12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter twenty-two

“Did you, at any point, think that maybe that was a bad idea?” he asks. His voice is soft; so are his hands.

“I’m realising that now.”

“Bit late, Jerusalem,” he says. Relief floods me to hear a nickname again. He raids my first aid box and finds a roll of that stretchy white bandage, standing between my knees as he cradles my hand and wraps it up, so carefully that you’d have thought he was handling a baby bird rather than me.

“It’s a bit of a hack job,” he murmurs, “but it should hold, as long as you don’t move your hand too much while it heals. It’s right on the crease of your hand – you’re gonna open that wound up every time you move your fingers.”

“Sorry, Cas.”

“You don’t need to apologise to me. It’s yourself you’ve hurt. Thank god I heard you crashing about – who knows what damage you could’ve done.” He tuts to himself and checks my other hand. “Anything else Doctor Casper should know?”

Not unless I tell him that I’m pretty sure he restarts my heart every time he smiles, or that my muscles seize every time his fingers graze my skin.

“I have an idea of what you were doing,” he says, “but tell me, Beth, what were you doing?”

The whole stupid story spills out, the inexplicable compulsion and how I knew I would never get back to sleep until I did what I had to do. My cheeks burn as I tell him, realising how crazy I sound. Shame crawls over my skin like a disease. I pull my hands away from Casper.

“It was impulsive and stupid,” I mutter.

“A bit, yeah,” he says, “but we all do impulsive and stupid things sometimes, and I think yours is more understandable than others.” His hand falls on my wrist, his fingers warm. “I get your logic. Your execution, however, needs some work. And if you must go on late-night bauble-smashing expeditions, wear your damn glasses, girl. And invite me along, next time.”

A weak laugh escapes me. Casper sighs. He squeezes my wrist and says he’ll be back in a moment, and he leaves. I sit here feeling sorry for myself, cursing myself for waking up and acting on my impulse, until he comes back with my glasses and he places them on my face, tucking my hair behind my ears when he makes sure they’re on straight.

“Better?”

“Much.”

“I’m going to clear up downstairs,” he says. “Don’t worry, I won’t throw anything away. Into the shoebox, right?”

I nod. How is he so understanding? Even I don’t understand myself this much and I live with me, day in, day out. Maybe on the inside, he’s desperately plotting a way to get out, calculating how long it will take him to walk into town from here or how to get to the station. If he is thinking that, he doesn’t show any sign of it when he takes my hand and when we’re downstairs, he makes me sit on the sofa while he carefully picks up every piece of glass, every tiny piece of fake snow that filled the bauble. It all goes into the shoebox, and I can’t tell which pieces are Robin’s and which are Noelle’s.

The relief that fills me rocks me off my balance, an unexplainable feeling that things have been made right. Casper closes the shoebox and holds it out to me.

“Is this okay?” he asks. “This is what you wanted, right?”

“Thank you, Cas.”

“All in a night’s work,” he says with a smile, brushing his hands together. He places the box on the mantelpiece and takes my good hand, pulling me off the sofa and into a hug. I’m not expecting the contact, my arm pressed between us for the moment it takes me to realise what’s happening and to put my arms around him. He sways slightly, as though he’s listening to music in his head.