Bright Midnight

I’d rather not. I feel more comfortable standing at the end of the table, staring down at him. It’s like I have one foot out the door, ready to run. I still don’t know what to say or how to act. None of this seems real.

“Please,” Anders says, his brows pinching together. There’s a gravity to his voice. Sincerity. Maybe I’m fucking crazy for still holding a grudge against him. I mean, most people wouldn’t care. Everly wouldn’t even bat an eye. Let bygones be bygones. The past is the past. And what some seventeen-year-old kid did to your heart shouldn’t matter when you’re twenty-four.

So I sit down.

I think I breathe for the first time since I left the train station.

“So,” he says to me, and he takes off his rain jacket, folding it and hanging it along the smooth edge of the wood booth. “I’m finding this very interesting.”

I raise my brow. “Well, yeah.”

Interesting. And a lot of awkward.

“You’re probably the last person I imagined running into,” he says carefully, picking up a coaster and staring at it while he flips it over. “Have to say, I still can’t quite believe it.” He eyes me quickly. “How have you been?”

How have I been? Where do I even start?

“Still in New York?” he asks, prompting me.

“Yeah,” I say, adjusting myself on the seat. I’m still a bit cold from all the rain—and all the shock—so I pull one of the blankets over my lap. “Well, that’s where I’ll be going when this is all over. Back to Brooklyn. Though I left when I went to college. Got my degree.”

“In what?”

“Bullshit,” I tell him, offering half a smile. “A B.A. in art history.”

“Really?” he asks. He almost sounds impressed. “And what do you do with that?”

I shrug. “Nothing. Except go to Europe and visit every museum and art gallery you can, because for once you know the history behind every painting. Outside of that though, I’m stumped.”

“You never seemed all that interested in painting back in art class,” he says to me, and I immediately feel myself freeze up inside, that summoning of the past. “It was more photography, wasn’t it? You know, I still have some of the black-and-white photos we developed.”

“Oh?” Should I be flattered here that he held on to them? “Well, I still love photography, I’ve just gotten lazy with my iPhone, you know.”

“Norway is too beautiful to waste on a phone,” he tells me, pressing his fingers into the table for emphasis. “You need to do it justice with a proper camera. Did you bring one with you?”

I shake my head. I had one, a Nikon, but it was Danny’s. Or, in other words, it was ours but when he left, he took it. At the time I was fine with it. Some people believe the camera captures your soul. I believed that one captured our mediocre relationship.

Now though, I wish I’d held onto it. An iPhone only does so much.

“I have one you can have,” Anders says. “Actually, I have quite a few.”

“You have quite a few cameras?” I ask. I don’t know why I sound so surprised though. Anders always had quite a few cameras. Back in high school he would go to the pawn shop and pick up anything that interested him, even if he had a bunch of them already, even if he had no intention of ever using it. He used to say that he was “rescuing” the item, as if it had a soul and his home would bring it alive. I remember he had a whole box full of Zippos and other silver lighters that didn’t have fuel or didn’t work, but it didn’t matter. He kept on acquiring them and they kept on piling up.

I’m tempted to bring this up with him, in the vein of “Remember that thing you used to do?” but I don’t dare. That’s what old friends do over beer and pizza.

We aren’t that.

“Yes,” he goes on. “I collect them. But I know you remember that about me. You should really come to Todalen with us. Since you have no plans.”

I give him a look. “First you were eager to drop me off at my hotel, now you want to bring me to your village?” I always remembered the name of the town he grew up in. He’d always made it sound so breathtaking, as I’m sure any amateur poet would.

He looks away and shrugs. “I thought I was making it easier on you. To be honest, I’m still not sure if you’re going to hit me again or not.” His features soften, the lines on his brow smoothing out. “Shay, look…”

“Here we go,” Astrid announces loudly, making me jump in my seat. She and Lise plunk my cider and their beers down on the table, the foamy head spilling over, while I see Roar slip outside with a cigarette.