The August evenings out here were different. The air was sharper, filled with a damp, salt smell off the fjord and the heavy, sweet scent of ripening apples from the old orchard behind the school. The light lasted longer, a slow, golden dusk that refused to let go of the day. It should have been beautiful. To me it was only a reminder of distance.
I stood at the window of my little room at the folk high school and looked out over the dark, dead-calm water. On the far side, almost invisible in the haze, lay home. Home was where Liam was.
The fjord wasn’t just water; it was a living, breathing barrier. A river of silence dividing my life here from the life I actually wanted to live. With no ferry crossing, it was as impenetrable as a fortress wall. We were only a few kilometers apart as the crow flies, but in reality we lived in two different worlds, separated until Christmas.
I was the one who had chosen this. That was the worst part. One year of textile classes and mountain hikes and “finding myself,“ while Liam stayed behind on the other side with the job at his uncle’s firm. It’s only a year, I’d said in May, his hands cradling my face. What’s one year against the rest of our lives?
I had been twenty-two and immortal. Now I was twenty-two and knew better.
“You’re standing at the window again.“ Ingrid lay on her bed with a knitting needle in the corner of her mouth, watching me with that look of hers — half teasing, half worried. We’d shared a room for three weeks, and she had already mapped my habits more thoroughly than I liked. ”It’s like living with a lighthouse. You just stand there beaming at the other shore.“
“I’m looking at the view.“
“You’re looking at a fjord that doesn’t care.“ She said it kindly. Ingrid was from the north and had a cleaner relationship with sea and distance than mine: things lay where they lay, and longing was something you knitted your way through. ”Come down to the common room tonight. Simen bought a popcorn machine. It’ll be chaos.“
“Maybe,“ I said, and we both knew that meant no.
The phone buzzed on the worn windowsill. His face lit up the screen, and a smile I couldn’t control spread across my lips. Ingrid rolled her eyes and went back to her knitting, discreet as always when my voice shifted into the frequency that belonged only to him.
I took the phone out into the narrow corridor, down the stairs, out into the yard where the evening air stood still between the old wooden buildings.
“Hey, you,“ I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“Hey, sweetheart,“ came his deep, warm voice, a sound so familiar it physically hurt. ”What are you doing?“
“Just looking at you,“ I said. ”Or — I’m looking at the fjord and pretending I’m looking at you.“
He laughed, a short, sad sound. “I’m doing the same thing. Standing on the veranda. I can almost see the lights from your school.“
We were quiet for a moment, both caught in the same impossible longing. I could hear his evenings in the background — a gust of wind in the veranda railing, a gull, the faint creak of the stairs I knew as well as my own breath. Sounds from a life going on without me, a few kilometers and a whole world away.
“I miss you so damn much, Anna,“ he said quietly, all the lightness gone from his voice. ”I don’t recognize my own bed anymore. It’s too big. Too cold.“
“Don’t say that,“ I whispered, feeling the familiar lump in my throat. ”You’ll just make me cry again.“
“Okay, okay,“ he said. ”Something else. Tell me what you’re wearing.“
I smiled through the tears. This was our game, our way of keeping intimacy alive across the water.
“Nothing,“ I said. ”I just got out of the shower.“
I heard the sharp intake of his breath at the other end. “Don’t mess with me, Anna.“
“I’m not messing with you,“ I said, letting my voice drop lower, more teasing. ”I’m standing here in just a towel. And I think I’m about to lose it.“
“God,“ he groaned. ”You’re going to kill me. Do you know what I’d do if I were there right now?“
“Tell me,“ I said, and closed my eyes.
And he told me. In detail. He described how he would take the towel from me, how he would lift me up and carry me to the bed. How his hands would explore every centimeter of my skin, how his mouth would follow. His words were like a physical touch, and I felt my body answer, a deep, aching pulse low in my belly. I stood alone in a dark schoolyard in a strange village, wet from a voice in a phone.
“And when you’re so wet you can’t think anymore,“ he finished, his voice hoarse and desperate, ”then I’ll finally—“
“Don’t,“ I cut him off, opening my eyes. ”Don’t say it. Save it for when I see you.“
The silence that followed was charged with an almost unbearable, unresolved tension.
“Christmas is too far away, Anna,“ he said at last. ”I can’t take it.“
“I know,“ I whispered, looking out at the dark, endless water. ”I know.“
When we hung up, I stayed in the yard until the cold crept through my sweater. The feeling of missing him had become physical pain. It was no longer just a wish. It was a desperate, primal need.
