She looks at our uncle. “Do you need Anders to start helping out tomorrow, or can it wait a day?”
“Why?” I ask, suspicious.
“I thought you, me and Lise could go to Trondheim for the day. Roar is coming, I’m meeting picking him up at the train station.” She eyes our uncle. “Uncle Per, you can come too. May be good to get away from this place.”
But I’m barely listening as they talk back and forth about it.
Trondheim.
It would be funny if only I hadn’t actually entertained the idea of going there anyway.
Going there on a whim.
For all the wrong reasons.
Very wrong reasons.
Trondheim isn’t a big city, but it’s busy. The chances of me seeing Shay there are slim to none, even if I stalk her on Instagram, trying to plot her every move through her stories. And even if I did happen upon her, what would I say? I’m sorry? She’d hit me so fast I wouldn’t even be able to get the words out, and I still remember what her fist feels like. I still remember what all of her feels like, and fucking Britt Solberg a million times will never, ever erase it.
First loves are supposed to be bullshit, and I still stand by that.
But hell, if that shit doesn’t stink forever.
“I’m in,” I say quickly, glancing apologetically at Uncle Per. “If that’s okay.”
He nods, his jowls wobbling and adjusts his glasses. “Yah. It’s fine, Anders. But I will stay here. The city isn’t what it used to be.”
What I think he means is he doesn’t want to be stuck in a car for two hours with his nephew and nieces. I’m not even sure I want that either.
But the pull is there.
The clouds are rolling in over the mountains.
And she’ll be on the other side.
4
Shay
The scenery flying past my window is almost too beautiful to be considered real. I take photo after photo, cursing at myself when I’m too slow to get that beautiful red house standing amongst a field of gold wheat, or when I get the glare of the sun instead, ruining a shot of cotton candy clouds above a treeless alpine vista. I can’t believe I almost wrote off this country because of a few bummer days in Oslo, because this train ride alone is one of the most breathtaking I’ve ever been on.
I have a comfortable window seat with no one next to me, across from a woman who is traveling with a miniature greyhound bundled up in layers of blankets and looking every bit at home. The train has a bar cart and though it’s just before noon, I’ve already started on a can of crisp pear cider and a flattened waffle you’re supposed to eat with sweet brown cheese.
If I was worried about finding my place, my direction, that’s all being left behind on the train tracks. Now I really feel like I’m traveling. I’m moving forward and seeing the country as I go.
Sometimes the train speeds along rivers so opaquely turquoise it looks like God dumped watercolor paint in them. Other times we pass picturesque farms with giant red barns and white houses with dark trim and a lawn on the roof. Yes, a lawn. Everyone here has grass on their roof, everyone also seems to keep the neatest yards and houses in the history of ever. There’s not a spec of garbage anywhere, there’s no peeling paint or fading colors. Town after town, all I see are the quaintest, cutest, tidiest houses I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Even the forests here seem to be orderly, the tall stately pines all marching off in a row, flanking pristine lakes like guards at attention.
By the time the train pulls into Trondheim, I feel like I’ve drowned in visual sensations. I’m also pretty sore and tired considering that was an eight-hour ride, even though it proved to be fascinating the entire way. I’m pretty sure I’ve annoyed everyone on my Instagram with my photos, even though most people back home are still asleep. No one wants to see a million posts of blindingly green fields or alpine vistas or photos of my cider, but that doesn’t stop me. What else are you supposed to do? My journal is already full of my nonsense and my brain is getting a little tired of myself.
Plus, a part of me wants Danny to see it. After he broke up with me, I booted him off my social media and upped my privacy settings to the maximum. But Instagram is my forte and I keep that account public, so I sometimes wonder if he’s secretly following me. Though Danny doesn’t occupy my thoughts as much anymore, there’s that petty part of me that wants to prove to him how much fun I’m having, how I’m better off without him. Time only softens the sting of rejection, it never erases it completely.