I’ve always loved black-and-white movies. Just like black-and-white photos they seem so atmospheric, and much more dramatic. Noah shuffles up right next to me until our shoulders are touching. I don’t think it would be possible to feel any more content.
And it stays like this right until the bit toward the end of the movie when James Stewart is on the bridge calling out to his guardian angel that he doesn’t want to die; that he wants to live again and see his wife and kids. Suddenly I feel Noah pull away from me. I turn to look at him. In the flickering light of the TV screen, I see that his cheek is wet—as if he’s shed a tear.
“Noah? Are you OK?”
He quickly wipes his face with the back of his hand. “Yeah, of course. I guess I must have got something in my eye.”
I sit frozen, unsure of what to do or say. Then it hits me: how much this film must mean to Noah.
I crawl around so that I’m facing him. “Is it . . . are you thinking about your parents?”
Noah is motionless for a second, but then he nods, looking down into his lap. “Geez, way to impress a girl, Noah,” he mutters, “start crying all over them.”
I’m not sure what to do. Then his eyes flick up and he gives me a half smile. But almost as soon as our eyes meet, he looks away again, embarrassed. I want to give him a hug but I don’t know if that’s what he would want.
“It’s OK, honestly,” I say, gently placing my hands on his arms.
“I thought I’d be all right,” Noah says, his head still down. “I thought it would be nice, watching it again . . .”
“Is this the first time you’ve watched it, since . . . ?”
He nods. I want to comfort him but I can’t find the right words. What he’s been through is so horrible—so huge—it feels as if all the words in the world wouldn’t be able to make it any better.
Noah sighs. “It was a really dumb idea.”
“No, it wasn’t. I think it was a lovely idea.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because it’s a way of remembering your parents and—and keeping them alive.”
Up on the screen James Stewart is now racing through the snow, yelling “Merry Christmas” to everyone and everything.
“My mom would always start crying like a baby at this bit,” Noah says with a sad little laugh, “and Dad would always kiss her tears away.”
Without thinking, I kneel forward and start kissing Noah’s face. His tears taste salty on my lips.
“It’s OK,” I whisper as I hold him tight. “It’s OK.”
Chapter Thirty
“Penny! Penny! He came!”
At the sound of Bella’s voice I sit bolt upright in bed and rub my eyes, trying to see in the pitch-blackness. Suddenly, the thin beam from a flashlight shines in my face, causing me to blink.
“He came!” Bella says again. The torch beam swings away to reveal her little face peering at me from the top of the ladder at the end of my bed.
“Who came?”
“Santa, of course.”
“Oh.” I lie back down and grin up at the ceiling.
“Wake up!” Bella says. “We have to see what he’s brought us.”
“OK. Just coming.”
I reach under my pillow for my phone to see what time it is. Five thirty! I also see that I have a new text message and breathe a sigh of relief. By the time I got to my phone last night, Elliot had texted me three times about his flight home and how much he hated his parents. I’d felt really bad about replying so late. But when I open my texts folder I see that it’s from Ollie.
Happy Christmas, Penny! Hope you’re having a great time in New York. Looking forward to seeing you when you get back. Ollie xx
What? Why is Ollie texting me? And why is he looking forward to seeing me? Then I remember the photo shoot on the beach. He probably just wants me to take some more profile pics for him. Whatever. I put my phone back under my pillow.
“Come on, lazy bones!” Bella calls from the lower bunk and I feel her prodding my mattress.
“OK, OK.”
I clamber down the ladder and peep through the curtain into Bella’s bed. She’s sitting cross-legged, shining her torch on two stockings laid out in front of her. As soon as I see the mysterious lumps and bumps inside the stockings, I get that old familiar excited feeling. I guess you never truly grow out of Father Christmas.
“I didn’t think I was going to get anything this year,” Bella says to me, as I get into the end of her bunk.
“What? Why not?”
“Because I did something really bad at school,” she whispers, “and I thought Santa might have seen but I guess he didn’t.”
“Ah. Well, I’m sure Santa doesn’t mind if you’re bad once in a while. It’s very hard to be good all of the time.”
‘Tell me about it!” Bella says with a dramatic sigh—making me want to adopt her right there and then.
After emptying our stockings—mine was full of brightly colored candy, sweetly scented bath bombs, and a beautiful glass angel—I manage to persuade Bella that we should go back to bed. And somehow she agrees. But as I lie in the dark, my mind becomes way too busy to sleep. I’m unsettled by the text from Ollie, and worried that Elliot hasn’t texted me back—it’s already midday in the UK, so it’s really weird that he hasn’t sent me a message wishing me a happy Christmas. I hope he isn’t annoyed at me for taking so long to reply to him.