‘’I’m not in love with you.’’
Harsh, sure, William could agree that it was harsh.
But it was the truth, and saying it felt so damn good.
He didn’t love her. He wasn’t in love with her. And maybe at some point he had thought he was, had looked for a distraction pleasant enough to distract him from everything that was happening in his life. And then he’d fallen in love with her. Except, it wasn’t love, not really.
‘’But you are,’’ Noora argued, gently letting her hand come up to cup his cheek.
‘’No, Noora,’’ William said, firmly, as if it was a business order. He removed her hand from his cheek, and looked her right in the eye. ‘’I’m not.’’
To Noora, the missing hand on his cheek was like a ghost. A ghost, living and breathing with only the intention of hurting her. The words stung, but his ice-cold eyes stung her worse. They were brown, once warm and inviting, now cold and rejecting. It was as if the person she always thought he was – the ass-hat, the emotion less idiot – had been hiding just beneath the surface all along, waiting, wanting, screaming, to get out. Had she really been this blind?
‘’William,’’ she pleaded. The desperation in her voice was almost enough to break his barrier – almost. He caught himself in the act of slipping up, and retreated back into his cold state. Once he got away from her, got into the car – he could let it out. The relief, the guilt – everything. He just had to get away from her.
He wasn’t in love with her – he never had been. He had realized that weeks ago, when he’d seen a documentary about finding love, and realized that he wasn’t feeling any of those things sappy things they were describing toward her. He recognized and accepted his feelings for what they were – love, but not for her.
But he still cared about her. It was hard not to – when you spend so much time with someone, whether you think you’re in love with them or not, not developing some kind of attachment to them is close to impossible. He cared about her and he hated himself for what he had done.
If he hadn’t been so lost and caught up in the glory of it all – an escape, something to get his mind off his father, his brother – he would never have approached her. He would have left her alone, maybe hooked up with her friend one more time, and that would have been it. But no – of course he hadn’t done that. Leave it to William Magnusson to go full out in every situation, especially one where another person’s feelings were involved.
It hadn’t been his plan to drag her into the dirt like this – she was a good person, she deserved better than someone wasn’t really interested in her. But things had gotten messy, and then he had been standing there all alone, and she had offered a hand, and stupid as he was, he had taken it.
And now he was here. At the core of her broken heart, taking back every word of every declaration of love he’s ever uttered to her. And as much as it broke his heart, he knew that he was breaking her heart more than it was breaking his.
‘’I’m not in love with you,’’ William said, repeating his previous statement, pouring every inch of truth inside him into it, desperately wanting her to see, to understand. ‘’The sun is shining and the sky is blue and there is traffic on the highway and I am not in love with you.’’
He met her sky-blue eyes – they were staring at him through layers of betrayal and hurt, and William had to restrain himself from looking away. They were teary, and sad and bore a portion of heavy truth. ‘’And you’re not in love with me either. You know that.’’
He took a step away from her, kept her gaze for one more second, before her turned around and reached for the car door. ‘’William!’’
Noora’s hand appeared around his left wrist. She pulled, tugged, begged – until he faced her. ‘’William please,’’ she pleaded, ‘’don’t go.’’
‘’I have a plane to catch. I’m going to London Noora, and we are not in love with each other. That’s how it is. You won’t be at peace until you realize that.’’
He didn’t turn around the next time she said his name. He just pushed her back, opened the car door and jumped in before she could do anything else. And then he cried. His eyes became a river and the handful of tissues Chris handed him the drowning victim. Willy’s river, as his mother used to call his tears dedicated to his fear of monsters hiding under his bed. That usually made him laugh. It didn’t make him laugh now.
*
‘’William,’’ Noora pleaded to thin air, face blank, like a white canvas. ‘’William,’’ she said again, this time with anger. ‘’William,’’ she kicked a garbage can. ‘’William,’’ she pressed her eyes shut.
She wasn’t upset. She was angry.
He had never been in love with her. Deep breath. He had never been in love with her.
He had forced out of her comfort zone – made her lie to her friends, left her hanging for weeks at a time, pushed and pushed, and he wasn’t even in love with her. He had put her through weeks of stress and anxiety over his wellbeing and comfort and yet, he had stood in front of her and told her that he wasn’t in love with her – that he never had been.
Heartbreak didn’t do it – her whole body was aching. Her whole life felt like a lie. If this wasn’t real, then what was? If the realest she had ever had, the most genuine and precious thing, was never real, what could possibly be?
But was it because he had left her? Did she suddenly not believe anymore because what they had had wasn’t real, because he had left, or was it because of something else? Noora blinked. It didn’t feel like he had just ripped her heart out – it felt like he had just given back every inch of herself that he had taken from her, ripped up and torn into pieces. Every little thing she had unwillingly given him, was now resting in her hands, scattered and broken and messy, and Noora didn’t know what to do with it.
For the past 5 months, William had been the living and breathing reminder that she didn’t have control over her life – but at least someone else did. Now, there were no one else. Only Noora. Noora and her many, messy, broken pieces.
William was like a siren – he sucked you in, touched you, made you feel loved and manipulated you into thinking you loved them too. William took and took and took from her – and she never received anything in return. She always had to fight, fight for his attention, his love, his honesty. She felt sorry for him at one point – his sister dying, his parents leaving him to himself, his brother being who he was. But now, oh now; now she was just mad.
The last five months of her life had been a lie. A well-structured, heartbreakingly tiresome lie.
And now that it was over, Noora didn’t know what to do with herself. She was free, but free felt oddly lonely.
‘’Noora.’’
Eva’s voice brought Noora’s attention back to her surroundings. She was sitting on the ground, leaning against the paint-chipped, cold stone wall. The warmth of Eva’s hand spread around Noora’s as she helped to her feet, hauling her up like a fragile child. But Noora wasn’t fragile, and even in Eva’s strong arms, she didn’t feel fragile. She wasn’t a doll. She wasn’t of porcelain. She wouldn’t break if you touched her.
Noora’s blank eyes found Eva’s, and for a while, they just stared at each other, not saying a word. Eva’s blue eyes blinked at her in shining worry and Noora’s were empty of emotion, just staring, like two black holes.
‘’He left,’’ Noora breathed. ‘’He just up and left.’’
Eva’s arms wrapped around her and her face closed in on Eva’s neck. A soothing hand felt its way up Noora’s back, drawing lines and hearts and circles and stars. Against Eva’s neck, Noora smiled. Not because she was happy, or because she didn’t feel empty inside, but because it was funny. The whole situation. Her boyfriend, whom she wasn’t even sure she had ever really loved, had just up and left her, and her best friend – the greater person in the world – was drawing hearts and stars on her back.
Eva took Noora’s face in her hands. ‘’Hey,’’ she said, ‘’it’s okay. You’re okay. He’s an ass, but you’ll be okay.’’
Noora shook her head. The laughter kept coming, and she couldn’t fight the smiles anymore. ‘’No, it won’t be. It’s not okay. It won’t be okay, because he was right.’’
*
William hadn’t thought it would hurt this much.
He had thought that leaving her would make things easier, like he did everything else in life, but if anything, it had made his heart heavier and his mind a busier place. To think that such a fake closeness could be so hard to leave behind, he had never.
It didn’t hurt because he missed her, not exactly. It hurt because he felt guilty, because he had taken another risk, pulled himself away from another stable something. Of course he hadn’t been deserving of it – he had pursued her for all the wrong reasons and he deserved nothing of which she gave him.
But yet still – it hurt.
Hurt, because he felt guilty. Hurt, because he didn’t have her anymore. Hurt, because he had hurt her.
Loved her he had never, but cared for her he had done so deeply, with every bit of care he had in his body that wasn’t reserved for those he loved, and those he could possibly love.
Those like Chris.
From his left, William heard giggling. He turned his head in a quick movement to look at the other boy – or man, William wasn’t exactly used to legally being classified as an adult –. Beside him, Chris was leant back in his seat, laughing and grinning at his phone screen, and William could hear his heart beating in his chest.
It was strange, and it wasn’t. His best friend – buddy, wing-man, was also the only person he wanted to kiss and the most beautiful man he had seen in a while. William wasn’t exactly sure how it had started, but somewhere between chasing after Noora and drunkenly making out with Chris at a party, it had been set in stone. He didn’t love Noora – he loved Chris.
He hadn’t actually told him that, but Chris had agreed to move to London with William within two seconds of asking, so he would find the perfect moment, and he would say it, and Chris would say it back. At least William hoped so.
Chris looked up, eyes shining as bright as his teeth were. He grinned for a second, before signalizing for William to sit back in his seat. ‘’Dude, you’ve got to see this, it’s fucking ridiculous.’’
William grinned back. ‘’I have to, is that so?’’
‘’Only if you want to have the laugh of your life,’’ Chris teased, his tongue showing in the corner of his mouth as he smirked. William’s eyes carefully landed on Chris’ lips, and it took both restrain and convincing to look away and meet his boyfriend’s eyes.
‘’As terrific as that sounds, I’ll pass. I’m going to go get something to eat, you hungry?’’
Chris shook his head, and blissfully went back to his phone. William let his hand rest on his shoulder for a moment before he walked off. Behind him, he could hear Chris chuckling and calling him an idiot.
That, William thought, is completely correct.
But he didn’t say that. Instead, he walked over to the nearest kiosk and stopped in front of the magazine selection. He wasn’t really looking to buy anything, more to get up and moving, do something. William was, to say the least, restless. He always had been.
He had always had this constant need for something to do, something to keep him occupied and his mind a busy place. But right now, all there was, was Noora and the stress that came with her name. Nothing to keep him busy, nothing to keep his mind elsewhere – just Noora.
Noora and the friend he had found in her.
Noora and the friend he would miss having in her.
Noora and the heart he had broken.
Contrary to popular belief, William didn’t like hurting other people, even when it seemed like it. When he had said those things about Vilde – he had been desperate. And he had regretted every word of it after. And when he kept Noora in the dark because of Nico, he had been confused.
That was the thing – he could not-mean these harsh words however much he wanted, but he always ended up hurting those he cared about – and those he didn’t – and just because he hadn’t wanted to hurt them, didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
William was starting to realize that if he wanted to stop hurting others, to stop stringing others along simply to distract himself, he would have to work on his own problems. Tackle them, tear them down, understand them – and then, attack. Then, and only then, would he stop feeling sorry for himself and stop hurting other people so immensely in the process.
And he did want that.
Didn’t he?
Yes – he did. He definitely did. He wanted a good life – something stable, something that wouldn’t hurt others and would make him happy. If he wanted that, the good, he would have to conquer the bad first.
He stared at the paper in front of him.
The key to happiness. It read in big, bold letters.
William thought it was stupid, there was no key to happiness. Happiness was a state of mind, not a destination you could get to by walking really fast and unlocking a door. Yet, he found himself reaching for the paper, flicking to the corresponding page and scanning over the article.
Declutter. Start yoga. Get a change of scenery.
Yoga, he would never do. And he didn’t own enough to declutter. But he was waiting for board his flight to London with his boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Not pretend girlfriend – boyfriend. Annoying as hell and too obsessed with cat videos, but boyfriend.
*
Noora had no idea how long they had been sitting there. Ten minutes, maybe thirty. But it didn’t matter. Nothing did, really.
She felt empty. A weird sort of empty. A feeling she hadn’t felt since last year, when she moved back to Oslo and had no friends except Eskild and Linn. She felt as though her purpose was gone – as if her only purpose had been William. This is what he did to me, she thought, he made me feel this way.
If Noora’s judgement wasn’t completely clouded by his betrayal, she probably wouldn’t be blaming him. But Noora was hurt. She felt betrayed, lied to, used. There was no end to the feelings that were drowning inside her, and she didn’t know better than to blame him. She had fought for so long, fought for so much, just to be with him, just to get him.
And then he had left.
But it was okay, too. As horrible and gut-wrenching as it was, it was okay.
Because he was right. And you’re not in love with me either, you know that.
Yeah, Noora thought, I do now.
She was never in love with him. She knew that now. And it was a relief, because maybe, just maybe, that meant that moving on wouldn’t be so hard. Maybe – maybe it would make the hurt somewhat easier. Maybe it would hurt less, knowing that it was never really real.
But again, that matter might make it hurt more.
But she had felt in love. Hadn’t she? She had felt the butterflies, the excitement, the gleeful bliss. She knew it had been there, she knew what she had felt. But William had never triggered those feelings. His name left nothing but a blank impression on her, but the ghost of something still stirred on her skin. The ghost of loving someone. Someone she thought she loved.
With a wide-eyed expression, Noora turned to Eva. The red-haired girl sat quietly beside her, playing with her own fingers. Noora had wanted to sit in silence, so they did. Noora with her face in her hands, resting on her knees, and Eva, dead silent beside her.
It hit her then, what should have hit her months ago – she loved someone. It just wasn’t William.
‘’Eva,’’ Noora whispered softly. Eva looked up to meet her blue eyes, and it hit Noora that green and blue can make a really beautiful brown color. Eva’s eyes were full of confusion and wonder and sympathy and hope, and Noora wanted nothing more than to grab her face and kiss her. But she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed, hard, and continued to glance at Eva’s lips.
‘’Noora,’’ Eva whispered back, not quite as soft, but not harsh either. It was merely a statement – a brief whisper of something so desperate, so hopeful. Noora averted her eyes from Eva’s lips, and met her eyes again. She tried to resist, she really did. But Eva was right there, and her lips looked so soft, and her eyes so warm and welcoming, and Noora had unconsciously been dreaming about this moment for months, and she hated William, and she was quite possibly in love with Eva.
She stopped resisting when Eva licked her bottom lip. Her hand lightly cupped Eva’s cheek, and she moved closer, but not close enough. She felt Eva’s hand on her left shoulder blade. In her hands, she could feel Eva’s warm cheeks and the grin that was beginning to take from on her lips. It was a huge grin – because there was no such thing as a slight smile when it came to Eva. She grinned and she laughed where she saw it necessary, and she didn’t care what other people thought about it. Because that was Eva. Beautiful and life-happy Eva.
Their foreheads touched, and Noora felt the flicker of light – the glimmer of a spark that should have been there all along – finally touch base with its origin.
‘’Are you going to,’’ Eva didn’t finish the sentence, she just looked at Noora, waiting, hoping. Noora inhaled a sharp breath. ‘’Don’t ruin it,’’ she whispered back.
Eva laughed. It was a heavenly sound, and with it, the angels sang. Every time Eva laughed, it sounded God-sent and heaven bound – but it was different this time. This time, Noora was the one making her laugh. She had made her laugh enough times before – sure, but somehow, this was different.
‘’Because if you are, I- ‘’ Noora didn’t care what Eva had to say. Whatever it was – it could wait. In a quick movement, she grabbed Eva’s face firmly with both of her hands and lay her lips softly on hers.
It wasn’t like the first time she had kissed William – that had been desperate, lost, begging and nothing like a kiss should feel like. But this, this, Noora was convinced, was what a kiss should feel like. It was soft and warm and it felt so good.
It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t rushed, not hurried – it just was. It was slow and then it wasn’t, it was soft and then it was rough, it was sweet as well as it was sour. It was everything Noora had ever felt at once, and she would do just about everything to keep this feeling present forever.
They stayed like that for a while – Eva’s face in Noora’s warm hands, cupped around her cheeks, and Noora’s elbows embraced in the touch of Eva’s palms, kissing, tasting, memorizing. Noora felt like she was on fire and Eva felt like she could do this forever.
That wasn’t just a feeling – Eva knew she could do this forever. Because kissing Noora was as easy as drinking wine, and as tough as knitting a complicated sweater pattern.
When Eva pulled away, Noora’s immediate reaction was to chase after her lips, but Eva stopped her, laughing softly. ‘’I need to breathe,’’ she said. Noora’s heart felt a little less heavy now, and Eva laughing and smiling at her was helping a great amount. ‘’Also, wow.’’
This time Noora laughed. She had been holding her breath ever since Eva had broken of the kiss, and with it, she let go of the weight that had been crushing her shoulders lately. She felt lighter, better, somehow.
When she looked up, Eva was smiling at her. Noora grinned back. ‘’For how long?’’
Eva shrugged. ‘’It occurred to me one night, when I was sneaking out of Chris’ bedroom at 2 AM, that maybe there was another reason why I was so nervous to add you on Facebook that one time, and that maybe there was a reason as to why I felt the need to sneak out of Chris’ bedroom, and not stay till the morning. I didn’t want to – I never do. And then I was thinking about you, and your arms, and your bedroom, and suddenly it just clicked.’’
‘’Huh,’’ Noora stunned. She didn’t know how to respond to that. Eva was honest, where William had been manipulative and pushy. It had been easy to respond to William’s pushing – she would simply push back and tell him off, but Eva’s honesty, Noora didn’t know how to properly respond to such a thing.
But she didn’t have to. Eva’s hand found its way to Noora’s and she laced their fingers together. The touch was saying it all. ‘’What about you?’’
Noora sighed, and glanced up at the redheaded girl. ‘’About an hour ago, I hate to give him credit for this, but I think William leaving helped. In a way, it opened up my eyes. I have been under his influence for so long, and now that I’m not, it’s like I can finally see clearly. Do you know that feeling?’’
‘’Yeah,’’ Eva nodded, ‘’I do.’’
And then there was no point in saying anything else at all. Because Eva knew, and Noora knew, and they both understood. Whether they had planned it or not, this was happening, and it wasn’t going to go away. Somewhere between sitting down and the first touch Noora’s fingers made with Eva’s cheek, Noora had accepted that. And she knew that Eva had too.
*
‘’Chris,’’ William whispered in annoyance. The boy next to him jerked awake, and his hand immediately flew to his neck, where his head had previously met William’s shoulder.
‘’You’re drooling,’’ William said, not even slightly amused. Yet still, he reached into his bag and pulled out a pack of tissues, because even if Chris was annoying and drooling over his jacket, he was still his boyfriend.
‘’My neck is fucked up,’’ Chris groaned. He accepted the tissue, mumbling thanks in return. William shook his head and snorted. ‘’Whatever dude, that’s on you.’’
In a way, William was at his happiest in this moment. With Chris complaining by his side, on a plane, on their way to London. He would get a new start there, away from Oslo and all the things that haunted him there. And maybe he’d go back one day. But not today. Today he would get off this plane, check into the four-star hotel he had rented a room at and eat a big, fancy meal. And tomorrow, he would start looking for an apartment.
For the time being, he was happy.
And for the future to come, she was happy.