Chapter 21
Sky
With a pounding heart, I cross the living room. The wooden floorboards creak under my feet, and the fire in the fireplace crackles. Everything around me seems peaceful, but inside me, a war rages.
I shouldn't have asked so many questions, and I shouldn't have answered so much. I shouldn't have told him about my drug addiction yesterday, let alone brought him here. What was I thinking?
Even without looking, I feel his eyes drilling into my back.
I stop at the glass front and whirl around. "Alright, then I'll get to work."
Just because I'm not in Stockholm doesn't mean I can't be involved with Touch av lyx . My laptop is with me, along with pictures of the designs for the upcoming fall and winter collection that I secretly took in Kahlo's office because he wouldn't show me anything.
I clap my hands in a feigned motivated manner, and Kjell looks at me bewildered.
"You could take photos of the island while I work. There are many beautiful places here. Photographers love that, right?" Am I coming across as too over the top? Perhaps. But I have to do it, before I lose myself in Kjell's proximity even more.
As if he's not considering my suggestion at all, he comes closer to me. "Do you really want that?" he asks so penetratingly that I involuntarily gasp for breath.
Yes.
No.
I don't know.
All I know is that his presence often makes me forget too much. That he radiates something warmer than the fireplace. That I would rather spend the whole day with him and just be myself.
I want to show him all my wounds and find out if he can heal them.
But amid all the chaos in my heart, the facts remain unchanged. There's too much I need to make up for, and I can only do that by keeping Kjell at a distance and holding on to my heart. Most importantly, now I need to gain the trust of Touch av lyx's employees. Only when they understand that I mean them no harm can my dream come true.
"What are you afraid of?" He closes the distance between us, capturing my gaze. There's urgency in his expression.
"Nothing," I stammer awkwardly. "I just need to..." Uh, yeah, what do I actually need to do? I had a plan just a moment ago.
Or did I?
"You're lying," he says, sounding deeply hurt.
Swallowing hard, I look at him. How does he know?
"Because you're afraid of the truth," he adds.
I feel both hot and cold at the same time. Can he read that in my expression? Or is he just guessing wildly?
He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes, as if he could discover something in my eyes that he hadn't seen before. "But only the truth matters."
For a moment, his gaze becomes unsteady. This is the moment when I recall our conversation in Milan. The lie he grew up with. But also the fact that he didn't want to tell me the full truth.
"Oh really?" I respond with a fluttering voice. "Then I want to hear yours first. The whole truth."
I may be acting unfairly, but I've already told him so much about myself. Before I reveal another one of my secrets, he has to give me a reason to trust him.
He swallows hard and looks away. "What do you mean?"
"The big lie of your childhood," I reply, feeling instantly intrusive. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I add hastily, realizing that I know best how it feels to be pressured. Who am I to demand that he reveal his innermost self to me when I won't let him get close to me?
He buries his hands in his pockets. "I know," he says, exhaling slowly. "But I want to."
Something between us changes. I was sure he would deflect like last time. I was sure he would leave.
But he wants to stay. He wants to show me what's deep inside him. It's so far beyond my comfort zone that I can't comprehend it.
"Why?" How can he want to revisit this painful memory? And why does he think he can confide in me about this big thing?
He fixes his gaze on me meaningfully. "Because only the truth matters."
Oh God, no, it doesn't. The truth makes bad things only worse.
"I don't want to lie," he says emphatically.
I immediately understand what he means, even too well. "Because then you'd be like your parents." And like them, he doesn't want to be. "However, the truth always comes at a price. And sometimes that price is just too high."
He acknowledges my argument with a thoughtful expression. "Sometimes it takes days, sometimes months. And sometimes, like in my case, it's years. But one day, the truth always comes to light."
Everything inside me tightens up, so much so that I feel short of breath. Anxiously, I gaze outside where the winter landscape sparkles in the sunlight.
"The first snow of winter fell five years ago when I found out who my real father was," he says with a thin voice. "And that my mother deliberately got pregnant by him."
Oh. That's intense. "She had an affair?" I ask, my gaze fixed on the wild beauty of the winter landscape.
He snorts, clearly agitated. "No."
Confused, I turn to him. "But what..."
Kjell shakes his head. "The man who pretended to be my father for years couldn't father children."
So his mother was with someone else... just to... Wow. "Her desire to have children must have been incredibly strong," I say, as it's the only explanation that comes to mind.
He responds with a heavy sigh. "They thought it was a brilliant idea. They actually believed it would go unnoticed by their feelings."
"But it didn't," I continue his words. "What happened?"
A pained smile flickers across his face. "With each passing day, my so-called father hated me a bit more. Because he couldn't get the image of my mother with someone else out of his mind."
"How do you know that?"
A watery sheen covers his eyes. Though he tries to hide it from me, I can see it clearly. "I overheard him accusing my mother."
No, this can't be! "He said what?"
"When I found out, I confronted them both," he says, the words leaving his mouth with a hard edge. He clenches his fists, and his knuckles turn white. "At first, they denied it, but then their damn happy facade, the one they'd maintained for eighteen years on that brightly lit stage where they presented their daily theater, crumbled away like plaster from damp walls."
Inevitably, I picture the scene. I see an eighteen-year-old version of Kjell.
Angry and hurt. Disillusioned.
"He hurled everything at me. The hatred, for me, for my mother, and for himself. The anger he had hidden behind that well-lit stage where he performed his daily drama for eighteen years. And the harsh truths." Kjell's voice grows quieter.
I understand what he feels. It's as if the same thing happened to me. Everything he had believed in until then. Everything he had considered right. Everything that had defined his life.
Everything shattered at that moment.
He clenches his teeth. "Nevertheless, I'm glad I know it," he says, and I see his strength in its entirety.
He won't be defeated. By anything or anyone. He is who he is, and it's so pure that suddenly I'm ashamed I'm not.
A single tear escapes from the corner of my eye and rolls down my cheek.
"Only the truth matters," he repeats his earlier words and looks up at me. "And now you know why."
I nod in silence as he wipes the tear from my cheek with his thumb. And even though he probably has no idea what's going on inside me, I wish it were different.