin, looks me in the eyes. "If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell another living soul, not even a goldfish?" I swallow, eye to eye with him as I nod, and he takes my face between both of his hands. Whatever he's about to say, I think it's something I'm going to remember forever. "I wanted to kiss you back there in the pub, Laurie, and I want to kiss you even more right now. You're one of the loveliest people I've ever met in my whole life." He looks away, down the length of the deserted street and then back at me again. "You're beautiful and kind, and you make me laugh, and when you look at me like that with your summer hedgerow eyes...only a fucking saint wouldn't kiss you." Then he leans me against the wall with the weight of his body, and because he isn't a fucking saint, he kisses me. Jack O'Mara dips his head and kisses me in the snow, his lips trembling and then hot and sure, and I'm crying and kissing him back, opening my mouth to let his tongue slide over mine as he makes this low, injured animal noise in his throat. I feel the relief of him in every follicle of my hair, and in every cell of my body, and in the blood in my veins. His breathing is as shallow as mine, and it's so much more than I've ever imagined, and trust me, I used to let my imagination run riot where Jack O'Mara was concerned. He holds my face as if I'm precious and then pushes his fingers into my hair, cupping my head in his hands when I tip it back. This is the only time we will ever kiss each other. He knows it, I know it, and it's so achingly melancholy-sexy that I feel tears threaten again.”

“It’s not a direction I’d ever imagined I’d go in, but that’s okay. Life does that, doesn’t it? Reroutes you as it goes along.”

“Is this just a fact of life? You have to grow up and shed your old friends like papery snakeskin to make room for the new?”

“But what else was I supposed to say? That I felt as if she’d just kissed fucking stardust into my mouth.”

“Because how could you ever be too tired to watch some hapless guy stand out in the cold and hold up signs silently declaring to his best friend’s wife that his wasted heart will always love her? Though—is that romance? I’m not so sure. I mean, it kind of is, in a schmaltzy way, but it’s also being the shittiest friend on the planet.”

“I won’t dwell though, because Christmas should be a time of hope and love and, most appealing of all at this very moment, sleep.”

“I guess I’m trying to work out if people need to start out at one hundred percent or if they can start at, I don’t know, seventy, and work their way up.”

“I told him that there comes a point where you have to make the choice to be happy, because being sad for too long is exhausting. And that one day, you’ll look back, and you’ll not be able to remember exactly what it was you loved about that person.”

“Be happy, you stupid, stupid man. And let me be too.”

“New Year in particular is so full of portent and promise, weighted with expectation and hopes and idealism, but then on the flip side it can also be the time when people look for change, or say enough is enough and call time on a relationship that’s run its course.”

“Do you think we were always destined to know each other?' I say.In my head I'm cresting the Ferris wheel with Jack beside me, our heads tipped back to look at the stars. Perhaps it's the wine, but my stomach flips slowly as he laughs quietly against my ear.'I don't know if I believe in all that destiny stuff, Lu, but I'll always be glad you're in my life.'He looks down into my eyes and his mouth is so close I can feel his breath on my lips. I ache.'Me too,' I whisper. 'Even though being with you is hard on my heart sometimes.”

“She’s quite contained and tends to keep her own counsel, and as the years pass she discovers her own strength. I think she’s quietly brave and stoic, and witty inside her own head even if her inherent shyness sometimes makes her seem a little reserved around strangers.”

“No more living life at half-mast; the lights have gone out on our marriage.”