“If this is closure, then how come it feels like we’re leaving a door wide open?”
I give him an incredulous look. He’s the one who already said that he wasn’t going to be enough for me, that I was only going to get scraps, that I didn’t deserve a life with him, regardless of what I actually want. He’s already started the process of closing that opened door.
So maybe this proves it, I think. Maybe this proves he doesn’t know what the hell he wants.
“Maybe this is for the best,” I tell him with a sigh, my heart breaking in my chest. “Maybe we were just kidding ourselves. Maybe every first love is meant to stay there, as a first love. We should have left it where it was. In the past. In the garbage.”
His face pales slightly, like I just slapped him across the face, like he’s remembering the time I did. Okay, so my words had bite. So that might have hurt, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. We should have just left this new relationship at what it was, a few rolls in the hay to dissipate the sexual tension between us, plus some sightseeing thrown in. Why the hell did we have to go and bring all our feelings into it? Why did we have to make this into such a fucking mess?
Because your feelings were there, from the very start, and so was the mess.
I ignore that.
I get to my feet. “I’m going to take a shower. I need some time alone.”
I grab my bag and head to the washroom.
I make the mistake of looking at Anders before I close the door.
If I thought my heart was slowly cracking open inside my chest, I feel like I’m watching it happen to him in real time.
His eyes tell me everything hurts.
* * *
The next morning, I wake up to rain hitting the window pane.
Anders is snoring lightly beside me, a sound that annoyed me before in a playful way, but now the sound cuts like a knife.
This will be our last morning together.
Last night was the last time I’d ever sleep with him. Not that we had sex—we were both too emotionally exhausted and numb for that—but I already can’t imagine not waking up with him beside me.
Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than already mourning the person you’re lying next to. I have first-hand experience with that from Danny, which is why breaking up while you’re on vacation is a thing to be avoided.
Not that we’re breaking up, per se. Anders and I were never really together this time around. We both knew what we were getting into, knowing that we would have fun for a bit on a road trip, and after that, we’d part. But it sure fucking feels like we’re breaking up, especially after last night.
Which is why after we were done letting it all out, I went and made a reservation for a ferry out of Trondheim tomorrow. Better to cut the trip short instead of prolonging the inevitable. Today, Anders will drive us to up to Trondheim, this time going inland by the way of the famous Trollstiggen switchbacks, before dropping me off in the city. I’ll get a hotel room, he’ll head back to Todalen. Then I’ll get on the ferry and go check out Bergen and the destinations south of here. Wanderlust activated.
It should sound exciting. It should put some pep in my step to get back out there, traveling by myself again, but I don’t feel anything at all.
There’s just…nothing.
I don’t want to go. I really don’t. I feel like it’s a big mistake, even though I know this is a two-way street and my feelings aren’t the only ones that matter. Anders seems to have made up his mind, and though he’s being kind and sweet, and though his eyes are sad, there’s also this glacial coolness coming off of him, that defensive mechanism of his that stops him from feeling too much.
Well, I guess it’s time for me to wear that same mask. I don’t want to turn into the lovestruck girl begging for another chance. I was already that girl once, I won’t be her anymore. If Anders has decided that things won’t work between us with our lives, then I guess that’s that. I can’t do or say anything to change his mind. And anyway, who is to say he’s wrong about it? Perhaps it would be a colossal mistake to just drop all my plans and build my life around his. After all, we’re still in the process of getting to know each other all over again. It’s too soon to even think like that.
I sigh softly and roll over, hoping I don’t wake Anders up. He’s usually awake at the crack of dawn, his lifestyle ingrained into him, so to see him sleeping tells me he needs it.
Me, though, I barely slept through the night. I kept dreaming about a sinking ship, watching Anders go down in the waves, out of my life forever. Then I’d wake up and realize what was really happening. That the end was here and I was the one drowning.
And I know, I know I should be handling this better. There’s a lot of I told you so’s directed at myself, because I knew that getting physically and emotionally involved with Anders again would making my feelings spiral out of control, easily overpowering me. I mean I knew it. I shouldn’t have slept with him, should have just left it at that kiss in the barn. Definitely shouldn’t have gone on a romantic road trip with the very person I was struggling to keep from falling for.
But what’s done is done. I’m here now. I let myself fall for him all over again, and
