London

12 - "Ellie and Dave."

"Have you and your sister been in touch lately?" She wonders and I shake my head. "Why not?"

"She changed for the worst. Ever since I came back I somehow expected her to pay attention to me but she didn't. She met you and knew of you but she never once called to ask how I was doing after we broke up. She has her life in Manchester and I think my mother is finally realizing that although she always believed that she was doing right by the book, she lost her along the way. And I'm doing everything she hated and I'm still here for Christmas."

"I can't believe I met them. Ellie and Dave. So weird."

"About that," I start after swallowing his bite. "I'm still sorry for last night. It wasn't right for me to compare you to my sister. I only felt that way because I could see my mother treating you the same way as she treated her."

"I know," she mumbles. "It was refreshing to see you angry though."

"Missed it?"

"I missed this more."

"What?"

"Lying in bed, having breakfast. I wish we could just stay here all day. To me that's the best part about Christmas. Doing nothing all day. Can't we just stay a little longer?"

"We can, but we both agreed to coffee with my mother before we leave. I'm fine with cancelling but..."

"Yeah yeah. We can't do that and you know it."

"I could always try," I tell her.

This time she places a strawberry in my mouth and I want to just throw away the tray and take her again, but I'm hungry and so is Alex. We both finish our food but then take just a little more time enjoying the end of Christmas.

****

Alex

"Why do you think she wanted to meet again?" I ask Harry as we take a seat in a coffee place. It's warm and cosy but not something I associate with his mother.

"Because you had to tell her we were staying for the night."

"Which was your idea, not mine," I tell him and he rolls his eyes.

"I know. And it was nice, wasn't it?"

"It was," I say, not being able to hide my stupid grin. Most of it was fun. Most. "Did she pick this?"

"No," he laughs. "I did. I used to come here a lot. My old work is just down the street."

"Really? Can we stop by later?"

"Depends on how this goes," he says grim and in that exact moment the door opens and his mother steps into the café.

She looks different than last night, but I guess I do too. Last night I went all out in a fancy dress combined with heels. I even straightened my hair and put some make-up on. Right now I'm in jeans, a jumper and my hair is in a frizzy bun. Not to mention that I didn't even bother to look at my face this morning. I was running late because Harry was being too damn sexy for his own good.

His mother did had time to put on makeup and she's not wearing jeans, but more informal clothes than she wore last night. Again I find her looking like she belongs on an IV-drip and I wonder how she looked while she still had chemo's and needed Harry's bone marrow to survive.

"Hello," she says sitting down and I awkwardly half sit down again as I wanted to meet her. I should have remembered that last night she only gave me a hand and didn't even hug her son.