A Wedding One Christmas

by Therese Beharrie

  She would not let what had happened shake her. She wouldn’t allow it to tighten her chest, or control the pace of her heart. She was better than that, damn it. She was a grown woman who could handle her problems. Who could handle that for the first time in her life, a man other than her father had seen her cry.

  So what if her precious control was no longer protecting her? So what if she was feeling like she’d been afraid to all along?

  It was just that she knew this would happen. She knew allowing herself to feel the grief for her father would do this. It was a slippery slope, opening up to feelings. Opening up to the grief had opened her up to more, too. And it would force her to feel more than the guilt that had brought her back home. It would force her to feel more than the responsibility that had kept her moving toward her family.

  Like the disappointment that had come at having a mother who depended on her instead of the other way around. The anger that came along with that. The anger at her father for not doing anything about it, even when he saw how much it had affected her. How much it had affected her relationship with her sisters.

  She had no doubt the responsibility she’d taken for them had contributed to the distance between them. She had to take care of them, which meant she couldn’t be their friend. Or their sibling. And she hadn’t wanted to think about that. She hadn’t wanted to feel it. Thinking about it and feeling it would push her closer to breaking than anything else had before.

  Except neither of those emotions was threatening to break her now. Oh, they were there, but they were swirling around beneath the surface, ready to pounce if she provoked them. No, Ezra was the biggest threat. And she hadn’t anticipated it, so she had no idea how to protect herself against it.

  How could she protect herself against a man who made her feel stronger? Who kissed as if he’d created the activity? How could she protect herself from what it felt like to have him pull away from her? That was what had happened outside. That was what that momentary pause he’d taken had meant.

  She took a breath. Told herself she was fine. Fine because she was going to be leaving soon anyway. She would be walking away from Ezra. Walking away from the problems he presented...

  And walking on to her other ones.

  She cursed silently when the thought had her hand shaking so much her lipstick smudged. Two women came into the bathroom then, and Angie smiled at them before grabbing a tissue, wetting it, fixing the damage. When she was done, she looked at herself in the mirror.

  And turned when she saw all the emotions she’d been running from as clearly as if they’d been carved into the lines of her face.

  She was outside the reception hall in a few short steps, but before she entered, she reminded herself that she couldn’t add to her problems. She couldn’t be drawn into Ezra’s problems. She’d already gone too far with the kiss. No, long before that, she thought. The moment they’d started sharing their lives with one another, things had gone too far.

  Sharing meant connections. And Angie had actively avoided connections in the last three years. She’d played nice with her colleagues in Korea, but she’d never agreed to any social events. She’d chosen to go home and read or write instead. Reading had helped her forget; writing had helped her control. She wrote short stories with happy endings because all she wanted was a short path to happiness. Reality took much too long—if at all.

  She spoke with her mother once a week; she sent emails to her sisters twice a week. She might have called them, too, if speaking with her mother hadn’t been so exhausting. Charlene would say more in her silences than her words, though Angie understood all of it. She was fluent in her mother’s cues after all the years she’d spent studying them.

  Zoey would reply to both emails in a cheery tone Angie somehow knew was false; Sophia would reply once, with a short paragraph detailing how their mother, Zoey, and she were doing—in that order. So Angie didn’t even have connections with her family; there wouldn’t be with Ezra either. Which was fortunate, since Angie didn’t know long she’d be in Cape Town anyway.

  She hadn’t told anyone that part yet, but she knew. Knew she couldn’t stay in a place that held so much pain for her. Her savings would tide her over while she did damage control with her family. But as soon as that was done—as soon as she knew more than just that she wanted to write a full romance novel—she would leave.

  She couldn’t be thinking about the man with a killer smile and even better kissing skills when she did.

  And what happens to him if you go?

  She frowned at the unwelcome thought and shook her head. But it wouldn’t disappear, and she was forced to ask herself if she was disappointing him like his ex had. It made absolutely no sense that she was equating herself to his ex. It definitely wasn’t the same thing, and yet she worried about it. Probably more than his ex had, too.

  You’re overestimating yourself.

  Right. Yes. That was it. She was putting too much on two little kisses she’d shared with the man. When her fingers reached up to trace her lips, she dropped her hands to her sides, clenching her fists to keep them from misbehaving again. She couldn’t be drawn back into the magic of those kisses. Because that’s what they were: a spell that deluded her into thinking she had more power over Ezra than she did.

  She wouldn’t be hurting Ezra when she left because she wasn’t that important to him. It was that simple.

  Less simple was the fact that she couldn’t say the same about her family.

  ‘It’s fine, Angie. Leave. I’ll be here for Mom and Zo. You just...leave.’

  Her heart raced as she tried to ignore Sophia’s voice still echoing in her head; and then it tripped when she remembered she couldn’t keep running anymore. She was hours away from seeing her family again. Which, with the emotion of Ezra’s kiss still stumbling around in her chest, made her feel as if she’d been pinned under a rock.

  * * *

  ‘They want us to what?’

  Ezra wasn’t surprised by Angie’s reaction. It pretty much reflected his own. Because when he heard that Jenny and Dave wanted them to join the Christmas parade again, he’d begun making up excuses as to why he wouldn’t be able to go.

  ‘It’s a family tradition!’ Becky said brightly, though her eyes flitted over Angie, and Ezra saw the concern there. Felt it himself. She looked...off. It didn’t help that she was clearly avoiding looking at him.

  ‘That a family wedding joins a Christmas parade?’

  ‘That the family attends the Christmas parade,’ Becky corrected him. ‘We go each year.’

  ‘But they’ve already finished with the floats,’ Angie said. ‘I’m assuming,’ she added hastily, when Charles and Becky both turned to look at her.

  ‘Well, yes, they probably have. But that’s not the only festivities. There are also contests. Of course, there’s also the ad-lib nativity play—’

  ‘Wait, what?’

  He said it at the same time Angie looked at him with a delighted expression on her face.

  ‘It’s an ad-lib nativity play, Ezra,’ Angie repeated with faux patience. ‘Where the actors don’t prepare their lines before performing the play.’

  ‘Except they aren’t actors, dear,’ Becky interrupted. ‘They’re volunteers from the audience. Last year Jenny played Mary.’

  Angie’s eyes widened, and the glee in her smile had him shaking his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. You already got me to play Father Christmas today. There’s no way I’m adding any of the characters from the nativity play to my résumé.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Angie said innocently. ‘I am quite eager to attend the parade now though. Shall we?’

  He narrowed his eyes at her, though his lips twitched and it took all of his self-control not to smile. ‘You first.’

  ‘We’ll go together,’ Charles interrupted. Ezra blinked. He’d forgot
ten about Charles and Becky for a second. Hell, he’d forgotten about the entire wedding and its guests. During that short moment, it had been only him and Angie.

  Which was a massive problem.

  He waited as the rest of their table followed the crowd to the door, wondering how they were all okay with delaying their main meals for the sake of the parade. He paused at the thought. Maybe the main meals would be served at the parade.

  It was a risky move, but as he looked around the venue one last time, he realised risky must have been the theme of Jenny and Dave’s wedding. Perhaps not intentionally, he considering. But the tacky décor and feeding almost one hundred people at a parade—if his suspicions were correct—were definitely risky.

  His suspicions were correct. But as he looked around at the field the parade had started at earlier, Jenny and Dave’s plan didn’t seem quite as risky. Tables were set out much like in the venue. Unlike there, they were decorated with white tablecloths and a single bowl of silver and white baubles surrounding a candle.

  Food trucks enclosed the tables, making the area feel intimate, though a few metres beyond them stood a stage with people milling around it. Fairy lights hung between each of the trucks, reaffirming the impression of a boundary. It gave the entire space a festive feel.

  ‘How did they do this so fast?’ Angie asked at his side.

  ‘I have no idea.’ He gave it one last look before resting his gaze on her. ‘I think we’re going to have to revaluate what we thought of this wedding.’

  ‘No kidding,’ she replied as she accepted a paper in the shape of a Christmas ball from one of the groomsmen. Moments later, they learnt the paper would give them access to any of the food trucks.

  Ezra didn’t miss the interest in the man’s eyes as Angie thanked him with a smile. Nor did that man miss Ezra angling his body, or the message Ezra was giving him as Ezra blocked his view of Angie: back off. It made absolutely no sense. What right did he have to make any claim on Angie? And yet when the man gave him a slight nod and moved on, Ezra felt satisfaction replace the adrenaline that had been pulsing through him.

  ‘Careful,’ Angie said, her eyes lazily following the groomsman’s back.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The weight of your ego.’ Now her gaze met his. ‘Or the size of your head. Either way, it might cause you to fall.’

  She walked away before he could reply, and joined a line at a food truck serving pulled pork sandwiches. He stared after her. Knew that he was, but he was helpless to stop himself. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? He was already falling. Too hard, too fast. And he knew that once he landed, he’d break something inside himself. Could already feel it cracking.

  It had started long before she’d made that joke about him choosing the wrong women. Although that had succeeded in reminding him he had a history of making poor decisions when it came to women. That he’d gone from one extreme—wild, unpredictable—to the other: controlled and cold. Neither of them had been right. And he was convinced that he would learn from it this time.

  Except that he thought he had, after Ana. He’d spent an entire term mucking about in school with her, failing every class—because who needed to go to class anyway?—and generally not caring. Since he’d chosen to do it in his final year at school, he’d tainted his perfect school record. It had been the reason his parents had sat him down and laid down the law. The law had stated that if he didn’t pull up his socks, he’d be out of the house with no assistance from his family for living expenses or tuition when the school year was up.

  It had shocked him into following the law, and he’d managed to still graduate with decent enough grades at the end of the year. After he’d broken up with Ana, of course. After that had come the disappointed talks. By then, he had no longer been a stupid teenager who hadn’t cared. The talks had smarted, as they’d been intended to, and he’d vowed to never disappoint his parents and grandparents again. So he’d chosen the safe girlfriend. The perfect girlfriend.

  And look where that had got him.

  It was no surprise then that he didn’t trust himself. Not when it came to women. Especially not when it came to Angie, who twisted his insides so tightly his instincts were lying in a puddle on the floor.

  So there would be no more kisses. No more confessionals. They would just be two people enjoying a wedding together. A nice neutral event that by no means would remind him of romance or his twisted insides.

  He groaned.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was strange to witness a wedding without tension.

  Okay, there was some tension. A boy who looked to be about sixteen had tried to balance plates from four different trucks on his way back to his table and had dropped all of them. It had earned him a public and embarrassing scolding from his mother. Another boy about the same age had begun laughing at the scene; he had then walked into an older woman, spilling his soft drink down her front. He was less amused when she gave him a piece of her mind quite loudly. Also quite embarrassingly.

  There were more instances of things like that, but Angie didn’t see them as the kind of tension that would mar a wedding. It was the innocent kind, if something like that existed. Since she’d witnessed more malicious things at her own family weddings—petty cousins, gossipy aunts, drunk-and-flirtatious uncles—Angie could confirm that there was, indeed, an innocent tension. She quite liked it.

  It distracted her from the sadness she felt at the memories of her parents’ last wedding anniversary. She’d accepted that she wouldn’t get away from them, which had in some strange way freed her from the turmoil of not wanting to feel the sadness the memories evoked. It allowed her to eat her food contently, and she let herself be distracted by the events that created the innocent tension while she did.

  Ezra seemed to understand that she didn’t want to talk, only making the occasional comment which didn’t require her response. It was a relief, since she wasn’t a hundred per cent confident she’d know what to say to him.

  ‘Did you enjoy your meal?’

  The voice came from behind her. Angie angled her head so she could see who’d spoken to her. She smiled when she saw the bride, and barely had the chance to answer before Jenny had taken Ezra’s empty seat beside her. He’d offered to get them drinks a couple of minutes before, and had been held up by Dave at the bar.

  ‘Oh, it was delicious.’ Angie gestured to the empty plates in front of her. ‘Clearly, the buffet by means of food trucks was a smashing idea.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jenny leaned back. ‘It was worth the fight then?’

  ‘Fight?’

  ‘Yeah, to incorporate the parade into our wedding.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘If my mother had her way, we would have had our entire wedding in that tacky hall.’ Now she shuddered. ‘Thank goodness Becky took my side and convinced her the tradition of the Christmas parade and our annual family get together would make for an amazing wedding.’ Jenny levelled a stare at her. ‘You didn’t seriously think I wanted my wedding to look like that hall, did you?’

  ‘I, er... I don’t know you.’

  ‘Well, rest assured, I am not that in love with Christmas.’

  Angie laughed, the unease of being put on the spot when she had believed Jenny had wanted her wedding to look like that fading. She understood the poor woman’s predicament. She remembered once for her confirmation, her mother had hired a hall to celebrate the event.

  A hall. For a confirmation.

  She hadn’t complained to her mother because it was her mother. In all honesty, she couldn’t bring herself to. It had been one of the few times Charlene had taken initiative with something. Angie had complained to her father though, who hadn’t budged—Have you seen how excited she is, Ange?—and Angie had been persuaded—guilted—into letting her mother celebrate the event.

  She imagined she’d be persuaded/guilted into a lot once she got home. Her mothe
r would want Angie to do things and even if Angie didn’t want to do them, she would have to. There would be no one to complain to now. Her life would be filled with conceding to things, just like she had with her confirmation. She was doomed to a life of feeling that same frustrated annoyance.

  Except now it would be to an intenser degree; what her mother needed from her, what she felt as a result. Grief tended to amplify the negative in a person.

  Like running away from your problems?

  ‘Thank you, by the way,’ Jenny interrupted her thoughts. Angie frowned over at her, and Jenny clarified. ‘For that, I mean. For him.’

  Angie followed Jenny’s gaze and caught Ezra midlaugh. It softened his features, made them more striking. Her ability to breathe felt as if it had stumbled and couldn’t get up again. It took clearing her throat multiple times before she could reply.

  ‘That isn’t me.’

  ‘You can’t believe that.’ Jenny turned her body so that she faced Angie completely. ‘Dr. Johnson took over the supervision of my PhD halfway through when my previous supervisor fell ill. We spent a lot of time together to try and make a mess into some semblance of an academic study. He’s never looked this...calm, before.’

  ‘He’s calm because he’s left a place where he doesn’t know anyone and he’s moving back home to a family whom he clearly loves.’ She shook her head, as if somehow, it would take away from her defensive tone. ‘It’s not me.’

  ‘If that’s what you want to believe.’

  An awkward silence settled over them for a moment. Luckily, Jenny didn’t seem to be the type to let it linger. And then she said, ‘I met his ex-girlfriend, you know,’ and Angie found herself wishing for the silence.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘A couple of times.’ Jenny clearly hadn’t taken Angie’s noncommittal answer as the sign Angie had hoped it would be. ‘During none of them did Dr. Johnson actually look happy. Or calm. In fact, he looked like someone had tightened all the muscles in his body.’ She paused. ‘Which makes the whole calm thing now more significant.’