Bright Midnight

“It’s across the river. Right beside an amazing pub. Soon as Roar gets out of the train, we’ll take you there. Have a drink. He lives in that direction anyway and he’s visiting family too, so I don’t think he’s in any hurry to get home.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose on your time with your friend…”

She faces me squarely, the wind blowing a curly piece of auburn across her face. “Listen. It’s fine. It’s settled. I’ve got my brother and sister in the car anyway.” She jerks her head toward the station wagon, then sticks out her hand. “I’m Astrid, by the way.”

“Shay,” I tell her, and I’m surprised by the strength of her handshake. Her name makes my head jog ahead. It’s familiar somehow.

She jerks her head toward the parking lot. “Come on, I’ll get your stuff in the car before he comes. Who knows how much stuff he’s bringing.”

Astrid grabs my duffel bag and heads toward the car. I’m still taken aback by her friendliness and generosity, and there’s this weird feeling in my gut that’s building and building. Like déjà vu, but not quite. Like something is happening, that the cogs in the machine that is my life are turning, wheels in motion, causing things to turn a corner.

I start down the steps after her, when suddenly everything goes in slow motion.

As she throws my bag in the trunk, the passenger side door opens and a tall man steps out, shoulders like mountains.

He faces me, stares at me.

Stares in me.

As if he can see my heart starting to jerk around in my chest.

No. No. No.

It can’t be.

I blink because there’s something wrong with my eyes. The rain is clouding them.

I swear I’m looking at a man who looks exactly what Anders would look like now.

The beard.

That messy, shaggy hair.

Those cheekbones.

Sure, most of the good-looking men I’ve seen in Norway so far look exactly like this, but still.

“Shay?” he asks incredulously. His voice is so much deeper now, and yet it sounds like yesterday, even as it echoes across this parking lot.

I’m sixteen again.

And that’s when I nearly drop my backpack.

This can’t be happening.

He can’t have called my name.

That seriously cannot be him.

Anders Johansen.

I want to tell him I don’t know him. That my name isn’t Shay. That he’s made some mistake.

But I can’t. I can only stare, just as he can only stare. There’s buckets of rain and our past between us.

“Do you two know each other?” Astrid asks, looking between the both of us. Then something dawns on her face. “Oh…Anders. Is this…is this the girl?”

Am I the girl?

“Shay,” Anders says again, as if he didn’t hear her, voice softer now. “I can’t believe…” he blinks a few times, shakes his head and a piece of wet, black hair sticks to his forehead. “Please, come in the car. We’ll take you where you need to go.”

Where I need to go is suddenly thousands of miles away from here. I’m so tempted to just walk past them or to turn around and go back in the train station. Feign ignorance. Pretend. Save face and heart and soul.

But I can’t. There’s no point. Because after everything that came between us, here we are again. How can you not believe in fate when we’re staring at each other after all these years, rain in my eyes, fear in my heart?

Shit. My pulse is beating so fast, I’m afraid it will burst through my skin.

I nod. “Okay,” I say, my voice shaking.

My legs in slow motion, I go down the last step and he walks around the hood of the car, his hand out to take my backpack from my shoulders. As he comes closer, I see him now in frightening detail.

The rain streaming down his furrowed brow. His grey-blue eyes, like the deepest, darkest sea. His Roman nose, slightly crooked at the center, like he’s been punched by a few people (other than me).

He isn’t smiling at me, just watching, perhaps curiously, maybe fearfully.

Because I remember everything like it was yesterday.

The anger, shame, and regret haven’t gone away.

He swallows and I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat and once again I’m struck by how much bigger he is now, all man and brawn. The tattoos on his knuckles peek out as he reaches for my backpack, which I’ve taken off my shoulders without even realizing it. The sparrow. That was his tattoo for me. I was the bird in the cage, the one he wanted to set free.

“It is you,” he whispers, his voice gruff, like it’s caught somewhere in his throat. He peers at me intently, searching for reality.

Why has time been so kind to him?

But there is something burning in his eyes, the way he holds himself, the slight clench to his jaw, that tells me maybe time hasn’t been so kind after all.