#evilde*

Vilde looked at Eva expectantly, but she didn’t even glance up from the screen.

“Eva?” Vilde repeated, tapping her on the shoulder.

Eva’s eyes flicked up at Vilde.

“Uh, yeah,” she said distractedly, “Yeah, that’s a good idea Vilde.”

Vilde grinned, and a smile played across Eva’s face in return until a buzz from her phone caused her gaze to snap back down to the screen.

“Who are you texting?” asked Vilde, subconsciously shuffling a little bit closer to where Eva was lying.

“Penetrator Chris,” replied Eva. Her phone buzzed again and she smirked, a brief snicker escaping her lips.

“Oh,” Vilde said softly, lowering her head and staring into her lap. She felt a slight pain prodding her in the stomach and she dissolved it with a swift inward breath. She raised her head and forced the muscles in her face to contort themselves into a smile, “What are you talking about?”

Eva looked up at Vilde and raised her eyebrows, tilting her head and grinning mischievously.

“Oh, yeah…” Vilde’s words were so quiet they were almost lost on her breath out, and she fought to maintain the smile pasted onto her face.

Eva’s phone buzzed three times in quick succession and she looked at the screen, letting out a soft chuckle that made Vilde’s chest tighten ever so slightly.

“Do we have plans for Friday?” asked Eva suddenly.

“No, no we don’t have plans,” Vilde blurted, “But we can make plans! What do you want to do?”

“Chris invited me to party with his friends,” said Eva, twisting her head to look up at Vilde. “I want to party but I don’t think I’ll know many people there. Should I go?”

Vilde’s head whirred, trying to think of an answer quickly enough to maintain Eva’s attention.

“Maybe… maybe we can have a party!” Vilde exclaimed quickly, “It would be the perfect way to promote kosegruppa! Listen, Eva, we can invite everyone from the revue and it will spread the word about kosegruppa, and everyone can get to know us more at the party! It’s a great idea, don’t you think?”

Eva laughed and pushed herself up into a sitting position, a smile spreading across her face.

“Okay,” she said, slightly taken aback at Vilde’s enthusiasm, “But where can we host it? We can’t have it at mine, my mum’s home until next week.”

“Yeah, I think my mum’s hosting a wine reception, so I can’t have it here either.” Vilde furrowed her brow in thought, “Maybe Noora can have it! Noora and Isak, at their kollektiv. The rave pregame and the Christmas party that Isak hosted there went really well, I’m sure they won’t mind hosting again.”

“Yeah, okay!” replied Eva. Her eyes widened ever so slightly and she nodded in agreement, moving closer and resting her hand on Vilde’s knee to show her approval. Vilde felt her heart skip a beat and tried to ignore the soaring sensation in her chest.

“Okay, great!” Vilde beamed, “I’ll message one of them right now to see if it’s okay.”

Vilde grabbed her phone and opened Facebook, scrolling through her recent messages. The little green dot sat by Isak’s name, illuminated on her screen, and she began to type.

Vilde: Hi Isak, is it okay for you to host a kosegruppa party this Friday?

The small typing bubble popped up in the corner of the screen and Vilde watched the three dots bounce up and down with anticipation. Her eyes flicked up to Eva, who was looking at her expectantly. The sudden buzz of Vilde’s phone caused her to snap her attention back to the screen.

Isak: OK

Vilde: Okay? Great! Thanks, I’ll send out the invites now.

“Isak said it was fine!” Vilde exclaimed, lifting her head and grinning at Eva, whose face broke out into a beaming smile.

“That’s great!” she replied, “I’ll just message Chris and let him know.”

“Oh… yeah.” The smile melted off Vilde’s face and her eyes dropped down to stare at her hands.

Eva plopped back down onto her stomach and re-invested her focus onto her phone, tapping furiously on the keyboard.

“I’m excited for Friday.” Eva said to Vilde in an offhand manner.

“Yeah… yeah, me too.” Vilde didn’t dare to look back up at Eva, because she knew that if she saw the gleam of excitement shining in her eyes she wouldn’t be able to look away.

======

The Nissen revue didn’t seem like it had that many members, but once the party started to fill up Vilde realised she had sorely overestimated the number of people the kollektiv could contain. With everyone from all the revue groups cramped into the small apartment, the living room looked like it was in serious danger of overflowing. Vilde was a few drinks into the night, and with the hazy screen of alcohol clogging up her head the sea of sweaty bodies moved as a blur under the flashing lights, pumping up and down as one giant mass to the music pounding across the room.

Noora and Sana were standing to the side of the dance floor, Noora talking into Sana’s ear in order to be heard over the loud music. Chris was the life of the party, of course, her neon clothes making her easily distinguishable from all the other dancing people. Jonas was hooking up with one of the dance chicks in the middle of the dance floor (how did that happen?), while Mahdi and Magnus looked on with jealousy from the side of the room. Isak and Even were curled up together on a couch in the corner. Eva was leaning against the wall, one hand wrapped around a bottle of wine and the other holding onto Vilde’s waist.

Eva had crossed over from the comfortable realm of ‘slightly tipsy’ to ‘very definitely drunk’ and her words had started to slur together into a drunken ramble. Vilde tried to ignore how low cut the neckline of Eva’s shirt was, and how it made her feel when Eva said her name in that lilted, high-pitched voice that only emerged when she’d drunk one too many glasses of wine. She snatched the wine bottle from Eva’s grip and took a long, deep sip, shaking her head to clear all of those thoughts away. Eva moved her face closer to Vilde’s, smiling sloppily and staring straight into her eyes. She was inching closer and closer, and Vilde lifted her head to look at Eva; their lips were only a few centimetres apart…

Suddenly, Eva jumped and let out a small giggle and Vilde tore her eyes away from Eva’s face to see Penetrator Chris standing beside them, his arms snaking around Eva’s waist.

“Chris!” exclaimed Eva, swaying slightly as she twisted away from Vilde to face him. She wrapped her arms around Chris’ neck and he pinned her against the wall, leaning in to kiss her passionately.

Vilde felt her stomach twist into a painful knot and she turned her head away, feeling tears stinging in the corners of her eyes. She glanced back at Eva, making out with Chris, and felt her chest tighten and her heartbeat speed up. Their faces looked like they were melded together, Chris seemed to be attempting to eat Eva’s face, his tongue furiously lashing in and out of her mouth. The sight was so repulsive that it made Vilde’s stomach turn and she quickly pushed herself off the wall and away from the scene. The room around her felt hazy as she stumbled through the mass of bodies on the dance floor, barely noticing as she was jostled around in the crowd as she walked across the room to try and reach somewhere with a little less people.

The kitchen was blindingly bright compared to the dim lights of the party, and the loud music became muted, distant noise as Vilde stumbled in and leaned against the counter. She choked out a singular sob that seemed to echo through the empty room as she felt hot tears roll down her cheeks. Beside her on the counter stood a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff and she grabbed it, sloshing a substantial shot of the clear liquid into a plastic cup. She downed the vodka straight away and shuddered at the burning sensation of it sliding down her throat. She really wasn’t the biggest fan of spirits.

She was about to pour herself another shot when Isak surprised her by barging into the kitchen, clutching a couple of empty beer bottles in his hands. He barely noticed her as he threw out the old bottles and went to grab more from the fridge, but did a slight double take on his way out when he saw the black rivulets of mascara carved into her face by the tear tracks.

“Er, Vilde,” he started hesitantly, “Are you okay?”

“Oh…” she looked up at him, smiling weakly, “Oh yeah, it’s okay.”

She hastily rubbed her face to remove the mascara stains, but managed to splutter up another small sob, a singular tear carving another path down her cheek.

Isak seemed to rage a small internal battle, trying to decide whether he should leave Vilde alone or stay and comfort her. He took a step towards the door, but stopped and turned his head back to Vilde, sticking his tongue between his lips and staring at her. Exhaling and rolling his eyes ever so slightly, he leaned beside her against the counter.

“What’s wrong Vilde?” he sighed, tilting his head and looking at her pointedly.

Her eyes flicked up to his face for a split second and then quickly back down to the floor again without saying a word.

“I can get you a friend…” continued Isak, sounding slightly out of his depth, “Maybe Sana, or Noora. Would you like to talk to one of them? Or I could go get Eva -”

“No.” Vilde said suddenly, jerking upwards and causing a few drops of the vodka in her hand to slosh out of the bottle and onto the floor, “Not Eva.”

Isak pried the bottle out of her hands and set it a safe distance away on the counter.

“Okay,” he said, taken aback, “What’s wrong with Eva?”

“No it’s… there’s nothing wrong with Eva,” replied Vilde, trying to stop her voice from shaking, “I just don’t want to see her right now. And she’s probably busy right now. With penetrator Chris.”

Vilde couldn’t stop the twinge of bitterness that entered her last remark. Isak looked at her apprehensively.

“Why don’t you want to talk to Eva?” he asked, “You two are really good friends.”

“Yeah…” Vilde said, her voice almost as soft as a whisper, “Yeah, really good friends.”

Another tear fell from her eye, leaving a smear of smudged, black mascara down her cheek. She pointedly averted her gaze from Isak’s face, her eyes focused on the far corner of the room.

Vilde could almost hear Isak’s brain whirring as he narrowed his eyes and looked at her thoughtfully, trying to figure out what she was saying.

“Oh,” Isak said softly, his eyes widening, “Vilde, are you, er… do you like -”

“You can hook up with someone and not like them like that,” Vilde blurted out, interrupting Isak, “I hooked up with Eva. A few times. And it does make you feel horny, even if you’re not attracted to the person. So it can probably make you feel jealous too, when the other person hooks up with someone else, because that’s how the hormones that arise from hooking up work.”

Isak nodded seriously, but Vilde thought that he was holding back a smirk.

“Seriously, I can feel jealous of Eva hooking up with Chris and it doesn’t mean I like her. And it doesn’t mean I’m a -” Vilde paused as if her words had gotten stuck in her throat, and then continued much more quietly, “It doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.”

Isak rolled his head back in exasperation and looked at Vilde, raising an eyebrow.

“Vilde,” he sighed, “You’re allowed to like Eva without being a lesbian. And even if you were a lesbian, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Vilde looked up at Isak, her eyes widening.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being lesbian!” she exclaimed quickly, “I’m just not. I know I like guys.”

“Okay,” Isak shrugged, continuing to stare at her apprehensively.

“Well, I didn’t really like it when I was with William, but that’s just because… because I was nervous, I think.” Vilde was rambling, and her comments were almost directed more at herself than at Isak, “So that’s why I didn’t feel much with William, even though he’s meant to be really good at it. It was actually my fault, it had nothing to do with him. And then Magnus, um… I didn’t actually do it with Magnus.”

“Yeah, he told me,” the sides of Isak’s mouth turned up in a smirk, “He was pretty upset about it actually.”

“Well it just wasn’t working,” continued Vilde uneasily, “We didn’t have the right chemistry, obviously, so I decided it was better if we just broke it off. But it’s got nothing to do with me being lesbian! I just haven’t found the right time yet, but I know I’ll enjoy sex with guys.”

She looked up at Isak, whose face was expressionless.

“Well, how did it feel when you made out with Eva?” he asked bluntly.

Vilde felt her chest tighten and she quickly averted her gaze, staring at the floor.

“It felt good,” she said quietly, “It felt really good, but were really drunk. We’ve always been really drunk when we’ve done it and it’s never meant anything.”

“Well, weren’t you drunk when you hooked up with William? And Magnus?” inquired Isak, “Did you like it then?”

Vilde silently shook her head, her gaze still fixed on the kitchen floor. She felt tears burn in the corners of her eyes.

Isak cracked open his can of beer, and the snap of aluminium followed by the quick fizz of air escaping the can permeated through the silence, which had settled thick and heavy upon the room.

“She doesn’t like me back,” Vilde whispered, so quietly Isak wasn’t entirely sure he had even heard it, “She can’t like me back. Eva likes boys.”

“Well, she kissed you more than once, didn’t she,” Isak asked, “Why would she kiss you that many times if she didn’t like it?”

“But she hooks up with penetrator Chris all the time…” replied Vilde.

“Even was still dating Sonja when we first got together.” Isak stated bluntly.

Vilde turned her head to look at Isak, eyes wide. Isak smiled genuinely at her in return.

“I think you should just talk to Eva. Tell her how she makes you feel,” Isak said. “Straight up.”

Her eyes widened slightly further in fear, and the corners of her mouth dropped into a frown.

She opened her mouth to argue against him, but a buzzing sound vibrated from Isak’s pocket and he looked away from Vilde to pull his phone out and check his messages. Vilde felt slightly dazed and overwhelmed, trying to process the conversation they had just had.

“It’s Even,” Isak said, looking back at her and grinning, “He’s wondering where I am.”

Isak grabbed the other bottle of beer sitting on the counter beside him and took another swig from the one he was already holding.

“So, I’m gonna go back to the party.” Isak said, launching himself off the kitchen counter.

He began to walk away from Vilde towards the party, but stopped halfway across the kitchen and turned his head to face her again.

“Uh, Vilde,” he said, hesitating slightly. She looked at him expectantly, “You can message me. If you ever need to talk more, I’m available.”

“Okay,” she replied, her face breaking into a smile, “Thanks, Isak.”

Isak smiled back at her.