“Finns tend to be melancholy people, dark even. I feel like we have darkness and depression as part of ourselves on some sort of cellular level. It’s different, having mostly grown up here of course, but I’m still Finnish, too.” I poured myself coffee and doctored it with some oat milk.
“Of course, you are, and that’s a good thing. Life would be boring if everyone was the same anyway.” He took a sip of his juice and tilted his head, clearly thinking. “I don’t know, Sir. I think you’re quite… wonderful.” Then he turned around and went back to his room.
I stood there for a couple of minutes, holding my coffee mug in shaky hands, wondering how I would ever survive having him here. So close, yet so very far at the same time.
Bear
Luke warned me about a potential package delivery on Tuesday and told me that if it was from a certain shop, then it would be for me and I could open it. But he also gave me the caveat of either opening it during my lunch hour I gave myself or waiting until I’d finished work that day.
He was at the shop, doing his thing, and I was twitching all over the apartment instead of working. Because how could he tell me that and then expect menotto go nuts with anticipation?
I was trying to calm myself by making a sandwich when the doorbell rang and I flung my knife, still smeared with mayo, on the floor in my jitteriness. I ignored it and ran to the door, probably looking like a maniac.
I almost tore the package out of the poor girl’s hands, and then dashed back to the kitchen to open it. I slid a little when my foot hit the smear of mayo, but it didn’t stop me in the least.
Grabbing the kitchen scissors, I quickly checked that the package was the correct one—it was, yay!—and then sliced across the tape. Reminding myself that Luke would be super upset if I injured myself, I put the scissors next to the package very carefully, then grimaced and turned to get some kitchen roll to clean the mayo off my foot and the floor.
Once I was pretty sure I had cleaned it all and put the knife in the sink, I washed my hands, dried them not as carefully as I should’ve, and then turned back to the box.
I opened the flaps and gasped. One by one, I lifted out different kinds of colored pencils, a large pack of crayons, and five,five, coloring books.
There was one of those mandala ones Luke had said his sister liked. It looked fun, but didn’t catch my attention as much as the more colorful-covered ones that turned out to be—“These are for kids.”
I blinked at them. Three out of the five were kids’ coloring books, and I suddenly had this visceral memory of a school friend having one in my childhood. She’d showed it to me once, and I’d felt a surge of jealousy at the simple black lines on the blank pages. There were flowers and animals and a bicycle she’d colored red like the bike she had.
It had been the picture of a teddy bear she hadn’t colored in yet I’d wanted the most. The memory of wanting to take that stupid book because I could never have one like that, not in my home, and tear it apart shook me to the core now. The childish, vicious envy I hadn’t remembered before this moment.
I took the coloring book with Disney characters drawn as babies on the cover and stroked the shiny baby Dumbo with my fingers. My other hand went to the one that had all sorts of vehicles on it that seemed like it was meant for kids that were a bit older.
The third one was a wild animal one. I gasped at the tiger on the cover and abandoned the babies for now. I almost ran into my room to grab Tonya, then skidded back into the kitchen to show her the book.
“Look!” I smushed her face against the cover. “It’s like you!”
Before I made a conscious decision to do so, I found myself on the living room floor next to the coffee table, sprawling on my stomach with a box of crayons and the coloring book, with Tonya set on the other side of the book.
I don’t know how much time passed, until the door opened. I barely registered it all, still mostly lost in my coloring.
“Bear?” Something about his tone was weird, but then he chuckled, so I didn’t think much of it.
I spied his feet coming closer from the corner of my eye. Then he crouched and ran his fingers through my hair. I pressed into the touch and smiled as I continued coloring.
Luke got up again and went into the kitchen. He did something there, clanking around while I finished very carefully coloring in a snow leopard, except it had blue spots. I giggled when I added the last spot.
“Come on, silly boy, let’s get some lunch in you, okay?” Luke called to me.
Sighing, I put down my crayon and rolled onto my back. Yeah, my stomach was getting a bit growly.
I got up and went to the kitchen, blinking at the spread on the island. The box was gone, it sat on one of the kitchen chairs instead.
Then it hit me: Luke was home. At lunchtime. “W-what?”
He gave me a small, almost indulgent smile. “You weren’t answering your phone, Bear.”
I frowned, trying to remember. “Oh no.” He glanced back toward my room. “I left it on silent on my desk.”
“Ah….” Luke considered me for a moment. “That tracks.” He poured a glass of orange juice and pushed it toward me. “Did you get sucked into the coloring?”
I took the glass and sipped, then realized I was really thirsty and gulped most of it down. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and nodded. “Yup.” Then I burped and giggled.
