You know, there was this weird moment I had the other day…
I’d just left work, and the air was biting cold—proper British winter, you know? Snow dusted the bonnet and windscreen of my car like powdered sugar. I climbed in, blasted the heater, and scraped the frost away with the wipers before pulling out into the evening traffic. Absolute nightmare—gridlock all the way. Cars piled up like it was the last day of the January sales.
Passing the shopping centre, I figured, “Sod it, may as well wait out the chaos and grab some Christmas bits.” But even the car park was packed—no spaces, just rows of bumper-to-bumper metal. I was about to regret the detour when some bloke in a massive 4×4 flashed his lights in my rearview and reversed out, waving me in. Decent of him, I thought.
Inside, the place was heaving. Hot, stuffy, crammed with people darting about like headless chickens. I unbuttoned my coat, loosened my scarf, and wandered through the holiday displays—baubles, tinsel, fairy lights, the whole lot. Loaded my basket with shiny decorations, a couple of silver reindeer, some posh towels with Father Christmas on them, flutes for bubbly… figured I’d give ’em out to colleagues. For Mum and James, though, I’d get something proper later.
Finally reached the till, and—bloody hell—I’d grabbed way too much. Oh well. Paid up, bundled everything into a bag, and edged toward the exit, dodging elbows like I was carrying glass.
Then—
“Emily!”
Didn’t even register it was me at first.
“Harrison!”
Ah. My maiden name. I stopped dead, nearly got bowled over by a stampede of shoppers. Stepped aside, scanning the crowd, and there he was—a bloke in a scruffy beanie pulled low, a patchy beard, grinning at me with a missing front tooth. My stomach dropped. No way this was someone I knew.
But then he said, “Don’t recognise me? Still look a million quid, though,” and there was something in his laugh—
“Daniel?” I gasped. Couldn’t help it—”What happened to you?”
His smile faltered. “Long story. Fancy a cuppa?”
The café was rammed, but he led me to a corner table, half-hidden. Ordered a black coffee for me, shoveled down a full roast dinner like he hadn’t eaten in days. The waiter kept side-eyeing us.
Turns out, after school, Daniel had married some girl named Gemma—”Proper piece of work, that one”—got tangled in her dad’s dodgy business, lost everything, and ended up here, stacking shelves at the shopping centre. His dad died (his fault, he reckoned), his ex was now living it up with his old business partner, and he’d barely scraped by since.
“Could’ve taken ’em to court,” I said.
He snorted. “With what money? She’d have buried me.”
I reached for my card when the bill came, but the look he gave me—Christ. Paid with crumpled notes instead.
“Still live round yours?” he asked as we left.
“I’ve got to go,” I muttered, bolting for the car park.
At home, James poured me wine. “You alright?”
Told him about Daniel.
“Pathetic,” he said. “Man’s given up. Life’s not fair—suck it up.”
Still… I went back before New Year’s, asked security if they’d seen Daniel.
“Gone,” the bloke shrugged. “No one’s seen him.”
A month later, I swore I spotted him on the street—turned out it wasn’t.
I like to think he sorted himself out. Got a proper job. Stopped drinking. But he never called.
And some part of me wonders—if I’d told him how I felt back then, would any of this have happened?
