"Who hides in a bakery at Christmas?" Dad glimpses up at us all, smirking like an excited child. "A mince spy!"

Mum loudly groans before rolling her eyes with obvious dismay. "Oh my goodness, year on year, the jokes just get worse, don't they?"

She's right, in all the years that dad has excitedly read the jokes from out of the pulled Christmas crackers; the jokes just get cornier and cornier. But corny is good. Corny is comforting. Corny is what I know. As I'm sat around the table with my parents and Mitch, for the first time in my life, I feel the heavy weight of insecurity sitting at the bottom of my stomach. Okay, it's probably rammed in there, along with the too many pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, turkey and the rest of the delicious lunch that I've only just eaten, but that insecurity is so uncomfortably still down in there.

"Okay, what about this one, then?" Dad has already eagerly taken mum's joke from out of her torn apart cracker, knowing that she has no intention of ever reading it. "Who is Santa's favourite singer?" Again, he impatiently pauses, just dying to tell us the awful punchline. "Elfis Presley." He's laughing at the awfulness of it, which in turn makes us all laugh along with him.

Could I really leave my cheesy-joke-telling-father?

Could I really leave my obvious-eye-rolling-mother?

To even be considering what Mitch asked of me earlier, makes me now feel insecure and terribly guilty. My independence has been built on the solid ground of who my parents are. Built upon who they have allowed me to become. While my mum is begging my father to not read out any more groan-worthy cracker jokes, I'm sat here watching them both with so much gratitude and respect for them. For so many years, I have taken who they so wonderfully are for complete granted. For so many years, I have been ungrateful and complacent for all that they have given me—everything, they have given me everything.

It's only now that I can fully grasp the enormity of that.

Grasp the enormity of what I'd be leaving behind.

Don't cry!

Please don't cry!

Is all I silently keep telling myself.

"Who's ready for pudding?" Rising from my seat with a quivery weak smile, I start clearing away the dinner plates. I don't look at anyone. Not Mitch. Not dad. Definitely not my mum. I'm only keeping my glassy eyes down on the dirty plates, while clamping my lips together to imprison a sob that I fear is trying to escape.

Don't cry!

Please don't cry!

Becomes my repeated emotional inner mantra.

With all four plates stacked up in my hands, I hurry to the kitchen with them. Hurrying, because my eyes are now bordering with hot tears. The kitchen will give me some space. A place to pull my stupid self together. As I carefully put the plates beside the sink, I exhale long and slowly. That overwhelmed breath needs to be expelled. It needs somewhere to go. As I'm opening up the fridge door, I then see mum's sherry trifle. That trifle becomes my absolute undoing. Clasping my hand over my opened mouth, I try to quieten my crying. As quick as my tears are rolling down my cheeks, I'm swiping them away with my shaky fingers. I've never been much of a crier, yet here I am, crying. It's the trifle's fault. It's the reason why my tears have found their way down my cheeks. That trifle has just broken me. For it represents all that my mum is. Her trifle is yet another one of our family traditions. Along with the weak pulling of a Christmas cracker that often fails to give that , and has inside of it a really crap joke, a tacky gift and a hat that's big enough for three adult heads—they both are our traditions.

I don't know whether I am ready to leave those traditions behind.

I don't think I am ready to leave my parents behind.

For once in my life, I am truly valuing them.

Truly understanding the importance of them.

The strangest part about all of this—it's down to Mitch.

He has changed me.

Changed who I am.

The way I think.

The way I feel.

His tragic past, has made me realise how incredibly blessed I have been and how incredibly blessed I now am.

Him.

Mitch Heston.

He's made me see into myself and all that is around me.

Yes, him...he's done all of that.

So how can I not say yes?

How can I not go with him?

He has equally become my everything.

My life.

As I'm just about to take the trifle from out of the fridge, I'm afraid that my trembling hands might drop it. Just like I fear my life is dropping. Dropping with confusion and not knowing what is the right thing to do.

"Bring out the Yule Log with that trifle, Rebecca?" Mum is strolling into the kitchen and is standing on the other side of the fridge door.

"Okay." I'm trying so hard not to let my voice reveal the thick emotion that has clogged up my vocal chords. I'm also refusing to close the fridge door, because I don't want mum to see any of my rolling tears.

"Rebecca?" But mum is my mother...and mothers always know. "What's wrong?" She's slowly pushing on the fridge door, revealing more of my tear-stained face as she is closing it. "Whatever is wrong, my love?" In an instant, she's wrapping her motherly arms all around me. "Tell me what has happened?" Her voice is soft, just like her cuddle. "I'm here for you my darling, always here." Her mature fingers are now rubbing the length of my back, wanting to rid me of whatever is causing my many tears.

"I'm sorry, Mum." I'm not sure whether I am apologising for not bringing out the sherry trifle and the Yule log, or whether it's because of all the times that I used to shut her out.

"What are you saying sorry for? You needn't be sorry for anything." I know mum doesn't know what I am apologising for, she is only wanting to make me feel better. "Now, what are all these tears about?" She pulls herself away a little, wanting to dab away some of the wetness from my eyes with the tips of her maternal tender fingers.

I never used to find opening up to mum very easy, but since being with Mitch, opening up now strangely feels like the most natural thing in the world. "Mitch wants me to go back to LA with him. He wants me to expand my business from there." My head falls. I can't face seeing my mum fall prey to her emotions as well.

A silence quickly fills the kitchen.

Filling the space between us.

It's the loudest form of silence.

The most uncomfortable of silences.

Inhaling hard, I turn my attention back to getting that trifle from out of the fridge. Doing something, is better than standing stagnant in that silence. Doing something, keeps the tears at bay.

Mum is watching me. I sense her parental green eyes watching my every move. She watches, with that silence only growing louder between us. With the trifle safely now out of the fridge, my fingers are desperately now holding onto it. I'm so emotional. So torn up inside. Yet, my fingers still cling to the chilled trifle.

"Do you love him, Rebecca?" Mum's question is asked with a soft tinge of wonder in her voice.

"I do." My reply rings with the gentlest kind of assurance.

"And you're sure that he loves you?"

That same gentle assurance now causes me to smile. "He does."

A gleam of understanding makes mum's pale green eyes widen slightly, then a smile tugs on the wrinkled corners of her pink lips. "Once the seal of love has been broken, it's not something you can ever put back from where it first came, Rebecca. If you love one another, you'll find a way to be together. You'll find a way to put aside all the obstacles that are stopping you from being together." Mum steps closer, tears now balancing themselves on her own lower eyelashes. "You are your own woman, Rebecca. You have always had your own mind and your own heart. Whatever that mind and that heart of yours is telling you to do, you must do it, my darling. Whatever you choose to do, I will support and respect it, because you're my daughter and nothing, nothing, will ever stop me from loving and being proud of you."

With the trifle still in my overwhelmed clutches, mum holds me. She's crying. I'm crying. A sherry trifle has never seen so much emotion.

"Do you need a hand with anything?" Mitch's cheery voice breaks through the emotional atmosphere, breaks through our mother/daughter moment. "Oh, sorry...is everything okay?" Concern of the strongest kind is pulling across every contour of Mitch's handsome face. His blue eyes flit from me, to my mum and then so nervously back to me. "Tell me what's wrong?" His tone is slightly demanding, maybe even a little desperate.

Taking the poor trifle from out of my hands, mum then leans a little against Mitch's shoulder. "You both need to have a little talk, then bring out the Yule Log when you're done." Looking over at me, mum leaves the kitchen with a little wink to her teary right eye. That's her lighthearted way of telling me 'you got this, Rebecca...you have got this!'

Now alone, Mitch doesn't hesitate to grab me against him, he wastes no time in cocooning my body in his arms. "Talk to me?" His voice carries with it a soft demand as his hands are coaxingly stroking my back.

All that I want to say, is welling up in my throat.

All that I feel, is welling up in my eyes.

It's time to stop dancing around the truth.

"I love you, Mitch." Escapes my lips with a determined whisper.

Hugging me harder, he then kisses the top of my head while exhaling a sigh that sounds propelled with defeat. "What I asked you earlier has pushed you too hard too soon, hasn't it? I have scared you by asking you to come to LA with me, haven't I?" He sighs again, louder and harder. "You're upset because of me." Those strong arms of his, they hold me more strongly, more desperately. "If I'm asking the impossible, I'm sorry. I only asked because I love you. I'm at my happiest when I'm in the same place, at the same time...with you." In a slow and tender way, Mitch is needing to see my eyes. Needing to see into the mirrors of my soul. "I love you and I have to be where you are. If it's too much for you to leave your parents, Hetty and your business, then I'll come and be wherever you need to be. I'll do that, because I'll be wherever you are, Rebecca."

My heart has happily swelled with all that he's just so lovingly said...so so lovingly said. "You'd do that for me?" I joyfully whisper up at him.

Bringing my lips to his, Mitch perfectly kisses me just the once. "I'd do that for us."

Staring into the beautiful blueness of his truth, I know that come hell or high water, Mitch and I will be together. Whether it's here or in LA, we will be staying by one another's side. I just know that the map of our love, will eventually show us where it wants us to finally settle down.

Sometimes, you have to trust in where the footsteps of life are leading you. Which is what I think both Mitch and I are now having to do.

We are trusting that map.

We are trusting our love.....

......we are trusting us.