“Astrid told me you don’t talk,” I tell him.
He nods, squinting off into the distance. “We don’t. We’ve never been close. As you know.”
I give him a steady look, weighing my words in my mind. “But that’s just the thing, Anders. I don’t really know. I know you think you told me everything when we were going out but…you didn’t.”
His eyes sharpen. “I did too.”
“Poetry doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because it only tells me how you feel. It doesn’t explain where the feelings come from. What made you this way.”
He stiffens, growing defensive. “Then it should be enough.”
“Anders,” I say, and I know I should hold things back, that I shouldn’t ruin what could be a romantic moment. I know I should just let it go, but my mouth keeps moving. “I deserve to know why you did what you did. You say that you were a fuck-up when you were younger, well why? What were your demons? You never shared them with me. I knew you had problems, but you never let me in.”
His jaw tenses and he averts his eyes, looking off. “I was just an asshole. Plain and simple.”
I reach out and grab his arm, forcing him to look at me. “You weren’t. At least not at the beginning. Something changed. Something made you that way. Was it…was it me?”
His eyes go soft. “No. No, Shay. You were perfect. You were…so fucking lovely. I just…” he licks his lips and sighs. Runs his hand through his hair. “Do you know what it’s like to feel like your own family doesn’t want you?”
His words cause my heart to grow cold and heavy.
I nod slowly. “Yes. I do. Anders, you know I do.”
He gives me a sharp look. “Do I? Because for all you’re saying about how you don’t know anything about me, did you ever consider that I barely knew anything about you?”
I shake my head. “That’s not true. You knew what it was like for me back then. Never having my mother around, having her chase after my father, who clearly gave no shits about us. All I had was Hannah, and she had her own life to live. She never asked for any of that, to have to look after me. We were pretty much abandoned, Anders. Abandoned, and then I became a burden.”
“And so was I!” His eyes flash. “I was sent to be with my mother because her abandonment of our family fucked me up so much that my father couldn’t handle me. Couldn’t even stand to be around me. I was sent to be with her, and she didn’t even want me. I went across the Atlantic, pulled from my school and friends, and I wasn’t wanted there either. I had nothing, I had no one…except for you.”
“Then why did you fuck it up?” I cry out.
He swallows hard. “Because I knew I didn’t deserve you. Because…you were pure and so good and I really did love you.”
Fuck. Those words shouldn’t hit me the way they are. Right in between the ribs.
“But,” he continues, his voice going low, “I also knew that it wasn’t forever. That I would eventually have to leave. I couldn’t stay where I wasn’t wanted. I knew I’d head back to Norway, try and create a life for myself, and that we would have to part, and I guess…I guess I thought if I fucked things up enough, if I could get you to hate me, it would make it easier for both of us.”
I let out a derisive snort. “There was nothing easy about it.”
I suck on my bottom lip, feeling the truth rising up inside me. He still doesn’t really know what happened, he doesn’t realize that it wasn’t just about him cheating on me. He doesn’t know I was pregnant, or that I had an abortion, and that those things have weighed me down all this time.
“Anders,” I say softly, my eyes skimming over his beautiful face before looking off to the mountains, the bare peaks kissed with gold from the setting sun. “I…”
He reaches out before I can say anything and places his large, warm palm against my cheek. “Forgive me, Shay. Please.”
His eyes search mine, and in their depths I see the boy I knew and loved, and the man in front of me now, and I know I would still do anything to ease his pain.
“Forgive me,” he says again, a whisper now.
I nod, pressing my lips together, trying to smile, to speak.
Because I do forgive him. Don’t I?
Then relief passes through his eyes before being drowned out by fire.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s leaning in, his fingers moving back into my hair, holding my head in place, and his mouth covers mine in a hard, bruising kiss that steals my breath.
Anders kisses me like a man going off to war.