by Tina T. Kove
‘I know.’ Sarah’s lips spread into a smile, but she kept her eyes on the road. ‘I can see that too.’
I looked out the window as I felt my face flush. It was obvious that I liked Andreas? I thought I was pretty closed off, that people couldn’t tell how I felt. Had that changed… or had I always been an open book?
‘Don’t worry, Alex.’ Sarah patted my knee before putting her hand on the gear shift again. ‘You’re good.’
What did she mean by that?
But I was too embarrassed about her earlier admission to ask, so I just watched the landscape zoom past, zeroing in on the black dots in the ski-centres on the mountainsides.
How people did that, slalom and whatever, I had no idea. Yet here I was, on a skiing holiday with Andreas and his friends. It was bound to go badly for me. I couldn’t ski, after all, and I had no interest in learning either.
At least I was trying to be sociable.
That had to count for something.
‘This one’s mine.’ Glenn took a pack of crisps straight out of one of the bag as soon as Sarah dropped it on the dining table.
‘Hey!’ Sarah swatted at him. ‘You’re helping put all this away or I will charge you for having to do your job as well.’
Glenn only snorted and went to sprawl on the sofa.
‘What are we having for dinner tonight?’ Peter started unpacking the first bag.
‘Alex and I decided on tacos.’ Sarah beamed at me.
I wasn’t used to such kindness and had no idea what to do with myself when faced with it.
‘Taco’s awesome.’ Andreas came over to my side. ‘Good choice of food.’
‘It was mostly Sarah,’ I muttered to the floor.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Leo asked Sarah from where he stood at the head of the table.
‘You three can start on the vegetables.’ Sarah pointed at Andreas and me as well. ‘I’ll start browning the meat, while Peter puts everything else away.’
With a cutting board each and knife, we sat down at the table and did as Sarah instructed.
‘She’s a little bossy, isn’t she?’ Andreas whispered in my ear.
‘Maybe a little.’ I smiled slightly but didn’t stop what I was doing, which was cutting cucumber into small, square pieces.
Andreas was in charge of the bell pepper, while Leo was slicing salad. Sarah was taking out a pan and cutting up the meat at the stove, while Peter shoved things into the fridge and freezer, wherever stuff belonged.
Everyone was busy except for Glenn, who was sprawled on the sofa eating salty crisps. I caught Andreas sneaking glanced at him from time to time.
I knew Andreas was worried about Glenn.
He kept telling me it wasn’t because of me Glenn was the way he was. That it must be something else bothering him. And maybe it was. But I knew I bothered him as well.
It was perfectly understandable that Glenn didn’t want the guy he’d shagged last summer and then dumped after a fortnight to hang around. I wouldn’t have been happy if our situation had been reversed.
But at the same time, I couldn’t give up my newfound happiness with Andreas to please Glenn.
‘Seriously.’ Sarah scowled towards Glenn as she sat down on the chair next to Andreas. ‘He can help, at least.’
‘Leave him alone.’ Andreas snuck another glance around me. ‘We’re too many people as it is.’ He’d finished cutting the bell pepper.
I was almost done with the cucumber too, and Leo just finished up with the salad.
‘He’s not getting out of making dinner all holiday.’ Sarah glanced past both Andreas and me too.
‘Of course not. But just leave him alone for today.’ Andreas sighed softly.
Sarah jumped up from the chair to go stir the meat.
‘I hope you’re not burning that.’ Andreas turned in his chair to stare at her. ‘Burnt meat isn’t very tasty.’
‘Who says I’m burning it?’ Sarah flicked some of her long, red hair over her shoulder.
‘You just forgot about it,’ he pointed out teasingly.
‘But then I remembered.’ Sarah turned to Peter. ‘Can you get dishes for all the veg? And we need cheese and sour cream.’
Peter turned to do as commanded without a word.
‘Are we having tortillas or shells?’ Andreas was asking the big questions now.
‘Whatever you want.’ Sarah lifted a box that said ‘dinner kit’ to show him. On the counter beside it were two packages of tortillas.
‘All right, then.’ He gazed at me.
Had he asked for me?
He knew I preferred tortillas over shells. I also knew he ate whatever, so that question must’ve been for my benefit.
Peter handed off soup plates to all of us, which we dumped our respectable vegetables in.
‘We’re not mixing them?’ Andreas started into his little bowl.
‘It’s best not to, isn’t it?’ Sarah turned away from the meat again. ‘Not everyone likes everything. Or so I assume.’ She glanced at me and Leo in turn. ‘I, myself, don’t care for corn.’
‘Same,’ I muttered.
Sarah put her hand up. ‘High five for that.’
It startled me. I’d never high-fived anyone before, not even my brother. But I slapped my hand gently to hers.
Sarah was easy to get along with.
I had a good feeling in my gut about her. Maybe she would become more than Andreas’s friend. Maybe she’d be mine too, eventually.
That was a rather nice thought.
Tuesday, February 19th
I felt like a total outsider as everyone was excited for skiing the next morning, while I wasn’t.
They kept the chatter up throughout breakfast, talking about the slopes and whatever. I wasn’t into skiing, so I didn’t know any of the terms they used.
‘Are you coming with us, Leo?’ Sarah asked.
‘Nah, I’ll skip today. Keep Alex company. Maybe tomorrow.’ He smiled at her, then glanced at me.
Well, at least I wasn’t a lonely outsider this time around. That was something, at least.
Andreas glanced between us. ‘You sure you don’t want to come with?’ This question was directed at me.
‘Yeah. I don’t ski.’ I didn’t ski and I didn’t party, which was what this whole damn winter holiday was about, so why I was here was anyone’s guess. To be with Andreas, obviously, but he also wanted to be with his friends and do whatever they seemed to be doing every year.
We finished breakfast and cleaned the table—and Glenn even helped too. He seemed in a better mood today, which was good. Perhaps I wasn’t the only thing darkening his mood.
I trailed after Andreas into our bedroom when he went to change.
‘I can stay here if you want,’ he offered.
‘No, go skiing with your friends.’ I’d push him out the door if I had to. ‘That’s why you’re here.’
‘I’m also here to spend time with you.’ He stepped in close, crowding me up against the wall. ‘Lots and lots of time with you.’ He cupped my face in his palms, then bent down to kiss me.
‘We’ll find the time,’ I said in-between kisses, all but melting against him. If we could stay like this all day, just the two of us together, kissing and cuddling and fucking, then I’d have a great day. But Leo was here too, so that wasn’t happening. Maybe another day, if Leo went out skiing with everyone.
Andreas nipped on my lower lip. ‘I’ll see you tonight then?’
‘Yeah.’ I locked my hands behind his neck and leant in for another kiss.
His arms were strong around me. He was taller than me, wider than me, stronger than me. Everyone pretty much was, when it came to it. I was too thin, too gaunt. I wasn’t short, by any means, but I wasn’t particularly tall either. Just average. Average in every way. My height, my looks, the size of my dick.
What wasn’t so average was my scarred arms, but they didn’t show when I had clothes on. And Andreas, who was the only one who saw me without
clothes, didn’t care about them.
‘Are you coming?’ Peter called from the hall. ‘We’re ready to leave!’
Andreas reluctantly pulled away. ‘Two seconds!’ He smiled at me. ‘Let’s continue this tonight, babe.’ And he pressed another swift kiss to my lips.
I followed him into the hall, where the other three had finished dressing already. Andreas quickly pulled on his boots and outerwear as well, then waved at Leo and me.
‘See you later!’
They piled outside and I closed and locked the door behind them.
‘You don’t want to ski?’ I eyed Leo wryly. He was standing at the other end of the hall, leaning against the doorway.
‘I do, just… not today.’ He shrugged.
‘Why not today?’ He was feeling sorry for me, wasn’t he?
‘I don’t have any gear on my own, so I have to rent it. And renting gets expensive. I just can’t afford to do that every day of the week.’ He shrugged again as if it was no big deal.
‘Okay.’ It made sense. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend all my money on expensive ski gear either. ‘But you’ve got money saved up, right?’ That’s why we worked, so we’d have enough to live off of and save up for special occasions.
‘Yeah, sure.’ He turned back into the living room and dropped down on one of the armchairs. The TV was off and he didn’t touch the remote, so it seemed he wanted to talk some more. ‘But that’s for emergencies. Going skiing every day isn’t an emergency. And I want to spend time with you.’
That warmed.
I sat down in the other armchair.
‘You have savings too, right?’ Leo’s gaze was scrutinising. ‘So you have money for when school ends? You haven’t spent them?’
‘Yeah.’ I had a savings account and was very organised in my budget. ‘I hardly ever spend money.’
‘Good.’
‘Hey…’ I fumbled with my phone, nervous all of a sudden. Why I was nervous I had no idea, it wasn’t dangerous what I wanted to ask him. ‘Do you remember our cousin? Andreas?’
‘Yeah?’ He was curious now. ‘What about him?’
‘Do you remember his surname?’ Andreas was so adamant that family was important and cousin Andreas was the only other family I had.
Leo blew out a breath, then a couple of minutes—at least that’s what it felt like—of thoughtful silence descended.
‘Fagerbekk,’ he said eventually, still thoughtful. ‘I think it’s that. Andreas Fagerbekk.’
I pulled up Facebook on my phone and proceeded to type that in. There was one hit, so at least someone had that name.
‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘He’s family.’ That’s what Andreas always said. ‘I thought maybe… I don’t know. Maybe we could get to know him? He is our cousin.’
‘Yeah.’ Leo drew the word out. ‘But we haven’t seen or spoken to him since his mum died. That’s, what, eight years ago?’
‘Six, I think.’ I was sure I’d been twelve then, and I was eighteen now. ‘Or maybe it’s seven.’ It could’ve been after my birthday in March, and I was nineteen next month, so…
The first hit was of a guy with that exact name. Every hit after him didn’t have the correct surname, or it had a variation of it.
‘Did you find him?’
I nodded as I clicked in on his profile. It was pretty bare, so maybe all of his stuff was private. I could see his profile picture, however, and I clicked in on it. It was of a guy with blond hair, smiling slightly at the camera, and he was in a military uniform.
‘I think he might be in the military.’ I handed my phone over to Leo so he could see.
‘Yeah, that looks like him.’ Leo gave me my phone back. ‘Are you planning on adding him?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt, would it?’ But I had a completely blank profile. No profile picture, no posts, no nothing.
I clicked out of his profile picture to check out his cover photo. It was of him and two other guys. One was just a tiny little bit shorter than him, with light brown hair and a friendly smile. The other was shorter than both of them, with a shaved head on one side and long, black strands covering the other side. All three of them held beer cans and they were clad in the red overalls that signalled the russ-celebration—the end of thirteen years of schooling.
What with that cover photo and his profile picture, I thought it was pretty safe to say that he was in the military now for his mandatory year of service. Or, if he didn’t update his profile all that often, he could be done with it. Anyway, he wasn’t more than a couple of years older than me.
My thumb hovered over the ‘add friend’ button.
‘Just do it, Alex,’ Leo pushed gently. ‘Then send him a message if you can. Your account looks like a spam account.’
‘How so?’ I glanced at him.
‘It has nothing on it.’ Leo spread his hands in a ‘that’s just how it is’ sort of way. ‘Why are you suddenly so interested in him, anyway? I haven’t thought about him in years.’ Leo frowned slightly now.
‘Andreas—the boyfriend—was asking me about family, and then I remembered it wasn’t just the five of us. We have him too.’ I clicked the button. ‘We tried finding Kamilla on Facebook, but she’s not there. Or she can’t be searched for some reason.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’ve tried to find her too.’ Now Leo seemed flat out worried.
‘Does it bother you?’ My thumb hovered over the ‘send a message’ button now. ‘That we don’t hear from her?’
Leo nodded.
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘Do you ever wonder…’ Leo trailed off uncertainly.
‘Wonder what?’ I gave him my full attention now.
‘If something’s happened to her?’ He couldn’t quite look at me as he asked that.
‘What do you mean? Like, something bad?’
‘Yeah. I just… I can’t believe she’d stop talking to us. I get our parents, I never want to speak to them again either, but the two of us? That’s just weird.’
That thought had never entered my mind.
‘But…’ I thought frantically. ‘Wouldn’t the police let us know if she was… dead?’ I could hardly get that word out.
‘Not if they don’t know who she is.’ Leo seemed to have thought about this a lot. ‘There are a lot of Jane and John Does around. If they can’t find out who the person is, they don’t have much to go on, do they?’
‘Have you been to the police?’ Why did he have to put these thoughts into my head? Now I might not be able to stop thinking about it. It was better to feel abandoned than to think she was gone forever.
‘And say what? Our sister disappeared and that’s a strange thing for her to do?’ He shook his head. ‘What if, for some reason, she doesn’t want to be found? Then I wouldn’t want to draw attention to it.’
‘That’s true.’ I’d only been fourteen when she left. She’d been by my room to say goodnight—I’d been too old for her to tuck me in as she used to do—and the next morning she and all her stuff was gone.
I couldn’t find Kamilla though. But I had found our cousin, and my friend request was pending. But what if he didn’t remember my name and thought my account was spam? Then he’d reject the request.
So I had to send a message.
I drew in a deep breath, then pressed the button. The app changed from Facebook to Messenger and a whole lot of white screen met me. I pressed on the line furthest down on the screen, then got stuck again as the keyboard appeared, not knowing what to write.
‘She seemed so normal that last night,’ Leo continued, not ready to let go of the topic of Kamilla. ‘She didn’t seem like a girl about to run away.’
‘How does a person like that look?’ We had no idea what Kamilla had struggled with inside. I had no idea what Leo struggled with inside, even, and we were close. It was just that we never talked about those kinds of stuff.
Leo shrugged helplessly. ‘Good question.’
‘She might’ve bee
n planning on running away for ages.’ I’d certainly planned on ending my own life. ‘We don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know unless she eventually decides to contact us.’
‘Yeah.’ Leo sighed.
Silence descended again and I focused back on the message I was going to send. I started typing hesitantly, having no plan whatsoever.
Hi. My name is Alex. I don’t know if you remember me? But I’m pretty sure we’re cousins—
No, wasn’t that too dumb?
What if this was a random person and I sent something like that?
What if it was him, and I still sent something like that. It sounded lame. But how else was I going to write it?
Hi. I’m writing to you because I think we might be related—
No, no and no.
‘What do you write to a long lost cousin?’
‘I don’t know, Alex, you’re the writer.’
Damn. No help from him then.
Hi. Sorry to message you out of the blue. I hope I have the right person because if I do, we are cousins. If not, just disregard this whole message. We haven’t seen each other since I was twelve, at your mum’s funeral (I can’t remember if I ever told you how sorry I am for your loss, but I am). I just today found out your last name (twelve-year-old me couldn’t be arsed with last names, sadly), so I thought I’d message you. It would be nice to get in contact with each other again. Best, Alex.
Did that seem okay?
I re-read it three times, cringing every time. There was no other way to put it though. I pressed send before I could change my mind. Then immediately did change my mind, just a little, but now it was too late.
‘Now you just have to wait for a reply.’ Leo watched, slightly amused, as I put the phone on the table, screen down.
‘Yeah.’ And that wasn’t going to be anxiety-inducing all on its own.
‘Hey, you.’
I looked up from my laptop screen to find Andreas standing in the doorway.
‘Hey. You’re back already?’
‘Already?’ He checked his phone. ‘We’ve been gone all day.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Time went quickly when I was busy. I closed the lid of the laptop and put it at the foot of the bed. I intended to get up, but before I could, Andreas got on the bed. On top of me.
