Because the problem now, the problem that I see so very clearly, is that I can’t just let Shay go, and I can’t keep her either. One is unfair to me, the other is unfair to her.
The problem is that I love her.
I’ve fallen back in love with her.
And if history has taught me anything, it’s that this isn’t going to end well.
18
Shay
One of the first things the guidebooks to Norway will tell you is that you have to get out to see the fjords. There are so many of them, including the one that leads to Todalen, that most travelers will be overwhelmed with choices, but it’s Geirangerfjord that most people talk about. It’s definitely the one on the actual cover of the guidebooks.
Right now, standing beside Anders on the top deck of the ferry, I can see why it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the fairy-tale like subject of so many photos. It’s narrow as hell, with countless waterfalls splashing down the sharp sides of the towering sheer mountains, plunging into the depths of the ocean. There’s barely any shoreline, and when there is a pocket of land, picturesque remains of abandoned farms, accessible only by boat, add some color to the endless green, gray and blue.
More than anything, this fjord makes you feel impossibly small. This car ferry looks like a miniature ship in comparison, and everything seems too big to contain with your eyes.
In a way, it reminds me of how I feel around Anders.
How being in his presence sometimes makes me feel like I’m so small next to him. It’s not just that I’m short and he’s this hulking Nordic god, nor is it that he makes me feel like I shrink. I don’t shrink around him, I bloom. It’s that sometimes the way he looks at me feels too big for this world to contain, too big of a feeling to even grapple with.
Sometimes I catch Anders staring at me with this yearning look in his eyes. It’s a look that’s different from the one I knew back in the day. It’s more than just lust, it’s this deep need, a need for me, one that I can feel in my gut, lifting open the cages and letting hopeful birds take flight. I want to take that look and give it to him right back and let him know that he has me.
But every time I’m about to do that, every time I take in a deep breath and ready myself to tell him something I can’t take back, to take a step into the unknown and put my heart on the line, that look in his eyes disappears. The mood changes, like clouds over the sun, a passing storm. It’s like he won’t let himself look at me like that for too long, like he’s not letting himself want me.
And that’s all it takes for me to take a step back too. He’s still Anders, still funny and warm, but that storm is closing him off to me. It’s like he wants to be with me, more than in just this moment, then some part of him steps forward and pulls him back.
Probably because he knows that there is no future for us here.
I know that too, and yet…yet I can’t help but dream and wonder.
And hope. That very dangerous thing called hope.
I’ve been on the road with Anders for over a week now. We’ve been taking our time. We’ve found a routine. We get up, have sex, spend time in bed talking. Not just talking with words, but with our eyes and our hands and our mouths. Our bodies say so much to each other, more than we often can verbalize. We use that time to communicate as only we can when he’s deep inside me and we’re moving together as one, feeling united in a way I never thought possible. The languages we speak to each other grow sweeter and deeper each time.
Then we get on with our day. If we’re hitting the road, I’m documenting things for my Instagram, writing up blog posts, taking and editing photos, while he takes pictures too, helping me whenever I need it, and sometimes I’ll even catch him writing poetry on his phone. He won’t show it to me, but I can tell it’s giving him an outlet, that it’s letting him figure out the things that turn his eyes into a storm, the things that pull his mood in so many different angsty directions.
If we’re not on the road, if we’re in a town, we just become tourists. We eat, drink, sightsee, and fuck. In that order, and sometimes not. It’s like the both of us have committed to treating each day like its own special, precious thing. We don’t talk about the future anymore. We don’t talk about what’s going to happen when this is over. We don’t even talk about when this is going to be over. We’re already doing this longer than we had planned. We just know that it will be over, and that fact is too raw and painful to bear. So we ignore it and we sink even deeper into each other, luxuriating in each other’s company as if we have all the time in the world. We give the future the finger. We’re living in twenty-four-hour blocks of self-serving happiness.
It’s funny, when I imagined being with Anders again someday (and let’s face it, I did imagine it—it’s no accident that I came to Norway), I automatically pictured us the way we were. These scrawny, acne-scarred teenage versions of ourselves. Our emotions constantly brimming over, hormones out of control. Hearts forever on our sleeves, sucked in the undertow of first love.
But this is so different. It’s like those versions of us belonged to other people, like an old TV show we would watch all the
