Page 59 of Five Gold Rings

Eve doesn’t say much but heads to the bedroom. I leave her be, digesting her silence, wishing there was a more useful, funnier, constructive way to help her. I try my best to tidy things into piles but notice shards of glass under my feet so head to the kitchen to look for a dustpan and brush. It’s a small galley-style kitchen but there are hints of Eve all over it. Rows of novelty mugs on display on a shelf, Kilner jars of oats, couscous and pasta, labelled with her writing, a little ceramic bowl full of hairbands and bracelets. My phone suddenly buzzes in my pocket.

It is fucking Christmas Day and you are not here. You’ve made Mum cry.

Merry Christmas to you, too. I explained everything to Mum this morning. She was not crying. I will be home by tonight.

You didn’t call me. I got a text and that is unacceptable.

I rang all the other sisters. I just like you less, Carrie.

Eating all the parsnips now, loser. I hope Santa brought you COAL.

I’ll see you all this evening.

Loser x Love you x

I stand there in the kitchen staring blankly at Eve’s fridge. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to hurry along someone’s analysis of heartbreak but now I’m preoccupied by the vision of my sister scoffing a platter of parsnips, all for the sake of a sisterly grudge. I need to hurry this along. On the fridge is a Christmas postcard of a very grumpy cat in a Santa hat. You’re funny, grumpy cat – I feel you but while I’m looking at it something else catches my eye. A note, a piece of paper folded in half with Eve’s name on. I reach for it and put it in my pocket.

In the living room, I try to be helpful and sweep the floor but, hey, there’s shortbread there, too, so I help myself. In fact, there are so many gifts (olive oil sets included) and I think about how she must have bought them all, wrapped them, for people who she thought were family. Gift tags are strewn on the floor in her handwriting, with hand drawn holly sprigs, and it pains me to see all that love, all that care wasted.

I look through to the bedroom where she sits on the floor, cross-legged, staring into space. I edge towards the door, leaning against the doorframe.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask. ‘Say something, Eve. Please.’

She turns to me gaunt, pale, so very sad. And I go and sit next to her. I let her rest her weary head on my shoulder. And I listen. Because that’s what friends do. I listen to all that heartbreak, all those times that shithead took her for granted, realisations about love coming to the fore. I’m happy she’s coming to these conclusions on her own but, God, that must sting.

‘I truly am sorry about yesterday, too. The drunken kissing, crossing that line. I appreciate you so much as a friend, the fact I put all of that in jeopardy is selfish and wrong of me. I hope you can forgive me.’

As a friend. Does that feel like a big fat arrow through my heart? Yes. But she’s drawn that line in the sand now. At least she’s said that much out loud so I can move on. ‘There was drunken kissing? Don’t remember it. You must have kissed someone else.’

She continues, skittish, emotionally all over the place, giving me a sandwich toaster from the back of the wardrobe and going on about toasties. But we sit there together on that floor, and I try to make this right for her by letting her talk, by offering small nuggets of wisdom, by taking that sandwich toaster. It also makes waffles. Gabriel will lose his shit. It will take time to heal from all of this and get closure. I pause for a moment. Closure. Is that what the note on the fridge was about? I think for a moment about the best course of action and reach into my pocket. She notices the piece of paper in my hand immediately.

‘What’s that then?’ she asks.

‘I… I didn’t know if you wanted to read it. It was a note I found stuck on the fridge. It may be nothing, but it had your name on it.’

Her eyes widen at the sight of Chris’s handwriting on the front which makes me think she’s not seen this note before. ‘Have you read it?’

I shake my head. The note wasn’t for me.

‘Can you read it out for me?’ she says, emotionally.

I nod silently and open it up, scanning the words.

Seriously?

No.

I can’t read this out to her. Can I? I take a deep breath. I am sorry you have to feel any of this, lovely Eve. And yet she does. And even if she can’t ever be mine, it does pain me to see someone I care about so much be hurt in this way.

‘My dearest Eve… I have no words to explain what you saw this morning. I am so sorry I’ve done this. You are the most wonderful person I know. You are kind, selfless, you care about people. I see it in how you ask people about their days, in how you cry when people tell you about their pets, how you’ll make a cup of tea for everyone in the damn room. You ask for nothing in return. I love how you stand at countertops and sway to music that no one can hear, that you bite at your thumbnail when you’re thinking really hard and always have an umbrella. I will forever be sorry for what I’ve done to you. Chris.’

She sits there to take in the words.

‘Are there kisses at the end?’ she asks, confused.

‘Two,’ I reply.

‘I do always have an umbrella. My mum taught me that. It’s to protect my hair. It goes frizzy when it’s wet.’