Chapter 42
Kjell
Yawning, I enter the kitchen and switch on the coffee maker.
What a night.
I lean against the countertop, fill the water tank, and try my hardest to keep my eyes open.
Somewhere, a phone is ringing.
My phone.
I find it on the coffee table, Jakob's photo grinning at me from the display.
I quickly answer the call. "You're up early," I say after a brief greeting.
"It's ten o'clock," he responds, laughing, then clears his throat. "Thanks for the article. It's..."
"Pretty bold?" I try to provide the words I would use.
Once the dam broke yesterday, nothing held me back. With each word, I let my disappointment run more freely.
That’s probably why I feel like I've been in a boxing match today.
Everything about me is heavy. I feel wounded, but these wounds will heal.
They have to.
"Are you sure you want to publish it?" Jakob asks seriously.
Shouldn't there be a hint of pride in his voice?
Confused, I trudge to the kitchenette and grab a cup from the cabinet. "Isn't it exactly what you wanted?"
There's a moment of silence on the line. Why is he taking so long to respond?
"Yes, it is. But... did the little one hurt you a lot?" Jakob's tone is full of caution.
"Oh, come on, the article isn't that bad." Okay, I called her a pretty puppet who doesn't see the strings on her arms and legs once . But everything else is professional reporting, nothing more and nothing less. "Besides, every word is true, and that's what matters, right?"
"True," Jakob responds from the other end of the line. "And we'll print it exactly as you want, if that's your choice. Still, I'm interested—as your friend."
The coffee machine hums, the first dark drops moisten the innocent white porcelain. "It's water under the bridge, not worth mentioning," I say, wishing more than anything to finally feel that way too.
"But that's not how your article reads." Jakob sounds like he's worried about me.
A heavy sigh escapes my lips. This has to stop. I drew a line yesterday, and starting today, I want to be myself again. Pouring my heart out to Jakob won't change anything. On the contrary, it would only bring up a pain I no longer want to feel. "It is what it is, and that's it."
"You'll never change, will you?"
My cup fills slowly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You've never been interested in the why ," Jakob says.
"No. She was never interested in the why ," I counter. "She didn't give me a chance to explain everything to her. Instead, she drew her own conclusions and shut me down cold."
I didn't want to think about Sky anymore, but she's already back in my mind. Her venomous gaze, her closed-off posture—everything about her screams inaccessibility, blind fury, and retribution.
"I see," I hear Jakob murmur from far away. It's entirely possible that he's also saying his goodbyes; I'm not sure.
Because, at this moment, the image in my mind changes, not for the first time. Sky's haggard face turns into my own eighteen-year-old grimace.
The one I wore when I confronted my parents.
The one where I didn't give them a single breath's worth of time to explain.
The one where I judged them without knowing their side of the story.
I, too, wasn't interested in the why . I didn't want to hear anything that might have shaken my belief that my whole life had been a lie.
I hurled all sorts of things at my parents before I turned my back on them forever. They never got a chance with me, no matter how often they've tried to reach me since.
The truth had come to light, and that was all that mattered to me.
But what's the truth worth without the why ?
Sometimes we lie to protect others.
I did it.
And perhaps my parents did too.
What if they always wanted what was best for me but messed it up despite all their efforts?
The coffee machine falls silent, and a steady beep reaches my ears. Jakob has likely hung up.
I let the phone sink onto the countertop, trying to grasp the meaning of these thoughts.
Perhaps they mean that both Sky and I made mistakes. And perhaps they also mean that we should both look at the world a little more through each other's eyes to understand how closely truth and lies are intertwined with love and hope for us.
That's exactly what I'm doing now. I feel Sky's pain, the pain she must have felt when she discovered my secret. I feel the fear that seized her. The feeling of helplessness. The disappointment.
Yes. If I had been in Sky's shoes, I would have rejected myself just as coldly as she did.
At this moment, everything I've been blaming Sky for day after day in my thoughts loses its meaning. The conviction that the Sky from the past is the only true version of her dissolves. It's like untying a magic knot that seemed hopelessly tangled just minutes ago. As if I had pulled on the right end, it unravels. And from its center, a completely new truth stares me in the face with all its ugliness.
I've written perhaps the worst article ever about the possibly most wonderful woman in the world.
Because I was blind, dumb, and hurt.
Suddenly, I'm wide awake. This article must never be published. It's entirely wrong.
As if in a trance, I rush to my laptop, which I left on the dining table yesterday. I open it, create a new document, and start typing.
This article is not about Sky. Her name doesn't appear once. It's rather a plea to occasionally leave your own point of view and question which beliefs may have been engraved too deeply. It's an invitation to discover who you really are.
Sky will understand what I'm trying to tell her. She will read the declaration of love between the lines, find my why behind the words. She will know how much her happiness means to me and that it has never been any different.
The letters come together as if by themselves. With each passing second, my conviction grows that this will change the world—our world. And that's the only one that really matters.