It takes less than thirty minutes to pack up two years of my life.
That should probably make me sad.
Instead, it feels like freedom.
"That everything?" Hakon asks.
"I think so. Let me just check the bathroom."
I head down the hall to the shared bathroom, grab my toiletries from under the sink.
When I come back out, Trisha and Angela are blocking the hallway.
Great.
"So this is really happening," Trisha says. "You're really leaving."
"I told you two weeks ago I was moving out."
"I thought you'd change your mind. Come to your senses."
"My senses are fine."
"Are they?" Angela takes a sip of her mimosa. "Because from where I'm standing, you're throwing away a perfectly good livingsituation for some guy who's probably going to dump you in a month."
"Gunnar's not going to dump me."
"That's what you said about Bjorn."
The name lands like a slap.
But I don't flinch.
Don't let her see that it hurts.
"Bjorn was a relationship I had when I was a teenager, a boy," I say calmly. "Gunnar isn't. He’s a man."
"How do you know? Because he got stabbed?" Trisha laughs. "That's not love, Ingrid. That's just bad luck and poor decision-making."
"You don't know anything about us."
"I know you. I know how you get with guys—all clingy and desperate, giving everything away until there's nothing left. And then when they leave—because they always leave—you come crawling back here to cry on our couch."
"That's not going to happen this time."
"Right. Because this one's different." Angela rolls her eyes. "God, you're pathetic. How many times are you going to fall for the same bullshit?"
"Okay." Hakon's voice cuts through. "That's enough."
He's appeared behind me, Ulf beside him, both of them holding boxes.
Both of them look at Trisha and Angela like they're something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
"Excuse me?" Trisha draws herself up. "This is my house. I'll say whatever I want."
"And we'll leave when Ingrid's ready," Hakon says calmly. "But you don't get to stand there and insult her while we do."
"Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?"
