Cosy Christmas ✓

9 / please come home for christmas

Cameron’s room was gone though. It had taken his mother a year to come to terms with her eldest child’s death, fifteen minutes older than Connor, but once she had, his room had been the first thing to go. It served as nothing more than a reminder of the person she had lost, and now it was a cosy guest room.

“I can’t leave you here on your own,” he said. “Not on Christmas. I can go tomorrow.”

“Hey, I’m just fine,” Posy said with a chuckle. “I can look after myself perfectly well. I’m only going to end up in bed anyway. In fact, I’m probably going to head up in a few minutes; I’m absolutely pooped.”

Connor downed his tea and pushed the empty mug onto the coffee table and with a sudden surge of determination, he stood and he nodded, and he held out his hand to Posy. When she took it, he helped her to her feet and he pulled her into a hug, her bump a barrier between them as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she rested her cheek against his chest.

“I’m kind of scared,” he murmured, and she slowly rubbed his back.

“You’ll be fine,” she whispered back. “It’s your sister and your parents. You don’t need to be afraid.”

It wasn’t his family that he was afraid of: Connor adored his parents, the two people who had taken on everything he had put them through, and his sister had been the first person he turned to for years now. It wasn’t them he was scared of: it was the gravity of the situation, of turning up on the doorstep after far too long with nothing to offer but an apology; of listening as his mother remembered the Christmases they had spent as five.

At eight twenty, Posy stood by her front door with a cardigan wrapped tightly around herself as Connor stood on the other side, eyes on his car. He had made it out of the house at her gentle insistence that she would be fine, and his assurance that he would be back in the morning, and now all he had to let go of was her hand.

“Have fun,” Posy said, and she pulled him in for a hug.

As Connor slowly pulled away he said, “Come with me?”

She smiled, and she shook her head. “You need to do this,” she said. “I’ll be right here. But your family is right there, and that’s who you should be with. Go, Connor, and have a merry Christmas.”

“You too,” he said, and she beamed.

“I already did.”

*

The roads were silent but Connor’s car was not. Duke was stretched out across the back seat, too big to get comfortable in the front, and despite being stuck in the house since Connor had walked him twelve hours ago, he seemed pretty happy to doze for the drive. Connor tuned into Radio 1, his sister’s favourite channel, as he made his way down the country lanes towards the motorway. By eight-thirty at night on Christmas Day, most people were already where they wanted to be, tucked up in front of log fires with a good film on TV, or gathered around the table with a board game as they finished off the remains of the day. But Connor wasn’t most people and he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove the route he knew so well.

The roads were dark and dangerous at this time of night, when the lack of the sun or even the glint of the moon shadowed the ice that had frozen over the road, and he drove with caution as his eagle eyes scanned everything his headlights allowed him to see. But he was alone, just him and a pre-recorded radio programme for the next forty minutes. Every time that sliver of doubt returned to his mind, he conjured up the image of Posy’s smile and the conviction with which she had insisted he go. And she was right. It would be worth it, for the look on Cass’s face alone.