The First Christmas Without You:. Michelle Betham

dressed all in black from his hat to his snow boots. Where had he come from? I hadn’t even heard him walk up alongside me. Maybe I’d just been too deep in thought. And my hat was pulled right down over my ears so it probably wasn’t a complete surprise that I hadn’t heard him arrive.

      ‘Yes. Yes, it’s really beautiful,’ I said, watching him as he gazed up at the rapidly darkening sky, the colours deepening but still swirling around over our heads.

      ‘If you think this is something, then you should see the Northern Lights – Aurora Borealis…’ He stopped staring at the sky and looked directly at me, which took me slightly by surprise because I’d kind of been staring at him. He didn’t seem to mind, though. ‘Have you ever seen them?’

      ‘Erm, sorry… have I ever seen what?’ The sudden appearance of this stranger had unsettled me slightly. One thing I certainly wasn’t used to was being approached by attractive young men wanting to strike up a conversation. But something – I didn’t know what, exactly – was telling me he was okay. I had nothing to worry about.

      ‘The Northern Lights,’ he replied, smiling at me, and I had to turn away for a second. I’d been knocked for six somewhat and I just needed a moment to pull myself together.

      ‘No. No, I haven’t seen them,’ I said, turning back to look at him, taking in his handsome face with the beautiful smile, deep, dark eyes and perfect skin. He had a really lovely accent too. I wondered if he was a local. Maybe he was a ski instructor or something. Oh God, I hope he wasn’t trying to drum up business, because one place I really wasn’t in a hurry to be was on a pair of skis. I’d seen people outside the hotel trying to walk around in those ski boots and the majority of them looked as though they had a bad case of piles, which led me to think they obviously weren’t the easiest or most comfortable of things to wear. And that was before you even added the skis to the bottom of them. No, he was going to be bitterly disappointed if he was hoping for me to become a new pupil. I didn’t care how good-looking he was.

      ‘Would you like to?’ he asked, still looking at me with those intense eyes of his. He had one hell of a stare on him but the strange thing was, he wasn’t making me feel in the least bit uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact.

      ‘Yes,’ I replied, unable to take my eyes off him, even though it felt a touch weird to be here in the middle of this magical little Christmas village staring at this stranger who’d seemed to appear out of nowhere. ‘Yes, I would.’

      ‘I think you should,’ he said, nodding slowly as he lifted his eyes skywards again, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his black jacket.

      I wanted to ask why – why he thought I should – but, for some reason, I couldn’t seem to get the words out.

      ‘My name is Mikku,’ he went on, bringing his gaze once more back on me.

      ‘I… I’m Jessie,’ I said, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly tired. It was as if all the events of the past year had finally caught up with me – like a huge weight had just landed square on my shoulders, weighing me down.

      ‘Jessie… that’s a lovely name…’ He smiled at me again and, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the tiredness seemed to dissipate, leaving me with a strange sense of calm. ‘Would you like some company, Jessie?’

      Was he coming on to me? But, as I looked at him, right into those ridiculously deep eyes of his, I knew it wasn’t like that. It was nothing like that. For some reason I just couldn’t explain, I felt incredibly comfortable with this man. This strange young man with the intense gaze and the soft voice. And, despite having planned this as a day to reflect, a day to be on my own and think about what it was I was supposed to do with this new, enforced future of mine, I suddenly realised that, yes. Yes, I did actually want some company.

      ‘I think I’d like that,’ I said, returning the smile he gave me. ‘I think I’d like that a lot.’

      *

      I sat down at the secluded corner table in the small and cosy café that Mikku had brought us to in the centre of town. It had a warm and welcoming atmosphere with terracotta and brown painted walls, a dark stone floor and a huge open fire at one end that crackled and burned from within an imposing stone fireplace decorated with candles and the most beautiful holly and berry garland. Fairy lights hung from the ceiling and Christmas songs played in the background, still audible above the sound of chatter from the many customers who were enjoying lunch, grabbing some time to relax away from the cold and the snow.

      ‘You look as though you have far too much on your mind.’ Mikku’s voice broke into my thoughts and I looked up as he sat down opposite me, now without the black jacket and hat he’d been wearing outside. He really was a striking young man with short, dark hair that matched those vivid, almost black, eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Jessie. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn, you just look a little… you look lost. You look sad.’

      I turned away for a second, looking out of the window at the far end of the café at the decorated shops opposite, people trudging past in their snow boots and layers of winter clothing, everyone gearing up for a Christmas they’d never forget. I had a strange feeling I wasn’t going to forget it in a hurry either. I just didn’t know why yet, and that made everything all the more confusing.