“So this time around, I’m going to be completely up-front. I’m still jittery every time I see you. I’m still infatuated—more infatuated than ever. In fact, there are a whole lot of things I want to say to you that I don’t think you should hear via Lydia on the Tannoy—that’s me, by the way.”
A few people around me laugh. There are smiles now, and someone is filming this on their phone.
“So meet me under the Airport Security sign right now, Lucas da Silva. It’s not quite mistletoe. But it will have to do. Yours, Izzy.”
I’m running. Jumping suitcases, hurdling over people’s outstretched legs, dodging my way through duty-free. As I sprint back through security, a guard gives me a nod and a smile, but I’m looking for Izzy, Izzy, Izzy, my heart thumping her name.
She’s there. A little bedraggled, still in her uniform, her bag at her feet. Something soars in me at the sight of her.
She runs the moment she sees me. We both come to a stop as we hit the belt barriers, dithering; I move to zigzag my way through them, but Izzy ducks under, scuttling through, and I laugh, opening my arms to her.
She throws herself at me. I’m almost knocked backwards.
“Lucas, oh my God.”
I hold her, breathe her in.
“I’m so sorry.”
“That card . . . it was meant for me?”
She pulls back for long enough to tug it out of her back pocket and hand it to me.
“Merry Christmas,” she says. “Sorry it’s late.”
I kiss her. Without thought, without question, without wondering how to play this or whether it’s the right move—I just scoop her into my arms and press my lips to hers. I can feel her shaking against me, the slight chill of tears on her cheeks. We’ve kissed so many times, but not once have we kissed like this, with neither of us holding any part of ourselves back.
There’s applause around us. We break apart, sheepish, and find a man and woman in uniform watching us like indulgent parents. Lydia and a colleague, I presume. I look back down at Izzy. She’s so beautiful, with her hair striped in pink and her make-up all smudged from kissing me.
“Hi,” I whisper to her.
“Hi,” she whispers back. “There is so much I want to say to you right now.”
“Izzy,” I say. “There are so many times this winter that I’ve wanted to tell you I . . .”
I trail off. She is pressing her finger to my lips.
“Me first,” she says with fierceness. “I love you. I am completely, helplessly, undeniably in love with you. And I am so sorry about the stupid card. Poor Mandy said you got it and laughed at it. I really thought you didn’t give a shit about my feelings. I thought you’d had every opportunity to apologise for the way you’d acted, and you genuinely didn’t think you’d done anything wrong. It all just seemed like such a red flag that I . . . I wrote you off completely. I decided you were an arsehole, and I didn’t want to let anything change my mind, because . . . I think it’s because I try to be—I want to be strong, and look after myself . . .” She buries her face in my chest and holds me tightly as she cries. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Izzy, shh, you’re OK. It’s OK.”
I sit with what she’s said as I press my lips to the top of her head, the airport bustle resuming around us. What would I have thought, in her position? I would have trusted Mandy’s word, too. I would have assumed the worst of Izzy, because it’s easy to believe someone would laugh at you. Easier than believing they’d love you back.
And was I all that different? I never gave Izzy the opportunity to explain why she was so upset by my kiss with Drew. I returned from Brazil to find her cold and argumentative; the way she treated me confirmed everything I already thought of myself, so I snapped back when she snapped at me, and suddenly that was all the two of us did. I decided Izzy was unreasonable, difficult, over-dramatic. I wrote her off, too.
“You thought I chose to kiss Drew under the mistletoe instead of you,” I say slowly, piecing it together.
“Mm-hmm,” she says into my coat. Her sobs have calmed, and her shoulders are steady now, but she won’t lift her gaze to mine.
“Izzy,” I say, pulling back and raising my spare hand to her cheek, nudging her to look up at me. I don’t want her to spend a single second thinking I’d want anyone but her. “That kiss meant absolutely nothing. We met, we flirted a little, and then she said, Hey, look, mistletoe, and I thought, why not? If I had received that card, I would never, ever have kissed her.”