Let It Snow

by Beth Moran

‘Why focus on the one small thing that’s not perfect, when the rest is so good?’

‘One of us made it for those reasons. The other person did it because he’d have said anything to make her happy.’

He looked at me, brilliant blue eyes shining, that rare grin brazenly taking up the whole of his face, and my heart twisted inside my chest. I had spent years believing that Henry and I loathed the very air each other breathed, and now here he was, in Scotland, two days before Christmas, cheering me on with nothing but pure intentions. What a pathetic, wretched waste of a childhood friend that had been.

Talking with someone who was genuinely interested in why I might disagree with him, who listened with a gentle furrow of intent concentration, rather than interrupting to explain why I was wrong, was a refreshing change.

The kind of attention I got from Adam made me feel flattered. Henry made me feel interesting.

‘Given that this happened during the height of my excruciating crush on you, there wasn’t a second of that party I didn’t know exactly where you were standing.’

And lying there in the pitch black, my head resting on the slow, solid thud of his heart, warm, safe, utterly comfortable, I realised that I was happier than I’d been in a very long time.

‘But this is your life, and however noble and valiant and in line with the Armstrong tradition it might be to sacrifice it for the sake of others, you don’t need to do this. Just trust in the people you love.’