“Incoming!” I call out as I deliver a steaming tray of latkes to a table already piled with food. People descend on them the second I let go. Mr. Green, finally out of his Santa suit, literally elbows me out of the way.
“This is a great idea, Caroline,” he says through a mouthful of food. “Always wondered when Barnwich would start including us Jewish people in the holiday festivities.”
I nearly collapse in the middle of the bar. “You’re Jewish?”
He points a latke at me. “Don’t let the Santa suit fool you.”
I smile and lean against the counter of the bar as he walks away to go sit with a group of tourists in the corner booth. Riley swivels around on her stool, while Miles and Levi rest their elbows on the opposite side.
“A Hanukkah event in Barnwich on Christmas,” Levi says with a whistle, as all of us look out at the packed room.
Barnwich showed up. I scan the crowd of familiar faces, my parents, our caroling buddies Josephine and Ruth and Shirley and Clara, a few small business owners, even some people I know from school, laughing with Austin and Maya by the door.
Riley nods. “Who’d have thought?”
“Looks like the Becketts made their very own Barnwich tradition,” Miles says, whacking me lightly with his bar towel. I look over at him and he smiles. “Now you’ll have to come home from the big city next year.”
“Holidays in Barnwich?” I say, returning the smile. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
It’s true. It feels amazing knowing we’ll always get to celebrate all the parts of us with the people we love most from now on. So I hate the fact that in a room as full as this one, it still feels like someone is missing.
As Riley tries to convince Levi and Miles to give her a whiskey on the rocks, I turn to head back into the kitchen to see if Edie needs help. She’s taken over for the day, with Finn’s and Tom’s help, the two of them inexplicably wearing their matching bandanas again.
“How’s it coming, Edie?” I ask as I push inside, and she immediately slings an arm around my waist while she stares at the brisket in the oven, prepared with my grandma’s stolen recipe: Levi sweet-talked it out of her and she gave in when she heard what we were doing. Or maybe it was the piña coladas on their cruise.
“It’s coming.” She gives me a squeeze, then turns her head to look at me and says, her voice soft, “That was some article, kid.”
“Thanks, Edie,” I whisper. “I just… had to write the truth. Show Arden how I’ve always seen her.”
“Well, you certainly did that.”
“Have you heard from her?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She shakes her head and I nod, trying to blink away the tears that sting at my eyes.
Of course not.
“I’m gonna get some air,” I say, and she pats my side before letting me go.
I don’t even bother putting on a jacket before I push through the back door. Barnwich is so quiet and snowy and perfect on the other side, I don’t even mind the cold as I walk slowly around to the front.
I let out a long exhale and tilt my head back, squeezing my eyes shut.
I expect the tears to fall, but in this moment, despite everything, I can’t help but feel like… well…
Enough.
Not just Jewish enough or Christian enough, but like I’m enough. Me. Caroline Beckett. Even if I don’t get into Columbia with the application I submitted this afternoon. Even if I don’t fall in love with someone else for another decade. Even if I never see or hear from Arden James aga—
“Yes,” a voice cuts through the silence.
I open my eyes, head swinging down to see a figure standing underneath the orange glow of the streetlight.
“Arden? What are you doing here?” I want to move toward her, but my feet feel frozen to the concrete.
“Yes,” she says again, and I frown.
“What?”
“Your question. In the article,” she says, doing what I can’t and taking a step closer. “Yes. I’ll come back to Barnwich.”
I tilt my head to the side, scared to let myself believe this means something more.
“But for how long?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“Well, at least until the summer. Maybe longer if I can convince Bianchi to shoot the movie here.”
I start. “Wait. What? Here like… in Barnwich here?”
“Yes, Caroline.” She laughs, and the sound fills up all the empty parts of me.
“You still got the part?”
She nods. “Pays to be honest.” We stare at each other for a long moment. “You would know that,” she says, quieter now.
“Arden, I—”
“You wrote one hell of an article, Caroline,” she says, cutting me off. “Everything you said, it… God, it hit home.” She looks down at her feet. “I love acting, but the choices I made at fourteen have just slowly been killing me, in more ways than one. I think after this Bianchi role, I… I need some time off. To figure out what exactly I want to do. What I want this acting thing to look like.”
“I’m sure Lillian is thrilled about that.”
She smiles at that and shakes her head. “I fired her last night.”
“You what?”
“She never saw me. She was just as bad as my parents. Caroline, being back here, being home these last two weeks, has left me feeling more whole than I’ve felt… ever. It’s made me realize what I want. Who I want to be. To Grams. To the whole world. To myself, and… to you. Even if it takes me a little while to figure out how.” She takes a deep breath and takes another step closer until she’s just a foot away. “Watching you walk away yesterday was…”
She doesn’t finish her sentence. She doesn’t need to. Because I know. It was just as hard for me to be the one doing the leaving as it was to be left behind.
“I shouldn’t have rushed out like that,” I admit, and this time she lets me talk. “I was… scared, to be honest. I felt so out of place. Like I didn’t belong there with you.”
“I get it.”
“I know. And that’s what I realized when I left. That maybe I should have more faith in you.”
“You should,” she says, swallowing. “Because I—I love you, Caroline. I’ve loved you for so long it’s… ridi—” She laughs, shaking her head. “Ridiculous.” But then she gets a serious look on her face. “I know I have fucked up a lot in my life, run away from a lot. But I want to show up for you. I want to come home. And I don’t know if this will work out. You could hate my guts in a week, be sick of me by Valentine’s Day. Hell, you might even end up wanting to take Taylor Hill to prom. All of that scares me, but, Caroline, I want to try. Because if I don’t, I’ll spend my entire life wondering—”
The words aren’t even out of her mouth before I throw myself into her, my lips clumsily finding hers. She wraps her arms around my waist and then walks me backward until I’m pinned against the brick wall of the bar.
Arden James, Arden James, Arden James.
Her name dances around my head, filling my chest until it feels like the only thought I’ve ever had.
We kiss on the snowy streets of Barnwich, where we first fell in love. Where she left me and where she came back to me.
“Unbelievable,” Riley says from the doorway, startling the two of us apart. “I came to see if you wanted to do the honor of lighting the candles, and I find you making out? Some party host.”
We both laugh, and Arden shoots her a sheepish grin.
“Happy Hanukkah?” she says. Riley rolls her eyes and then runs inside ahead of us.
Arden reaches out to grab my hand, and the contact sends sparks through me just like all those years ago. Her mouth pulls up into that lopsided grin of hers, and for the first time since she came back, I don’t want time to slow down. Now I can’t wait…
To discover all the pieces of her that are new, all the pieces of her that have stayed the same, all the pieces of us that don’t even exist yet.
And as she pauses in the doorframe to pull me into a kiss underneath the mistletoe, I can’t help but wonder if my twelve days with Arden James can turn into a lifetime.