33 #2
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep turning scars into shrines just because I want them to mean something beautiful.
For all I know, he took the quote because it belonged to Rumi, not me. Because it spoke to him long before I ever did.
My hand drags down my face, wiping away the anger and the ache to make myself important in his life. Make myself the crack. The light. The exception.
God, Leandra. Stop.
Stop making a prison out of poetry because it feels warmer than reality.
With my camera safely around my neck, I slip from the room before my thoughts start building temples anew.
The battery icon flashes red when I turn it on. Almost dead. I thumb it off again to save what little charge is left and let it fall back against my chest as I enter the dark of the hallway.
The house is still caught in that blue October hush.
The sitting room glows faintly around me as I click on the kitchen light, starting the coffee machine.
Reindeer hides are folded over the backs of chairs, woven Sámi bands edge cushions in red, yellow and deep blue.
Duodji knives – as Inga had called them – and carved cups are arranged on a shelf with a silent pride of things made by hands that knew winter.
Before the battery on my camera dies, I move through the space carefully, stealing the imprint of peace with my shutter, past the wool blankets and the low table still cluttered with empty glasses from last night.
And finally, I circle back into the kitchen, where the smell of coffee grounds, cinnamon and sugar is baked into the walls.
The little green light of the coffee machine blinks at me.
One thing at a time, Leandra, I tell myself in my father’s voice. Mug. Coffee. Spoon.
With my camera settled atop the counter, I pry open the first tin. Last night comes back in a single flash. Then another. My palm presses flat to the counter until they pass.
Two scoops of coffee into the filter.
Shower. Camera. His hand over his mouth.
Lid down, and it’s all boxed inside.
The water from the tap pours too fast – some splashes over my hand, the chill making me hiss.
There are no gasps beneath the rush of the spray now.
By the time I take the first bitter sip, I have almost convinced myself I can keep everything in separate compartments if I label them properly.
That’s what my therapist once said – keep things separate so they don’t bleed into one another.
Fine.
Desire. Fear. Pity. Evidence. And, since I hate myself this morning – stupidity.
Halfway through the second sip, the hallway floor creaks, and I look up to find him standing at the entrance to the sitting room.
Our eyes lock and he stops so abruptly the floorboards complain. His gaze cuts away, snapping to the clock above the doorway, scowl deepening as if the hour is somehow my fault, too.
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ His voice comes out rough, scraped from too little sleep and too much of… whatever happened last night.
I lower the mug an inch. ‘You seemed tired.’
His jaw muscle ripples. ‘The chickens don’t care how tired I am,’ he grinds out.
Trying to soften it, I say, ‘I made some coffee. I can fix you a cup before we—’
He crosses the kitchen so quickly my spine locks against the counter. ‘What did I say about this?’
I stare at him, dumbfounded at first, my brain filtering through all the commands he’s ever flung my way, but coming up with nothing.
Snatching the mug from me, he angles it to his mouth and drinks. Barely a swallow. His eyes stay on mine as he lowers it again.
Ah. A reminder, then. One mug. One plate. One punishment.
I exhale. Long and slow.
So we’re back to that.
‘Move,’ he rumbles, jerking his chin towards the door.
We pull on our outer layers without speaking, then step outside as if nothing at all happened behind that door. As if he hadn’t taken something from me. As if I hadn’t taken something from him.
We pull off the snowmobile cover and brush the remaining snow from the machine. The only sound is the stiff scratching of our gloves against the frost-hardened metal and plastic.
He doesn’t speak until we’re ready to leave, which takes time because the machine needs to warm up enough to drive.
Finally, the snowmobile takes us back up the hill where he’d first taken off the blindfold. The engine dies with a low rumble as he stops between two birches.
‘Come to the front,’ he commands and pushes his goggles up without turning to look at me.
I sigh behind him. ‘Why can’t I just ride like this?’
He exhales through his nose like a tired animal. ‘Why do you always need to be told things twice?’
With a grunt, I dismount and yank the goggles off. He glares at me as I round his very large knee, then climb back on in front of him, my legs settling on either side of his hips.
When he repositions beneath me, our chests collide and heat seeps straight through the layers.
I can’t quite look him in the face, so I close my eyes. The scarf should be going over my eyes soon anyway.
Nothing happens at first, though.
Nothing happens for a long time.
I’m about to peel my lids open when fabric grazes my cheeks, then settles over the bridge of my nose. His fingers skim my temples gently as he ties the blindfold. Then comes the slight tug of the goggles securing over it, the strap clicking into place.
‘I’ll get helmets next time I’m downtown,’ he says quietly, with that soft rasp of a giant trying to be gentle.
I hate the warmth in his voice. Especially while he’s still shutting me out so completely.
‘Ready?’ I ask.
‘Mhm,’ he hums.
I sit rigidly in his arms. There is nowhere sensible to put my hands. After a moment, I flatten my gloved palms against his back. The earthy scent of him envelops me before the wind can banish it.
Elias doesn’t start the engine. His chest undulates slowly in my arms.
The throttle makes a metallic sound when his fingers close around it and hold, then slowly loosen.
Another breath.
More silence.
‘What am I doing wrong now?’ I murmur with too much bite.
‘Nun’s tits… be quiet!’ he growls, but it gets him moving, at least.
The snowmobile lurches, nearly kicking us off from the force of it.
About an hour into the drive, the engine begins to sputter.
‘Faen,’ Elias curses beside my ear. As the wind begins to fade, I realise he’s easing us to a stop.
I drag the blindfold down to my neck and unclip the goggles.
The dull morning light stings my eyes before the forest comes into focus around us – thick and dark to our left, mountains rising ahead through the thinning fog.
They seem much closer from here, no longer distant shapes stretched along the horizon beyond his estate. We appear to be east of the cabin.
My eyes slide to his face. His are already on me.
We don’t look away immediately. Last night’s ghosts seem to pass silently between us, too raw to pretend away.
His gaze shifts to my mouth briefly before returning to my eyes and I school my breath.
As he reaches past me, his chest brushes against me.
It feels like barely anything through all these layers, but my body remembers all the ridges and dark lines that ripple when that body is put to work.
His hand pauses near my hip for half a beat, as if he’s battling his own memories.
Or it could be just me making things up again.
‘We didn’t fill up at Sunna’s yesterday,’ he says.
Of course we didn’t. We’d been too busy not speaking to each other. I swallow it down, though.
He pulls off one glove and bends closer to check the gauge properly. But his hand closes once at his side, and where his front meets mine retains the warmth of our bodies with a stubbornness I slightly resent.
I follow his gaze beyond our little pocket of shame and my awareness expands.
The air smells of petrol with a sweet undertone.
The little twenty-four-hour petrol station crouches by the roadside – one of those half-convenience-shop, half-supply-store huts with a sagging roof heavy with snow, and a couple of slushy tyre tracks leading to it.
The salt-stained windows glow faintly with the promise of stale coffee and heat.
He jerks his chin at it. ‘Come on.’
I stand beside him as he teaches me how to fill up the tank, then he turns towards the building.
As I shove my frozen fingers deeper into my sleeves, his hand closes around my wrist, and he begins to haul me after him across the icy forecourt.
Inside, it’s barely warmer. An old plug-in radiator groans its best welcome from the corner. Waffles and damp wool fill the ambience. A young man behind the till looks up from a comic book and greets us in Norwegian with the rehearsed politeness only those who have been awake too long can manage.
‘Chocolate?’ Elias asks, voice oddly light.
I blink at him. And again. Is he… joking?
‘I…’ I start, but it sounds more like a cough. My brows tug tighter together.
‘I’m getting it,’ he grunts out as if I’d complained about something.
My breath catches somewhere between a scoff and a stunned exhale. Last night he could barely look at me. This morning he was growling over our coffee mug. Now he is offering me chocolate like we’re on a bloody stroll. I don’t know if I’m supposed to brace, glare or scream at him any more.
‘I don’t need anything.’ I wrench my gaze away from him.
Elias ignores me and sets the chocolate on the till anyway.
When he opens his wallet, the only note he produces is a thousand kroner, which causes the cashier’s face to crumple terribly as he gurgles something in Norwegian.
We both peer over the counter when the man tips his chin and opens the almost empty cash drawer.
Elias studies the note for a second before turning to me.
‘You’ve got a card in your phone wallet?’
The question barely registers. The man turns his gaze towards me and lifts an expectant pair of brows.
‘Of course,’ I murmur.
Elias holds out his hand, palm up.
I stare at it. Slowly lift my eyes to his.
His are sharp again in that way that strips me down to my bones. ‘Your phone, then.’