Chapter 20
Kjell
In the dim light, the expanse of the southern Swedish coast passes by the car window. I lean my head against the glass, feeling the gentle jolting of the car on the uneven road and watching the bright streak that has been appearing on the horizon for the past few minutes.
Before the night ended, we left Stockholm. It was as if not only Sky was fleeing from the world but also me.
Me, who is exactly the danger she's running away from.
Fuck. This isn't fair. I shouldn't have come with her, but I couldn't control myself. It wasn't just the pleading in her expression that touched my heart too deeply, but also what I now know about her.
What suddenly casts the events of the past in a new light.
What might change everything.
"Welcome to ?land," Sky says as she guides the car onto a narrow path, stopping in front of a wide wrought-iron gate.
"So this is the Blohm family estate," I say, looking beyond the gate. However, I can't make out much in the early morning light except for some snow-covered, wild-growing shrubs.
Sky laughs, and it sounds beautiful. "It's less spectacular than you might think." She rolls down the car window and enters a code into the black box, causing the gate to swing open.
To see better, I stretch in the passenger seat. We pass through the entrance, and shortly after, we reach a dark blue wooden house with gray roof shingles and white shutters, all of which are closed.
In fact, it's no larger than a single-family home and far from extravagant.
"It looks very cozy," I comment. "Did you used to come here often?"
Sky stops the car and turns off the ignition. "Not really."
"Why not?" I get out of the seat. The five-hour drive and the short night have left me feeling tired, but as I step out of the car and inhale the clear island air, I instantly feel more awake. Behind the dune grass protruding from the thin layer of snow, the sea is likely hidden. I can hear the gentle lapping of waves from here.
"My father hardly had time for vacations. And my mother... well, she was always busy too," Sky replies with a sigh, which I can't quite decipher.
Is it sadness? Or is it matter-of-fact? There's something behind it that she's not telling me.
"But I often came here with Lil," she adds cheerfully amid my thoughts.
The woman she was talking to on the phone. "Who is Lil?" I walk around the car and open the trunk.
The keychain Sky pulls from her purse jingles loudly. "We've been friends all our lives." A wistful smile crosses her face. "Since she was seventeen, she's been working as an assistant at Touch av lyx ."
Thoughtfully, I glance at the travel bags we carefully stacked in the car in Stockholm. Sky spoke the truth. They were friends. It sounds sad, but it fits with what I saw in the darkness of the night in front of the Blohm Villa back then.
"Come on, I'll show you the house," Sky says, suddenly appearing next to me. "We'll get the luggage later."
A thousand questions burn inside me, but I can't ask any of them, and I don't even know why. Maybe because I see the anticipation in Sky's eyes. Maybe because I'm too confused overall to grasp what's happening here.
I close the trunk and follow Sky to the white wooden door that looks like a back entrance. As we enter, cold and darkness surround me. It's only when Sky turns on the light that I realize the ground floor of the house consists mainly of one large room. Together, we remove the sheets covering the furniture and open the wooden shutters on the windows. Finally, Sky pushes the shutters aside, revealing a full-length glass front that frames a view of snow-covered dunes. I see tall tufts of grass swaying gently in the wind and the sea, frozen at the edges. Waves ripple just a few yards out. Where the water meets the sky, the rising sun bathes the scene in orange light.
Sky stands in front of this backdrop. Her sleeves are pulled down to her fingertips in her white down jacket as she gazes out into the infinity.
I'd love to know what she's thinking right now. Is she happy to be here with me? Are memories flooding back to her? Are they sweet? Or more bitter?
Now she comes back to me. A smile graces her lips, and her hair, falling loosely over her shoulders, competes with her eyes in its radiance.
"Do you know how to make a fire?" She nods toward the open fireplace, in front of which a cream-colored sofa and a side table with a modern lamp are positioned.
Uh... did she just ask me something?
"No problem, I'll take care of it." She turns away and starts working on the woodpile against the wall next to the fireplace.
Oh, she wants to make a fire. "Thanks," I mumble, feeling embarrassed. Then I offer to bring our travel bags from the car and make my escape.
Heaven, what was that just now? Why does she constantly confuse me like this? I shouldn't allow it; I need to keep a clear head and make good decisions.
Good decisions based on real facts. I shouldn't rely on anything else, no matter how tempting it is.
A few minutes later, when I place the luggage on the light wooden floor, my gaze falls on a photo collage on the wall. The blond girl with the Pippi Longstocking hairstyle is definitely Sky. No one else has eyes like that. In the picture, she pretends to be inspecting her friend's dress as the friend twirls in front of her in a circle. She looks happy, which makes me smile involuntarily.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see something move. Sky approaches me. "It'll be warm soon," she says, removing her jacket to reveal a loosely knit sweater with an oversized neckline underneath.
I point at the picture of the two girls. "Is that Lil?"
"Mm-hmm," she replies, standing beside me. "We were maybe five or six there."
"What are you doing?" I ask further because I can't quite make sense of the scene.
She chuckles briefly to herself. "We're playing fashion designers."
Now I have to laugh too. Other kids build sandcastles, paint pictures, or climb trees. Not Sky. Touch av lyx must have really been her dream all along.
"And who's that?" I quickly ask to push away the strangely warm and entirely inappropriate feeling in my chest. I point at the woman who seems casually lounging in a chair at the edge of a photo.
She bites her lip and wraps her arms around herself. "My mother."
"You look incredibly alike," I say instinctively, scanning the remaining pictures in search of more photos of Sky's mother. I find some, but she's always on the sidelines of the scene, like an outsider who doesn't belong in the picture. A sad outsider. Odd.
"Yeah," she breathes absentmindedly. "But that's about it."
I turn my head to study her expression. "What do you mean?"
Twitching mouth corners. Watery eyes. A heavy swallow.
My heart sinks. Oh, Sky...
"We probably never had the same interests." She waves her hand dismissively with a shaky gesture.
I should ask more questions, but instead, I contemplate pulling her into my arms. She needs comfort, that much is clear. I shift uncertainly from one foot to the other.
Sky shrugs. "Modeling was her passion. It's how she met Father."
The fashion designer and the model. That's exactly what I've researched too. But one thing I couldn't find out: "Why did they get divorced?"
With a heavy sigh, she reaches for the photos and lets her index finger glide over a picture of her parents. "Because of me."
I can't imagine that. Even though it must be difficult to have a drug-addicted daughter, that can't be the sole reason for a divorce, can it? Can’t it?
"I haven't seen Mother in six years. I don't even know where she is." Sky blinks rapidly, and now I do too. For a moment, I forget to be cautious. I move closer to her and put my arm around her.
"We should look for her," I suggest. That would be the right thing to do, and she's probably easy to find. Who knows what truths might be waiting for Sky with her mother?
She shakes her head hastily. "That's not a good idea." As soon as the words leave her lips, she steps aside, breaking our connection.
"Okay," I say because it's clear that the thought scares her. I look at her helplessly, seeing that closed-off part of her yet again.
What's going on with you, Sky? I silently ask her.
She doesn't respond.
To learn more and gain insights that might help me finally understand her, I turn back to the photo wall. I scrutinize each picture and eventually land on one that shows Sky on the runway.
"You must have been an amazing model," I blurt out, considering her breathtaking beauty.
Why she still allowed the Milan fashion show to go downhill is now clear to me. She endured the employees' hatred and the ridicule of the press because she absolutely did not want to be in the public eye, all to protect her secret.
"I wasn't," she replies curtly and turns away.
I watch her as she walks away, observing the tension in her muscles with each step and her fingers clench and unclench.
This woman remains a mystery. And although I want to believe every word she tells me about herself, I must remain cautious. She's just playing you , my inner voice hisses insistently. She’s been protecting me since I was eighteen, but it's unnecessary, because I'm aware of the danger. Most of the time, anyway.
Except for Sky's unwavering love for Touch av lyx, everything could be a lie—the girl in the photos who is supposedly Lil, the story of the missing mother, even the drugs.
I need to research every detail she's told me about. If she's telling the truth, I'll find out. And if she's lying, I'll discover that too.