by Karina Halle
And that’s all it takes for me to take a step back too. He’s still Anders, still funny and warm, but that storm is closing him off to me. It’s like he wants to be with me, more than in just this moment, then some part of him steps forward and pulls him back.
Probably because he knows that there is no future for us here.
I know that too, and yet…yet I can’t help but dream and wonder.
And hope. That very dangerous thing called hope.
I’ve been on the road with Anders for over a week now. We’ve been taking our time. We’ve found a routine. We get up, have sex, spend time in bed talking. Not just talking with words, but with our eyes and our hands and our mouths. Our bodies say so much to each other, more than we often can verbalize. We use that time to communicate as only we can when he’s deep inside me and we’re moving together as one, feeling united in a way I never thought possible. The languages we speak to each other grow sweeter and deeper each time.
Then we get on with our day. If we’re hitting the road, I’m documenting things for my Instagram, writing up blog posts, taking and editing photos, while he takes pictures too, helping me whenever I need it, and sometimes I’ll even catch him writing poetry on his phone. He won’t show it to me, but I can tell it’s giving him an outlet, that it’s letting him figure out the things that turn his eyes into a storm, the things that pull his mood in so many different angsty directions.
If we’re not on the road, if we’re in a town, we just become tourists. We eat, drink, sightsee, and fuck. In that order, and sometimes not. It’s like the both of us have committed to treating each day like its own special, precious thing. We don’t talk about the future anymore. We don’t talk about what’s going to happen when this is over. We don’t even talk about when this is going to be over. We’re already doing this longer than we had planned. We just know that it will be over, and that fact is too raw and painful to bear. So we ignore it and we sink even deeper into each other, luxuriating in each other’s company as if we have all the time in the world. We give the future the finger. We’re living in twenty-four-hour blocks of self-serving happiness.
It’s funny, when I imagined being with Anders again someday (and let’s face it, I did imagine it—it’s no accident that I came to Norway), I automatically pictured us the way we were. These scrawny, acne-scarred teenage versions of ourselves. Our emotions constantly brimming over, hormones out of control. Hearts forever on our sleeves, sucked in the undertow of first love.
But this is so different. It’s like those versions of us belonged to other people, like an old TV show we would watch all the time. The essence is there, like we’ve captured those feelings, whizzing around like lightning bugs, and put them into jars, only to open them here, all these years later. Our past threading around us, lighting up the sky, with nowhere to go.
Anders puts his arm around me, his mouth at my ear. “Taken enough pictures yet?”
I laugh and turn my head to face him as he places a lingering kiss on my lips. “Not even close,” I tell him.
We’ve been on the ferry heading up the fjord for almost an hour, getting closer to our stop, the village of Geiranger at the end, and I haven’t put my phone or camera down for a second. At first, I thought shooting on film was going to be annoying—there are countless rolls of undeveloped film in my backpack—but now I get why Anders is still so fond of it. There is so much mystery now in a world where mystery is in short supply. Instead of giving you the image right away, an image that can easily be deleted, that takes up no space, it makes you wait. It makes you practice patience. It makes you stop and take note of everything. The light, the air, the movement, the depth. It makes you really pay attention before you click the shutter. It’s like it’s not only capturing the memories, but creating memories at the same time.
Now, as I lift up the camera and aim it toward the end of the fjord, where the mountains turn a corner and another ferry comes out from around the wall of rock, looking miniature in comparison, I’m know that when I later look at the photo I’ve taken, I’m going to remember being here with Anders, his warm, steady body at my back, the pine-scent of his body wash, the smell of the fresh glacial water coming off the fjord. The warm sun on my face. I’ll feel the way he’s holding me, how it makes me feel like he’ll never let me go, even though the look in his eyes sometimes says otherwise.
Right now though, his eyes are telling me that I’m his.
That’s all I need to be, for this second anyway.
And then what?
But I ignore that. I ignore that voice like I’ve been ignoring it all this time. We both didn’t want any complications. We both knew this thing, this new us, had an expiration date. There’s no point fighting it, no matter how I feel about him.
“There’s the town,” he tells me, voice smooth like whisky on the rocks now, and I watch as the ferry rounds the corner and the tiny town appears, most of it vertical, buildings dotted along a steep slope that goes up and up, switchbacks acting as a seam.
It’s gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. And naturally I’m back to taking a million more pictures.
Anders booked a hotel right at the top of the mountain, so as soon as the ferry docks and we’re in the car, we’re zipping up through the switchbacks, climbing until my ears’ pop, until we reach this quaint hotel that’s located so close to the mountain road that you’d swear cars are going to pass right through the patio.
We go up to our room and, though it’s small, it has this window that looks out onto the whole village and fjord, probably the best singular view in the whole damn place. I’m so used to having to book all my own accommodations when I travel, that having Anders take the reins has not only been a relief but a pleasant surprise with each and every place we stay at. He’s constantly wowing me, doing whatever he can to make sure the trip is the best it can be.
Honestly though, all I need is him. We could have stayed behind in Todalen for all I cared. Yeah, I wanted to see Norway and I’m grateful that he’s been my tour guide, but the most beautiful, breathtaking attraction is him. It’s knowing we have history, as tumultuous as it is, knowing that he gets me, that he understands where I’m coming from. It’s that poet’s soul that comes to surface every now and then, so close I can almost hold it in my hands. I just need to dig through a few more layers, find the version of himself he keeps hiding, let me see it for myself.
“This is gorgeous, Anders,” I say to him, taking a picture of the window frame and the stunning view behind it. “You never stop impressing me.”
“And I’ll never stop wanting to impress you,” he says. There’s a wistfulness to his voice that makes my heart do summersaults.
I turn around to face him, surprised to see a wash of sadness on his brow.
“You know you don’t have to do much to impress me,” I tell him, my voice getting choked with my own buried feelings that are suddenly rising to the surface. “Just being here with me is enough. Just…staying with me. It’s enough.”
I’m giving him a little, hoping he’ll take it.
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, the corner of his full mouth lifting just a bit.
“Wish I could stay with you,” he says.
And he says it so fucking simply that it takes a moment to register. A moment before it kicks me right in the guts.
The truth of it all.
I should just nod and accept it, but I can’t. I don’t.
“But you can,” I tell him. “We don’t have to let this be it. This, us…it can work beyond this trip. Can’t it? I mean, I know we said we wouldn’t talk about it, but I also know that we don’t have a lot of time left before one of us has to make a decision and…and…I just think…”
I just think we should stay together.
Make it work.
Please don’t make me say that all out loud, not when you’re not giving me anything in return.
He stares at me, and that storm is back again, raging across his eyes,
angry, dark and powerful, sweeping him away. I already know the answer. It already kills me.
He sighs, running a hand over his face, his beard, and I feel the tension rolling off him. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice a rough whisper. He walks past me and sits on the edge of the bed, lacing his hands together, looking at the floor. I already get the impression that he’s shutting down on me, like the way he used to when I asked questions he didn’t like.
“Well, I know,” I tell him, even though I’m bullshitting a bit. “Okay, so I don’t know. But I know what I want.”
Be brave, Shay. Time to be brave.
“And that’s you, Anders. I want you and I want us…I want us to give this a shot. I know I said I didn’t want things to get complicated, but things were complicated between us from the start. It’s too late for anything easy and simple, because we’re not easy or simple. We’re two lonely souls with a twisted history and so much excess baggage that it’s weighing us both down. We can’t even save each other if we’re both drowning.” I pause, my heart pounding in my throat, my honesty taking me by force. “But I want to at least try. I don’t want to say goodbye to you and move on. I can’t. I only want to move on with you.”
And there it all is.
My precious truth.
And yet Anders stares at the floor. It’s like he hasn’t even heard me at all.
My heart drops, a sickly feeling that spreads through my veins, making them run cold.
I walk over to him, stand right in front of him, wishing my heart wasn’t so loud.
“Hey,” I tell him. “Look at me. Please. Look at me when I’m baring my heart to you.”
Slowly, he raises his head and I hate what I see in his eyes. Hate how much it reminds me of his younger self, the one who grew cold and distant and pushed me away.
“Don’t be like him,” I say softly, my voice shaking softly with anger. “Don’t be like him. You’re not that boy anymore. You’re a man. You need to handle this, us, like a man. If you don’t have any feelings for me, real true feelings, if you don’t want to be with me, see a future that I’m a part of, then you have to flat-out tell me. Yeah it’ll hurt. It’ll destroy me. But I can handle it. The truth is what I deserve.”
He swallows thickly, licking his lips. “What you deserve, Shay, isn’t me.”
Oh no. Not this.
I shake my head. “Don’t start.”
“I’m serious,” he says gruffly, frowning at me. “You don’t deserve who I really am. You deserve someone who will be with you all the time, who will give you their time and attention and affection, because you’re worth all of that and more. That’s not me.”
“That is you!”
“No. This…” he gestures to himself, to the room. “This is a version of myself that even I don’t recognize. This is what my life could have been. But it’s not the life I’ve been given. I’ll be gone all the time, and when I’m not out at sea, I’ll be working the farm. What the hell are you going to do with yourself? Sit around and wait while I’m gone? Waste your years working on a farm, milking cows?”
“Don’t assume I don’t know what to do with myself,” I tell him, glaring now. I hate when people make assumptions for me. “I would be plenty busy trying to figure out what I want from life.”
He throws his arms out. “Yeah? And what if you come to the conclusion that what you don’t want is me? That the life you have with me isn’t the life you wanted? Shay, you’re so beautiful and vibrant and smart and passionate and you have your whole future ahead of you and I can say with certainty you deserve more than just scraps from a fisherman.”
“Scraps!” I yell. “You think that’s what this is? You think you’re giving me scraps? Well, fuck, Anders, why didn’t you tell me that this wouldn’t be enough?” I lean over and point my finger at him, my heart on fire, my eyes searching his feverishly. “I had no idea that I wasn’t getting the best of you.”
“I’m giving you all that I have!” he says, voice deep and rising. “All that I can give. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it’s all I got.”
“Are you?” I counter. “Because it’s fucking impossible with you sometimes. You’ll write out your poetry, but when it comes to the person who wants to hear it, wants to feel what you have to say, you hold it back.”
“I’m not holding back,” he says gruffly, jaw grinding. “I’m just…trying to figure this out, just as you are.”
“Well, it sounds like you’re done trying to figure it out now, right? Best we just part and be on our separate ways then?”
“Shay, you deserve someone better than me,” he cries out softly, and the worst part of it is that I can tell he’s not just saying it. He really believes it, deep down, that he isn’t good enough for me. That fucking cuts me to the core.
“Don’t even say that. Don’t you dare say that.”
“You don’t even know what’s best for you, you—”
Oh no.
Not this.
“Don’t pull that you know what’s best for me crap!” I snap at him, my anger surprising even myself. “That’s some shit you would have pulled in high school, treating me like dirt so that I’d push you away, so that it would be easier for you. Well, it wasn’t easier for me. You don’t even know what really happened, Anders. You have no fucking idea. You think it was so easy that you left? You left me in a state from which I’ve still barely recovered.”
He stares at me, shaking his head slightly, dark brows drawn together to form a sharp line. “What are you talking about?”
And now I’ve said too much.
I press my lips together, hard, willing myself not to continue.
But, shit, it’s been too long. I’ve been keeping this a secret for too long. All this time and even my mother doesn’t know that I had the abortion. Only Everly and Hannah do. I never got the chance to tell Anders, and I told myself I wouldn’t now because I didn’t want to bring up the past, didn’t want him to feel bad, didn’t want to mess up the precious time we had together.
But since he wants to push me away, well, I guess now is a good a time as any.
“I was pregnant,” I tell him, my voice sounding so small and faint in the room. “It was…it was yours.”
His eyes go wide, mouth dropping open slightly. He stares at me like the world was just pulled out from under him. “What…I don’t…when?”
I close my eyes, trying to gather my nerves, to give myself a spine of steel.
“I think it was the time in the pool. We didn’t use a condom. I found out I was pregnant a week before I found out that you cheated on me.”
Silence is a live-wire between us.
I open my eyes and dare to look at him. He’s staring up at me, brow furrowed, anguish flooding his features. “You never told me…why didn’t you tell me?”
I balk, blinking at him, hackles raised again. “Are you kidding me? Anders, you pushed me away. You wouldn’t return my texts, you wouldn’t even look at me in the halls. You think I was suddenly going to tell you I was pregnant? First of all, I had to make sure with the doctor, and then by the time I did know, I already knew you cheated on me. There was no reason to tell you. You had made your choice. You pushed me away, so I dealt with it on my own.”
“And how did you…deal with it?” he asks, voice low, breaking.
“I had an abortion,” I tell him matter-of-factly, and his face falls just a little, enough to make me defensive. “That was the only option I saw for me. I was scared out of my mind. I only had Hannah, and she had so much riding on her plate with school. I couldn’t raise a baby and keep it, nor have it and give it up for adoption. So I got an abortion because it was the only thing that made sense.”
“Do you regret it?” he whispers.
I bite my lip for a moment before shaking my head. “No. I’ve done a lot of soul searching over the years, and no. I don’t regret it. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. Hell, I don’t know if I ever will be, if that’s ever something I’ll even
want. I don’t regret it because it was the right thing to do at the time. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. It doesn’t mean it’s something I was able to push to the side and forget about. I’ve made peace with it now, but for the longest time it weighed on me. I felt…ashamed. And guilty. And because I had no one to really talk to about it, because I was so young and confused, it was just something I had to keep buried inside.”
He stares at me, eyes trailing over every inch of my face, the pain visible in the storm. “You know I would have…I would have been there for you. If you wanted to keep it.”
I give him a sharp look. “That doesn’t help, Anders. What’s done is done.”
“No, I mean,” he says, grappling for the words, “I just want you to know that I wasn’t entirely awful. I know you don’t believe it, but I would have stepped up. I would have tried. I wouldn’t have left you, I would have stayed in New York, we could have made it work. Maybe I could have gotten a job somewhere, my own place…”
He trails off, looking strangely hopeful, as if this is something he can go back in time and fix. But there is no fixing this. There never was.
“You say that now, because you know who you are now. You were a teenager, Anders, and as you’ve said many times before, you were fucked up. We both were. You can’t predict now what you would have done then. It’s not fair to either version of you.”
“Shay,” he whispers, voice shaking slightly as he breathes in deeply. “This is breaking my heart. That you had to go through all of that on your own. All because of me.” He exhales loudly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, so am I. I’m sorry it had to come to that. And as angry as I was, it was my fault too. It takes two in this situation. I should have known better.”
“I wish…I wish I had known.” He looks down at his hands, wringing them together. “I know why you didn’t tell me, but even so…”
“Well, now you do know.”
“No wonder you hated me so much,” he says quietly. There’s so much simmering pain in his voice that it’s a little punch to my heart. “I was awful. I was so fucking awful to you.”