We don’t speak. I don’t want him to say anything else, in case he reiterates his point that he loved me in the past tense. I heard him loud and clear and once was enough. And Idaren’tsay anything.
‘What now? Shouldn’t we talk about this?’ he says.
‘Silence is golden. Let’s just sleep.’
The morning arrives, but no light dawns.
It’s only an hour or so since I managed to drift off. Now there’s an uneasy anxiety spreading through me. The clock above the fire that by now has turned to dull embers tells me it’s almost six o’clock and I have a ten-thirty flight to catch. If we don’t leave now I’ll miss it. I think of my unpacked suitcase back at the cabin. I turn to wake Stellan, but as I’m about to nudge his shoulder, I pause.
This is the last time I’ll be with him like this. I let my eyes take him in, trying to memorise every detail: his pale skin and the shape of bone and sinew beneath, the taut muscles I’d been spellbound by last night, now relaxed. I look over his long pale lashes and straw-coloured brows, every freckle on his cheekbones.
I’m put in mind of what Niilo told me the day we threw crumbs for the wagtails and sparrows outside thelavvu– that day seems like weeks ago now, but it was only the twenty-third, four days ago. How strange. Niilo had told me that in remote and austere places each tiny crumb is precious. We ate, he said, then the dogs ate our scraps, leaving miniscule crumbs for the birds to find. And that’s what I’m taking away with me. Waste not one moment. Enjoy every little crumb of pleasure that life throws at you. Be satisfied. And don’t dare ask for more.
Stellan’s eyes flicker open and he looks at me, blinking and sleepy. I’m hit by the paleness of his irises once more. I’d sink into their depths if I could. I’d bleed myself into his veins, embed myself forever like a tattoo under his skin, if he’d let me, but I learned long ago what happens when I feel this way. When I ask for too much, I lose everything. So, I’ll be contented with what I had here.
I tell him I’m ready to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Back at my cabin I’m throwing things frantically into my case, grabbing for my passport, checking under furniture and in drawers for things I might have left behind, and feeling sure I don’t have everything I arrived with.
‘Anything the cleaning staff find they’ll send on to you, I promise,’ Stellan’s saying from my cabin door. He’s adopted the lowering, grave attitude he had when we first came face to face again on this very doorstep five adventure-filled days ago.
I’m pulling on my trainers, an extra jumper and my coat because I’ve had to surrender the lovely thick snowsuit and big boots to the resort again, and I’ve packed my cosy pink suit away. I’ll be making my journey to the airport in the clothes I arrived in. They feel oddly light and insubstantial.
‘Have you finished packing? I called a cab.’ I hear Nari screech from somewhere outside.
She too has clearly spent the night away from the resort and is in a similar mad panic to my own, but Niilo’s nowhere to be seen.
I pause for a second by the Christmas tree and lift one of the decorations from a branch, a simple star. ‘The resort won’t mind if I take just one of these, will it, Stellan?’
He’s leaning against the doorframe watching me, a vague smile playing on his lips. ‘I doubt it’ll be missed.’
As I stand my suitcase by the door trying to peer past him to see if the taxi’s here, Stellan reaches for my waist, pulling me towards him, and even though we spent the night kissing, it’s so unexpected that I gasp. I catch sight of Nari screaming, ‘Tickets!’ and racing back inside her cabin, so I let Stellan kiss me, and I swear I can see stars and the aurora when our eyes are closed, but it’s accompanied by a sad pang like hunger in my stomach.
The sharp blast of a taxi’s horn brings me round.
This is it, this is all you’re getting, I tell myself, so you’d better smile and make the best of it.
Neither of us has mentioned the tetchy argument we had this morning back at the lake house, and how I accused him of being a commitment-shy liar and a cowardly heartbreaker posing as a concerned, self-sacrificing hero, always maintaining he left me for my own good.
We haven’t talked about how he picked at me for saying how much I love this and that, harmless, joyful exclamations of happiness.
Now, with only seconds left at Frozen Falls, I’m torn between sulking about it all, and wishing with all my heart I’d kept my big mouth shut and just let him fill me in on his understanding of what love means.
I spoiled our last night together, right at the last moment, when we should have been wrapped in blissful sleep. Maybe if I’d shut up he’d be smiling brightly again now, telling me how he’ll miss me, letting me see this affecting him.
For once, I find it easy to stop myself saying the things in my heart. I can still hear Stellan’s words. He loved me once, long ago. Past tense.
So, the words that Idoutter are guarded, enfeebled and, surprisingly, accompanied by a stream of sudden tears which seem to shock Stellan into even deeper silence.
‘I have to go, the taxi’s here. Stellan…’
He wipes my wet cheeks with his thumbs and I plaster on a plucky smile.
‘It was lovely getting to know you better. When you weren’t being cold or pedantic, I really, really… liked you,’ I garble. I see him smile grimly at this, and I keep talking. ‘I wanted to know you from the first second we met at uni, Stellan Virtanen. I thought you were gorgeous, actually, that night at the exchange students’ welcome party… when I first saw you.’ The string of sounds coming from my mouth fall flat in their inadequacy. Stellan’s holding me stiffly around my waist now.
‘I remember,’ he says. ‘I thought you were amazing too. But that wasn’t the first time I saw you.’
