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And the feel of her lips on his Her warainst his The soft satin of her dress under the palm of his hand

He’d felt more alive in the last week than he had in the last five years

And that was all because of Grace

He reached out to touch her arm ‘It’s been nice to meet you Enjoy Christmas Day’

The words were nowhere near adequate They didn’t even begin to cover what he wanted to say or as circulating in his brain

Grace’s dark brown eyesto say the sa Then, her bottom lip started to tre as normal’

He blinked What?

Why would the girl who loved Christ it with her family and friends?

‘What do you ? Don’t you have plans with those you love?’

As soon as the words were out he realised he’d said exactly the wrong thing The tears that had pooled in her eyes flooded over and rolled down her cheeks

He reached out his ar? Grace? Tell me?’

She was shaking and when the words ca he expected

‘There’s no fao And now, there’s just no one I can’t face anything’ She looked at hiht I could do this I thought I could I thought if I kept busy and kept working everything would just fall into place I wouldn’t have ti her head ‘But it’s harder than I could ever io, everywhere I look, I see people—fa Christmas the way I used to Even Mrs Archer—I love her—but I’ it so hard to be around her She reran The way she speaks, her manneris her head ‘I just want this to be over’ Now, she looked outside again into the dark night In the distance they could see the Christ Battersea Power Station ‘I just want Christmas to be over,’ she breathed

Every hair on his arot all of it