“Fuck me,” he says through a ragged groan, his hips pumping once, twice, before he leans forward, nearly collapsing on me. His sweaty chest brushes against my back and he holds his weight off of me with a shaking arm.
“Think I just did,” I manage to mumble into the pillow.
He laughs softly and then slowly pulls out, leaving me bereft and empty without him inside me. He rolls over onto the bed beside me, and I turn my cheek against the covers so that I’m facing him.
He reaches out and brushes my bangs out of my face, just as another lightning flash lights up the room.
But this time, there’s no fear in his eyes.
This time he looks happy.
17
Anders
“The flight is young, we’re getting deep without an aqualung,” Skye Edwards from Morcheeba softly croons from the radio in the corner of the bar.
Getting deep without an aqualung is right.
I’m screwed.
Utterly and completely screwed.
I knew from the moment I saw Shay again, that I was in deep. I just didn’t know it would be fathoms’ deep. I was already so eager to have her back in my life, to have that chance to make amends and get things right again, that I wasn’t really thinking clearly about what actually having her back would do to me. What it would mean.
I still don’t know, to be honest. Even sitting here in this dimly lit bar in Alesund, with a pint of cold beer and a hawking klipfisk pizza, I feel lost as I’ve ever been. It’s been a few days since we hit the road in my Datsun, looking for escape and adventure, and if I wasn’t steadily falling for her back in Todalen, then I’m almost free-falling now. A deep dive, through clear water that turns murky and complex the further down I go, as I try to wrestle with my feelings for her, sinking, sinking.
The thing is, there are too many feelings to process and they’re all leading me in different directions. I’ve taken to writing some shitty poetry to try and figure it all out, pulling out the notes section of my iPhone and letting the words visit me, like an ebbing and flowing tide. I have no idea where I’ll end up in the end, but I just know that it probably won’t be pretty.
It’ll be real though. Real and raw.
Just like us.
The town of Alesund was supposed to be just an overnight stop. After we left the Svegvikka Guesthouse, we drove along the infamous Atlantic Ocean Road, taking our time so that Shay could photograph and document every breathtaking moment. The road is world-renowned for a reason—half the time it feels like you’re driving suspended above water, with only little islets to ground you here and there, mountains lurking in the background. There’s a bridge, Storseisundet, that has such a steep incline that when you’re driving up it the road seems to disappear. and it looks like you’re about to re-enact parts of the movie Speed.
With so much to see, we got to Alesund late, and it wasn’t until the next day that Shay fell in love with the place and asked if we could stay a few more nights. Of course I said yes. I’d say yes to anything she asks of me.
Our room is pretty amazing, right above the water, just like our previous room at the guesthouse was, except this time we’re on a busy harbor, with sailboats and fishing boats cruising past, taking pictures of our bright hotel, sometimes of us waving from the window. The hotel even gives you fishing roads which you can hang outside your window in hopes of catching something. Obviously, fishing is the last thing I want to do right now, but Shay’s been enjoying herself, caught up in the wavering hope that she’ll catch something. So far, no luck, but she has patience I definitely don’t have.
So we’re here, just staying in place, exploring the shops and the bars and the restaurants and trying to enjoy each other’s company while we have the chance. It feels like a vacation, like we’ve found a little space for ourselves to just be with each other and discover each other all over again.
But I’m so conscious of time, marching forward and slipping through our fingers. The harder I try to hold on, the worse it gets, like trying to hold back grains of sand from the hourglass. I didn’t even want to let her go shopping alone today, I wanted to stay at her side, soaking up her company as much as I can before it’s too late.
She insisted that clothes shopping would be too boring for me, and that she’d meet me at this bar for dinner and drinks. Who knows, maybe she needs some time to be alone. Maybe I’m crowding her a little. Maybe I’m being too much. She seemed to like that aspect of me back in the day, but I have to stop thinking in the past. I have to start thinking of our present, and our future.
And what future is that? I ask myself. The one in which she stays on the farm, helping Per, having no life of her own while you’re out at sea for most of the month? That future?
I hate how it is. How it will be. I wish I could let go of the rusted shackles keeping me in place, keeping me stuck in a life I don’t want to be stuck in. My duty. My destiny. I’m bound for it and yet I want to be bound to her.
Ease up, I remind myself. You’re coming on too strong. Don’t ruin what little time you have.
And there she is.
Shay opens the door to the bar, stepping inside. She must have gone back to the hotel room to change because
