I can barely take it all in. All I can keep thinking is:
Is this real, is this real, is this real?
Is this really Anders sitting right beside me?
My first love.
Maybe my only love.
And the first person who showed me what it’s like to break.
5
Shay
Suffice to say, Lise asks me the most questions during the drive, all of which I answer on autopilot.
First trip to Norway.
Just arrived here.
Was in Ireland before.
No idea what’s next for me.
No idea.
“That must be nice,” Lise says, as we’re crossing over a bridge that spans the river and the banks are lined with old boathouses done up in a rich colors: golds and blues and reds that reflect onto the dark water.
“Nice?” I repeat.
“Yeah,” she says. “To do whatever you want, go where the wind takes you. To have no plans, no place to go.”
Yeah, I think. But sometimes you want a place to go. A place to be.
Astrid parks the car on narrow, hilly road and we all clamor out. I try not to look in Anders’ direction and as I pull my jacket over my cardigan, glancing down at the wet patches on my jeans, I wonder if my makeup is running down my face. Thankfully the rain has eased up to a drizzle.
Even with the shitty weather, Trondheim looks and feels miles different than Oslo. The buildings are older, less modern and more quaint, the traffic is low, cobblestone streets filled with young, fresh-faced bikers, smiling through the rain, twisting off the main roads.
“This is Trondheim’s Old Town,” Astrid announces as I walk beside her, staying ahead of Anders. When we cross the main road called Nedre Bakklandet, and nearly get run over by what seems to be an endless stream of young, beautiful people on bicycles (who bikes in this weather?) she points to a building by the bridge. “And that’s my favorite bar. The beer is cheap and good.”
The bar is called Den Gode Nabo—I have no idea what that means, it sounds like a planet from Star Wars—and inside it’s deliciously warm and dark, like a Scandinavian dive bar, but clean and full of character. The tilting floors, the walls, even the low ceilings from which old, dusty chandeliers hang, are all knotty wood. There are long tables with benches piled with blankets and pillows and many booths and tables tucked into dark corners. I feel like I’m in an old traditional boathouse, which is probably the case. There’s even a section at the back that leads down a ramp to a floating patio on the river, though not even a Norwegian would brave a drink out there in this weather.
“Here,” Astrid says, gesturing to a booth in the corner. “Roar and I will get the drinks. What do you want? Beer? Cider?”
“Cider is fine,” I tell her, reaching for my wallet, but the two of them are already walking away to the long bar at the end. I expect Lise to stay with us, but she runs off after them.
Leaving me and Anders alone.
“It’s on her,” Anders says, taking a seat and gesturing to my wallet. “You’re going to need to save as much money as you can in this country.” He nods at the place across from him. “Please, sit.”
I’d rather not. I feel more comfortable standing at the end of the table, staring down at him. It’s like I have one foot out the door, ready to run. I still don’t know what to say or how to act. None of this seems real.
“Please,” Anders says, his brows pinching together. There’s a gravity to his voice. Sincerity. Maybe I’m fucking crazy for still holding a grudge against him. I mean, most people wouldn’t care. Everly wouldn’t even bat an eye. Let bygones be bygones. The past is the past. And what some seventeen-year-old kid did to your heart shouldn’t matter when you’re twenty-four.
So I sit down.
I think I breathe for the first time since I left the train station.
“So,” he says to me, and he takes off his rain jacket, folding it and hanging it along the smooth edge of the wood booth. “I’m finding this very interesting.”
I raise my brow. “Well, yeah.”
Interesting. And a lot of awkward.
“You’re probably the last person I imagined running into,” he says carefully, picking up a coaster and staring at it while he flips it over. “Have to say, I still can’t quite believe it.” He eyes me quickly. “How have you been?”
How have I been? Where do I even start?
“Still in New York?” he asks, prompting me.
“Yeah,” I say, adjusting myself on the seat. I’m still a bit cold from all the rain—and all the shock—so I pull one of the blankets over my lap. “Well, that’s where I’ll be going when this is all over. Back to Brooklyn. Though I left when I went to college. Got my degree.”
“In what?”
“Bullshit,” I tell him, offering half a smile. “A B.A. in art history.”
“Really?” he asks. He almost sounds impressed. “And what do you do with that?”
I shrug. “Nothing. Except go to Europe and visit every museum and art gallery you can, because for once you know the history behind every painting. Outside of that though, I’m stumped.”
“You never seemed all that interested in painting back in art class,” he says to me, and I immediately feel myself freeze up inside, that summoning of the past. “It was more photography, wasn’t it? You know, I still have some of the black-and-white photos we developed.”
“Oh?” Should I be flattered here that he held on to them? “Well, I still love photography, I’ve just gotten lazy with my iPhone, you know.”
“Norway is too beautiful to waste on a phone,” he tells me, pressing his fingers into the table for emphasis. “You need to do it justice with a proper camera. Did you bring one with you?”
I shake my head. I had one, a Nikon, but it was
