Except nothing is fine.
“Can I stay with you tonight? Please? I will sneak out before anyone sees me in the morning. I just need to sleep, and I sleep better with you. In your bed. I love your bed.”
“You have a fucked-up relationship with my bed.” Oskar laughs. “That’s a joke, by the way,” he continues, shrugging like he intends it to be all funny. Cool. Chill.
Erik doesn’t really want to think about what he really wants to say. Not really. “Yeah. I have a thing for your bed.” Erik’s hands come up and he rubs his eyes. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sinks back down under the covers. “Can I stay?”
“Of course. Always.” Oskar sighs, his voice resigned, almost like he has no willpower.
Whilst Erik thinks Oskar probably wants to tell him to fuck off. To grow the fuck up and stop messing around.
“That’s four favours I owe you. Probably five after I ask the other thing I was going to ask.”
“Should I be worried?” Oskar’s mouth is speaking, but his hands are gripping mindlessly at the sheets, almost like his mouth is way ahead of his brain. He may look all calm on the outside, but on the inside? He looks terrified, despite the little smile on his lips.
Erik is not like this. He doesn’t speak to people like this. It’s just Oskar does something to him. Makes him kind of lose all his inhibitions. Like he feels he can speak. Like Oskar won’t judge all the crap that comes out of Erik’s mouth. Like he just smiles at him, as if whatever he says is the most adorable shit ever.
“I want you to come home with me for Christmas. It will be fun. Just my mum and dad and Uncle Asbjørn and my sisters and their kids. It’s pretty lame, but there is always loads of food and we all play all these board games and watch Christmas specials on Eurosport. It’s safe. Easy. Chill. I never bring anyone with me, but it would be nice to have the company, someone I can hang out with instead of just building Lego and playing The Amazing Labyrinth until I pass out from caffeine withdrawal. My parents don’t drink anything containing caffeine. It’s pretty painful.”
He holds his breath, whilst his heart is beating so fast that Erik thinks he might faint. All the blood in his body rushing to his head in a thunderous silence as Oskar just lies there, obviously stunned into silence by Erik’s frankly stupid outburst. It’s a brilliant idea, even his mum had said so. Well, it was her idea. Her stupid, stupid idea, and now Erik just wants to die. Hide under the covers and never see the light of day again. Ever. Death is an option. Just kill him. Now. Please.
“Really?” Oskar says, and then he falls quiet.
This is the part where Oskar says, ‘Thanks. But no thanks.’ This is the part where he keeps his anxieties in check and carefully calculates how much his body can take. This is the part where his brain swirls in his head finding imaginary hurdles and thinks up every excuse there is to say no. He doesn’t do parties. He doesn’t do strangers. He especially doesn’t do Erik Nøst Hansen and his family and Christmas and all that. He just doesn’t.
“Okay?” Oskar’s mouth says, whilst his brain screams like there is full blown murder going on in his head and his hands shake, and Erik’s face is lit up like the sun, smiling like Oskar has just offered him the moon and the stars.
“Bring your running gear, we have this amazing track in the forest out the back of the garden. Five K of snow-covered ski tracks, but there is a good walking track alongside it where people run and walk. It’s pretty well trodden at Christmas so you can get a nice run in. It will be great. Thank you.”
“Okay?” Oskar says again, his mouth dry and his brain scrambling. Instead he reaches out and switches off the light. Hides in the safety of darkness as Erik fidgets around with his phone and the duvet again. His feet nudging Oskar’s, making him jump.
“Sorry,” Erik whispers. “Just trying to plug my phone in. Do you mind?”
“Go to sleep,” Oskar whispers back.
“We need to leave at four tomorrow evening, would that work? I have some stuff to do in the morning and there is a train at five, which brings us home in time for dinner.”
“Okay,” Oskar stutters, because right now he has lost all ability to speak, let alone form any coherent thoughts. He needs to get up and brush his teeth. Lock his door. Bang his head against the wall in agony over his own stupidity.
“Okay,” Erik says. “Sleep well, my Disney Prince.”
Oskar swallows the laughter that brews in his throat. He is no one’s fucking Disney Prince. He is nobody. He’s fucking nothing. Instead, he reaches out and clumsily pats Erik’s shoulder. A little pat. Warm skin under the palm of his hand.
“Night night, Erik from Upstairs,” he whispers.
There is no reply. Only the soft breaths of the man next to him in the bed.
December 23
He has been true to his word, Oskar thinks to himself as he wakes up, lying diagonally across the bed with his feet sticking out over the edge and the duvet wrapped around his waist like some oversized nappy. Looking like a twat, no doubt.
At least he is alone, which he can’t quite figure out if it is good or bad, sad or just pathetic. It’s good. Simple. Safe. Yet, he somehow has an ache in his chest, like something is missing. Ridiculous, he knows that. Erik is just a man. A lonely pathetic weird ass dude who Oskar needs to figure out how to ditch before he gets pulled into something he won’t be able to control. This is not a healthy friendship, or the start of a beautiful business opportunity. They are not colleagues or teammates, and Erik has nothing to win from sharing space or oxygen. Fuck! Even being in the vicinity of Oskar has no gains for Erik. He just doesn’t get it. Why him? Why the hell him?
Instead, Oskar runs for over an hour whilst his knees scream, and his thoughts align in the neat little rows in his head where he likes them. He can do this. He can survive this. It will be what? A day and a bit? He can always fake an emergency and get the hell out of there. It can’t be that bad. It will be fine.
At least the dorm is deserted as he moves his laptop out into the common room and makes himself write a few pages of Genealogy—developing research, facts and figures, letting his mind rest whilst the ease of studying takes over. It’s almost like zoning out of the real world. Letting his brain do all the work whilst the facts dance on the screen in front of him. It’s easy. Controlled. Making perfect sense.
Not like Erik, who is random, and frankly a little bit weird. Why the hell? What the hell does he want?
He shrugs his shoulders and tries to make his brain go back into gear. Get this paper finished. He’s close. He is fucking close. Just a few more pages.
He gets nothing done. And by 3.30 he is fully dressed with his knitted hat pulled over his head, and the scarf around his neck strangling him in the heat inside. He has packed a bag. Had a full-blown panic attack, because he has nothing to bring to Erik’s parents. Not even a pathetic box of chocolates. So, now he paces the common room and hopes he will have time to grab something random and impersonal at the central station that he can pretend he has actually thought about.
His mother hates those kinds of gifts. She buys thoughtful personal gifts for people. Things with bespoke, embroidered names in rustic stitching on organically dyed fabric that she wraps in colour-coordinated tissue paper with proper fabric bows. She would die from shame if she knew he was even contemplating buying a box of cheap chocolates from the newsagents at Oslo Central station.
But it’s not like Oskar has a choice. Nothing is open late on December 23rd. Normal people are home preparing for Christmas Eve, cooking and wrapping, and being all festive and shit. Whilst Oskar is hyperventilating, and sweating like it’s a hot summer’s day and he’s stuck in a sauna wearing his winter jacket.
By four o’clock he gives up and walks outside. There is no movement upstairs. No slamming of doors. No loud footfall in the stairwell. So, he walks out the front of the building, letting his boots make virgin tracks in the newly fallen snow. Soft flakes falling silently in the dark winter air.
He stands there for a moment just taking it all in. The oversized flakes falling in random patterns. The silence. The soft orange glow of the streetlights making the world seem slightly magical, steeped in some spell that makes everything seem soft and quiet.
“It’s amazing if you lie down and look up. It’s like looking into eternity. Just flakes appearing out of nowhere, hurtling down towards earth. Come. Come lie down with me.”
Oskar has always suspected that Erik is a little bit strange. That he does all these random things that normal people just wouldn’t dream of. Like throwing your bags on the ground and lying flat on your back in the snow so you can stare up at the dark sky.
“Come on. Lie down with me,” Erik urges, patting the snow next to him with his gloved hand.
And Oskar does it. Because why the hell not? It’s not like anyone is watching, and he is resigning himself to the fact that Erik somehow makes him do weird things too. He folds himself down until he is sitting on the ground, stretching his jeans-clad legs out, kicking his feet awkwardly around in the snow.
It’s freezing. His bum starts to ache from the cold and wetness is seeping through the cotton fabric of his jeans. He should have worn long johns, like normal people would when the temperature drops below -15°C. He knows how to dress in winter—layers and waterproofs and thermal underwear—but he gets too hot inside and too cold outside, and he… He needs to stop thinking so much as Erik waves his arms backwards and forwards in the snow.
“In this bed of snowflakes we lie. The soft cool bedding that falls from the sky,” Erik reads out, his voice all theatrical.
“Is that a real poem?” Oskar laughs. Erik is right though. Looking up at the snowflakes hurtling towards you is quite cool. Totally zen. Mesmerising. Even though his bum is now wet.
“Nah. Just made it up to impress you. Kind of taking you out to lie in the snow and read poetry to you. Proper posh shit.” Erik laughs. “But, seriously, Oskar, I read something once, about snowflakes being nature’s most fragile creation, but look what they can do when you squash them together. “
He picks up handfuls of snow, squashing them between his hands to form a ball. “Hard as ice. Tough as anything. Just like people. Never underestimate people, Oskar. We may be weak on our own, but together, with the right person... Well, nothing can touch us. Love does that to people. You find your person, that person who just makes you strong. Makes you happy. Makes you light. Invincible. Like you’re floating on air. Do you know what I mean?” Erik just looks at him, his face full of honesty. Of questions. Of kindness. All those things that makes Oskar feel a little strange. Like he can’t stop looking back. And he can’t form a single coherent thought in his head.
So, Oskar just nods. Erik is slightly ridiculous lying there in the snow. Talking about love like he knows all the secrets of the universe.
“We need to get going. When did you say the train was?” Oskar’s jeans are now wet, and he can no longer feel his buttocks, and to be honest, he is getting a little bit uncomfortable just lying here with Erik staring at him.
“Shit. Forgot. We’d better move. Come on, Disney Prince.” Erik scrambles to his feet, reaching his hand out to grab Oskar’s. Pulling him up from the snow, leaving two pretty random snow angels behind on the ground.
“I forgot to make wings on mine.” Oskar laughs, and points at the ground where the outline of his arms make his snow angel look like a stick insect. Whilst Erik has waved his arms around making perfect wings around the outline of his body.
“You’re perfect as you are,” Erik says, and wraps his glove-clad hands around Oskar’s face. Then he kind of freezes up and blinks, before his face opens into a shy smile.
“Promise me one thing.” Erik just stands there, with his cold gloves on Oskar’s cheeks. Gazing at him with that look again. The one that makes Oskar’s stomach all nervous. The one that makes his hands shake. The one that seems to calm the storms raging inside his chest.
“Promise me that this Christmas you are just you. Don’t pretend to be something you are not. Because it’s exhausting, believe me. I know what it’s like. I spend most of my life pretending to be this person that is so far removed from who I really am, and it just drains your soul. My mum would say that it rots your heart. She’s strange. You will love her. Anyway. Just be you, Oskar. Everyone will love you, just as you are. So, no pretending, no trying to be polite and perfect and all that. Just chill with me. Just hang out and do Christmas. With me. Being me. Okay?”
Oskar nods again. Like he knows what he is agreeing to. When in reality Oskar hasn’t got a clue what Erik is on about. Like always it seems, because how can he be anything but himself? He is who he is. He’s a mess. A nerd. A nervous insecure man with nothing to offer the world except an almost half-completed medical degree.
“I know what you are thinking, so just switch off all the thoughts. You get all these little lines on your forehead when you are worried and anxious. When you think I am pulling a fast one on you. I am not. I like you and I want to hang out with you. I just hope you want to hang out with me too, and that you will still speak to me in two days’ time after surviving the Nøst Hansen’s family Christmas.”
He winks. Winks and pulls Oskar in for a hug. Wraps his arms tightly around his body in the middle of the street. Outside Dorm 212, where the snow falls around them, and the muffled sound of a car starting up is the only thing piercing the silence.
So, Oskar gives in. For once he doesn’t give a fuck. He hugs Erik back. Lets his arms wrap around his waist, letting his face drown in Erik’s scarf, as Erik’s breath is steady and strong against his cheek. They stand there for what feels like hours. It’s probably just a minute. But Oskar doesn’t want to let go, not when he has all this new-found tactility. He likes that Erik touches him. He likes Erik’s hands on his face. He likes the feel of Erik’s body against his own, his own gloved hands on someone else’s clothes.
He almost whines when Erik pulls away from him, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and checks the time.
“We need to go, Disney Prince. Let’s go do Christmas.”
Erik picks up his backpack from the ground, wrangling it awkwardly over his thick jacket. Grabs the large shopping bag next to it, which is bursting with neatly wrapped parcels, and does a little twirl in the snow, making Oskar roll his eyes as they start walking towards town.
“I haven’t got anything for your parents,” Oskar starts, but Erik just laughs.
“I bought them something from us. It’s fine. Just relax. Don’t stress about anything. Okay?”
For the first time Oskar smiles. Lets his shoulder nudge Erik’s arm as they cross the road. Erik nudges him back. Just a friendly little nudge. A reminder that they’re good.
And Oskar thinks this might just be okay. He might be okay right now. It’s just two days. Two nights.
It will be okay. It has to be.
What Erik should have done was plan. Booked one of those ‘Comfort tickets’ with reserved seats ahead of time using his nifty student card for a good discount, and then he should have perhaps asked his parents to pick them both up from the station instead of having to hang around for the bus. Because, of course, when you rock up on December 23, along with the rest of Norway trying to get to Moss, you are not going to get anywhere in comfort.
Moss. The Godforsaken coastal town that Erik calls home. Well, he used to hate it. The small-town gossip and the suburban blandness of the street where he grew up. Now he kind of likes it. In some almost grown-up way.
So, instead of being the perfect gentleman, offering his Disney Prince a seat and a cup of coffee in the warmth of a padded seat en route to his humble palace, they find themselves squashed in the door entryway, sharing the wet slushy floor-space with a pram, a tiny yapping dog and about ten random people. Well, at least they got on. And they will be home for dinner. Erik sighs and leans into Oskar. Just shoves him a little. Checking that he is not freaking out. He seems to be okay. Calm and quiet fiddling with the glove
s in his hands.
“You okay?” he asks, quietly.
“Yeah,” Oskar replies. He smiles, but it’s one of those nervous smiles. He is shit scared and Erik doesn’t blame him. Fuck, if this was Erik being dragged home to Oskar’s parents for Christmas, he would be locked in the on-board toilet by now, dry retching into the steel sink and praying for a divine miracle.
Oskar is brave. He is the bravest person Erik has ever met. He’s nothing like Erik, who hides and dodges bullets left, right and centre. Erik pretends when he should be real. He lies when he should be honest. At least he has his family, and to be honest his family is bloody awesome.
“My parents are kind of over-grown hippies,” he starts. He thinks if he can just keep talking, churning out verbal diarrhoea for an hour, then neither of them will have to think about what they are actually doing. “They're both a little weird and wacky. Dad is a schoolteacher. He spends his days singing ABC songs and crawling around on his hands and knees on the floor with his pupils. The kids adore him. I wasn’t allowed to be in his class when I started school, so I had to have Tordis, who was about a hundred years old. We would sit there in silence doing our letters and numbers with her, when all we could hear were the kids in Dad’s class, screaming and running and laughing. It felt like a punishment. Everyone wanted to be in my dad’s class.”
Erik has to take a deep breath, talking too fast whilst the train carriage shakes with the speed through a curve.
“Mum, she owns this craft shop downtown, full of local gifts and souvenirs for the tourists. She also runs the Christmas market, and is heavily into healing and alternative therapies. She’s all about spreading love and kisses and hugging strangers and trees and all sorts. She will hug you to death and insist you call her Mum. Just tell her to back off if it becomes too much. Or wink at me and I will go put her on ‘time out’ in the corner.”
In this Bed of Snowflakes we Lie Page 6