Audrey

She had been avoiding Chris, and it was making her miserable. It was probably making both of them miserable, but truth to be told that was just her best guess. She didn't know how he felt, because she hadn't seen him for the last two months.

The morning after the night he spent at her apartment had actually not been that bad. He had done a lot to make her feel comfortable, laughing and talking as if nothing was out of the ordinary. As if he didn't just admit his feelings the night before. As if he hadn't kissed her and spent the night in her bed.

But then after Chris left the next day, she had felt a sense of shock wash over her. Just what the hell had happened? She had never intended this. She had never expected another man in her life so soon after Henry.

And certainly not his best friend.

The day after, Chris had to leave for a morning meeting with a friend, and even though he had called later that day, she had been too embarrassed by everything to pick up.

That was the final, residual feeling she had at the end of everything - an overwhelming sense of embarrassment.

"What the hell do you have to be embarrassed about?" Casey had demanded when Audrey finally told her what had happened three days later. "You act like you've done something wrong. You're single. He's single, and you didn't even sleep together for goodness sakes. What a wasted opportunity. But still, he's awesome and funny and so much better than that ex of yours. I couldn't even come up with a better way to stick it to Henry."

But Audrey couldn't explain. She wished things didn't become so complicated. She had told herself that after the fiasco with Henry she was going to stay and focus on learning to be happy with herself, and devote herself to building a life in Boston separate from Henry. She had planned to throw herself in her career, and this thing with Chris was nowhere in the plan.

So when he called again the next day, she didn't pick up, and when he texted her asking if everything was alright, she blew it off with some nonchalant text message that said she was fine, just busy.

Of course, the next weekend, he had asked her where she wanted to go for their usual dinner, but she had again said she was too busy and asked for a raincheck.

Chris got the message after that. He didn't call again, and only sent one last text:

I'd be happy to meet up if you'd want to again, but I won't insist that you do something you don't want to do.

She must have read that message over and over again. Whenever she was alone she found herself opening her text message thread with Chris and looking at their messages and dwelling on the last one.

A million times she had spent debating whether or not to say something, and a million times she had stopped herself.

And now, here she was again, sitting at her desk, looking at the same line of text she had memorized by now and trying to figure out the best thing to say in a reply and knowing that she would ultimately say nothing at the end of all that debating.

"Hey," Casey's voice suddenly came at her door, and Audrey nearly dropped her phone in surprise.

She jumped out of her chair and stood up quickly. "Casey!" she said, hoping not to sound as flustered as she felt. She smoothed the sleeve of her sweater and picked at an imaginary lint piece as she tried to calm her nerves. "I didn't hear you come in."

Casey was giving her a very probing look - she was doing a lot of that these days. "What are you doing?" she asked, in a tone that Audrey thought just had the hint of suspicion. It made her think that Casey knew exactly what she was doing and she gulped uncomfortably.

"Nothing," she said quickly, giving a glance at her phone to make sure that it was off and that the incriminating message thread with Chris Williams was displayed and broadcast for the world to see. "Just scrolling randomly."

Casey gave her a look that seemed a little more knowing to be considered casual, but she moved on. "Do you want to go to the Christmas market this Saturday?"

Audrey smiled - yes, Boston was all decked out for the holidays now. The first snow of the season had fallen on the ground a few days ago and it seemed like a perfect time to join in on all the festivities.

"Yes, of course," she said, smiling. Work was lightening up a bit as people started taking off for vacation, and she had no plans for the weekend. It was the last weekend she had before she was due to head back to California for her break, and the first time ever she'd really get to experience a truly snowy Christmas season.

"Cool," Casey replied, as she remained standing in the doorway. She looked like she was on the verge of saying something.

Audrey was eyeing her warily. She had a good idea what topic Casey was about to broach and was already feeling a wave of apprehension about it. Casey had been prone to bring up Chris whenever they touched on anything related to weekend plans, because now Audrey was available on all the weekends.

Casey opened her mouth, and then made a weird face, seemed to decide against it, closed her mouth again. "Okay, that's great," she said again, a strangely pained expression still on her face, and then she turned to leave.

Audrey watched all of this trying to decide how to feel about it. On the one hand, she was glad she wasn't going to be chastised again for her actions. On the other hand, she was desperate to talk about Chris. She thought about him constantly and it was only with a real effort and a great amount of self restraint that she did not broach the topic with Casey, the one person who really knew all that had happened.

But before she had even the time to grasp whether she was more exasperated or relieved, Casey seemed to change her mind once again and was marching back to her room.

"I cannot believe you are virtually ghosting him!" she exclaimed, no preamble or hesitation whatsoever when she got back to Audrey's room. "What in the world are you doing?"

"I..I'm not-" Audrey stammered in response. But she couldn't really deny it. She felt a deep sense of shame and regret well up inside her. "It's for the best," she finally said in a small voice, not even able to meet Casey's eye.

"You don't believe that," Casey retorted.

Audrey wasn't sure if she agreed. Sure, it wasn't what was making her happy but it was way less complicated to not have a relationship with Chris Williams than to have some sort of relationship with him.

"It's just, the whole thing with Henry and I was engaged a year ago for goodness sake, and this is his best friend, and I don't want to date someone else from Harvard Business School, it's just not what I should be doing," she was rambling now, but she couldn't stop herself.

She felt like she had had this discussion with Casey multiple times before. She had said these same words multiple times before. Casey's response had ranged from retorting about how awful Henry was to gushing over how great Chris was, but this time, Casey was looking at her with a softer expression. For a moment, no one said anything.

"What?" Audrey asked finally, not used to the silence.

Casey was still giving her that look. She shook her head a little bit. "When are you going to stop worrying about what you should or should not be doing and think about what you actually want to do?" she asked.

Her words deflated the fight out of Audrey. "It's easier for him too," she said, a last feeble attempt at mustering up an argument. "This way he can still be friends with Henry and it won't complicate his life at school."

Casey pursed her lips. "Why don't you let Chris decide whether that's what he wants?" she asked. And then she was all matter of fact again. "Look Audrey, I'd stop bugging you about it if I really thought this was what you wanted. Sure, I think you'd be crazy to let a guy like that go- not just because he's good looking," she said quickly at the expression of exasperation on Audrey's face, "But because he's genuinely so good to you and you were so happy when you were with him. I would honestly stop bothering you even if with all that I genuinely believed you didn't want to be with him, but it's obviously making you unhappy. Why give yourself this self-inflicted wound?"

Audrey thought about Casey's words the rest of the week. She thought about texting Chris again but couldn't bring herself to do it. The truth was, the more that time passed, the harder she found it to be.

She had been hoping that he would reach out again, but he hadn't. Not for the last month and a half. Nothing from him since that last text message.

She wondered if he was furious with her. She would be if she was him, and that thought made her stomach queasy inside.

On the Friday before she was due to go to the Christmas markets with Casey, she went back to that bookstore on Newberry, the one where she had first met him.

She told herself she was there to browse for a Christmas present for her family, but if she was being honest, she hoped to run into Chris there. He had mentioned that it was one of his favorite book shops in all of Boston to go to, and in her mind it would be easier to strike up a conversation if she ran into him as if it was a coincidence than if she reached out out of the blue.

Coward, she scolded herself as she walked into the store. But despite telling herself that it was very unlikely that Chris was there, she could feel her heart pounding as she opened the door to the shop and heard the tinkling of the bell that announced a customer had entered.

The girl behind the counter looked up. It was the same girl from half a year ago, and she smiled in a friendly manner at Audrey but didn't say anything else otherwise.

Audrey spent an absurd amount of time browsing books half heartedly at the bookstore, trying to decide whether or not to purchase Good Night Moon or The Very Hungry Caterpillar for her cousin's one year old baby before realizing that the baby probably did not care at all.

While she was at the store, she heard the bell above the door chime a few times, and each time it chimed her heart sped up, hoping it was Chris, but of course it wasn't.

A family of three had walked in, an older man by himself, a girl in her early twenties.

But no Chris.

And why would he walk in? What was she thinking? He did mention that this was his favorite bookstore but it's not like he came in every day. For all she knew he could be back home in New York.

And of course, she didn't know, because she had purposefully made sure their communication would end by her own actions.

Audrey sighed internally, finally deciding that it was way too much to wander around a small bookstore more than she had already done so, hoping to run into a guy who probably wasn't in town.

She ended up buying a couple of books she remembered from her childhood - Harold and the Purple Crayon, Where's Spot, and I Love You to the Moon and Back, having no idea whether or not they were good for one-year-olds but hoping that at least one of them would strike a chord with the baby.

She was checking out at the front desk when the bell to the front door rang again.

Almost reluctantly, Audrey looked over towards the entrance of the store while the girl at the front desk put all the books that she had purchased into a bag.

She froze.

It wasn't Chris who had walked in.

It was Henry.

For a moment, she just stared at him. He was also staring back at her, rooted to the spot, mouth agape. For a moment, they both just simply looked at each other in pure shock.

"I-I-Audrey-I," Henry stammered, blinking at her. "Sorry, I didn't know, sorry you're-I didn't know you were going to be here."

She didn't say anything. For a long moment she just took him in, this man that she had once thought she was going to be with for the rest of her life.

He looked almost exactly the same as he did before, although of course now he was bundled in a large winter jacket. He looked a little paler than he did before, save for the bits of red on his cheeks that were tinged from the cold, but otherwise - the hair, the eyes, even the way he stood there - they were all the same as before.

It felt so familiar, yet so strange at the same time. She hadn't spoken to him or been this close to him in almost a year.

He was by himself, and as Audrey looked at him, she realized with a sudden jolt of shock that she hadn't really thought about him recently.

Sure, of course the thought of Henry passed through her mind whenever there was a discussion where Casey brought him up, likely in a disparaging tone in comparison to Chris, or whenever her mother lamented what had happened, but besides that, she really had not thought deeply about what he had been up to in the months since.

"I'm sorry - I didn't know you were here. Sorry, I - I don't actually have to be here. I can - I can go if that's, if that's better," Henry was still rambling. "If you'd like that."

For a moment, Audrey didn't say anything. She noted that he had said he was sorry repeatedly. It brought back a memory of their last conversation, when he had repeatedly apologized for cheating on her, for ending their relationship when she had just moved to Boston to be with him, for being overall, a very shitty fiance, and the thought brought up the strangest desire within her to laugh, but she resisted the urge.

"You can do whatever you want," she said. "It doesn't matter to me."

It came out sounding colder than she meant it to. She had really just meant to say that it's nothing to her if he decided to stay or leave. She was leaving anyways, and she didn't have to deprive this bookstore of a potential customer for no reason.

Henry blinked at her. "I, I-" he gulped, running a hand through his hair.

She remembered that gesture. She had found it endearing once upon a time. But oddly, she found that the thought of Chris suddenly crossed her mind. She wondered when Henry last saw Chris. Probably recently, she thought. They were best friends, after all, and now that she was no longer in the picture, Chris' life wasn't complicated by this inconvenience and he never had to broach this topic with Henry and everything was the way it should be.

Whenever the word should crossed her mind, she heard Casey's voice.

"When are you going to stop worrying about what you should or should not be doing and think about what you actually want to do?"

She tried to brush that voice out of her mind.

Henry was still by the door. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, and finally, he said, "I'm going to go - sorry about -" he gestured aimlessly around with both of his hands in the general direction of her and the rest of the store, and then turned to leave.

Audrey found that she wasn't sorry to see him go. For a long time after they immediately broke up, she thought that there would be so many unsaid things between them. That there would be so much she'd want him to explain, so much anger she felt towards him she'd want to express, but now that they had finally ran into one another, she found that this wasn't the case at all.

She had nothing left to say to him.

She watched as Henry turned to leave, grasping the door handle of the entrance to the bookshop in a haste.

But then, he paused, his fingers still on the door knob, half turned.

He seemed to hesitate for the briefest second, and then it was almost like he had forced himself to turn back to her to say one more thing.

"How are things with Chris?" Henry asked, his voice oddly choked, a strange expression of forced stoicism on his face.

Audrey could tell that it took tremendous effort for him to ask this question. It was almost as if Henry knew that the best thing to do was to not ask this question, but his desire to know the answer had outweighed his sense in the end.

But she was thrown in utter confusion.

Why would Henry ask that question? Did Chris actually say something to him about them? She wracked her brain, but couldn't remember a single time that Chris had mentioned voicing something to Henry.

And why would Henry ask her this question? Did he...did he possibly think that she was together with Chris? Were the two of them not talking?

She had no idea what to make of the question, but it had thrown her into a tailspin.

Before she could answer though, Henry's sense seemed to have taken over him again. "Right," he said, rubbing the back of his head nervously again. "Not any of my business." He turned towards the door again, and then turned back one more time, "Happy holidays Audrey," he said softly, and then without waiting for a reply, he turned the doorknob and exited the store.

It had been surreal to run into Henry of all people, when she was here hoping to run into Chris. But it was that last question of his that had Audrey pondering.

What had happened in the last two months? What was going on with Chris? Suddenly she felt desperate to know.

She wrapped her fingers around the phone in her pocket, feeling the weight of it. Should she call him? She bit her lips, uncertain.

"Will that be all?"

Audrey nearly jumped at that. She had been so lost in her own little world that she had forgotten she was still at the check out counter, and that the girl behind it - her name tag said her name was Clarissa - was still waiting for her.

Thank goodness the bookshop was relatively empty. Clarissa was still smiling serenely, patiently, as if that exchange she just witnessed between Audrey and Henry was not strange in the slightest.

"Yes, thank you, that's all," Audrey said, giving her head a little shake and moving to grab the bag with the three children's books on the counter.

She wished she could see Chris all of a sudden. She didn't want to text him or even talk to him on the phone. She wanted to see him in person, and she was now feeling very stupid for having avoided him for all the the last two months. And now that it was Christmas break, it was likely that he wouldn't be in Boston anymore. Maybe he was already back home in New York.

"Thank you for your help," she said absentmindedly to Clarissa behind the counter. She gave her head another shake, hoping to clear it a little bit. "He's probably gone back home," she said absentmindedly to herself, turning to leave.

"Probably," Clarissa's voice came from behind her.

Audrey turned back in surprise. "I'm sorry?" she asked, not sure if she had heard correctly.

Clarissa was still sitting behind the counter, smiling serenely. "Most students have gone back home over break, I've had a bunch of people ask to have books shipped home since winter break is like a month long for them," she said, gesturing towards a large pile of books sitting on a table next to the entrance.

"Right," Audrey said, utterly perplexed by this situation, by the way this girl she didn't know responded to something she was muttering to herself. "But you don't - you don't know who I'm talking about," she said slowly, her heart sinking nonetheless at the prospect that Chris was no longer in Boston. This girl was probably right - students had been disappearing and the town of Cambridge had felt like it was shrinking over the past week, but she wanted to kick herself because now she could not see him for at least another month.

Maybe she should call or text after all.

Or maybe she should wait until break was over.

Clarissa was giving Audrey a look, one that seemed a little too knowing to be casual. It made Audrey feel like that the girl behind the counter knew exactly what, or who, she was talking about.

But of course that couldn't be.

"No, of course I don't," Clarissa said, with another smile. "Anyways, thanks for shopping with us and happy holidays. Take a candy cane on your way out," she gestured again towards the table by the door with all the packages, where there was a mason jar filled with red and green striped candy canes.

"Right, thank you, you too," Audrey replied automatically. She gave Clarissa one last perplexed look, but now the girl behind the counter was no longer looking at her, but bent over a notebook.

Audrey moved towards the door, deciding that why not, she would grab a candy cane on the way out.

She had just plucked the cane from the jar by the door when she noticed the package closest to the jar, at the very top of the pile of boxes all neatly wrapped in brown paper.

She nearly dropped the cane, because the package at the very top was the name Christopher Williams, followed by an address on Park Avenue in New York City.

She gasped, turning back to look at Clarissa behind the counter.

But Clarissa was already gone.