Hi! I have a quote for Skam: “You don’t get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.” — Neil Gaiman
It’s odd, Eva thinks, that this is how it ended up being. That when she breaks up with Jonas for the second time, it’s Isak she goes to. Again.
It’s just like the first time seven years ago, and at the same time it’s nothing like that at all.
She takes the night train to Trondheim, because it’s the only thing she can think of doing after their dinner is gone and all the words are gone and she has put her most important things in the backpack and walked away from their two-bedroom apartment in Torshov.
It had been the first night in months when they didn’t argue at all. Because they had finally found one thing they agreed on.
That it was time to move on.
She calls Isak from the train. His voice is heavy with sleep, and it takes a minute before he understands what she’s saying. Or what she’s trying to say. Her throat constricts in the middle of a sentence and she has to start again.
“Okay,” Isak says, and then, more muffled, “no, it’s Eva.”
A low, equally sleepy voice answers something in the background. Eva can’t hear the words but suddenly she’s hit with the realization that from now on she’ll wake up alone.
She disconnects the call just before the sob comes out her mouth.
Isak waits him at the train station at 6:40 the next morning, holding two coffee cups and reaching for an awkward hug once Eva has taken the other one between her own hands.
The city is quiet this time of the morning. Just a few early risers hurrying to their jobs, the sound of a snow plow clearing the streets somewhere further away. It’s snowing, just a bit. Flakes melting against the chestnut brown of Eva’s hair.
They walk slowly, sipping their coffees and crossing a bridge and then another one before starting their trek uphill to Rosenborg. They don’t talk.
The house where Isak and Even have rented a few rooms for themselves is technically a single family home. But the old couple living in it hasn’t needed the second floor for years, now. Not since their own kids had moved away. To Oslo, Uppsala, Tokyo. Like kids tend to do.
“It’s nice,” Isak had told Eva when they had moved in two years ago, “they’re nice”.
Even is in the kitchen when they get to the house. He smiles at Eva, something apologetic in his features, and pats her on the shoulder before disappearing. Leaving Isak and Eva alone.
Isak looks at her, really looks.
“How are you doing, Eva?” he asks, then.
And maybe Eva could disconnect the call the night before, but there’s no way of hiding the sniffle that comes out now.
Isak takes a step closer and wraps his arms around her.
He’s taller. Not quite so skinny anymore. But for a moment Eva feels like she’s back in the basement of her mother’s home, sixteen years old and heartbroken for the first time.
It truly is odd, she thinks. That they’re best friends after everything.
They’ve never talked about what Isak did to her back then. They’ve never talked about what Eva did to him. That dare. She still remembers it sometimes, late at night, shame a heavy liquid running her veins.
She’d been so angry, so stupid, so reckless.
She’s never even apologized for it. She’s never explained herself.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispers against her hair.
