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Eva’s Birthday Party part B - Everything left to say
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„Takk for mailing“ a voice fixated at her.
Nooras head going quiet for once, blinking into his brown eyes searching, way too shocked to answer him.
Had he cut his hair? They were comped back a bit.
His brown eyes — the color as she remembered it.
Looking down on her, making her go mute.
A chaos of feelings exploding in her chest, which she mostly wasn’t able to identify, since her mind had sent
her on an adrenalin high. Leaving her shocked, only capable to recognize the smallest, unnecessary details of
the situation.
„Can we talk?“. His voice, present and close, intimately familiar.
Dumbfounded, heavy silence.
Sana, next to her cleared her throat, which made Noora aware that the tall guy standing in front of her, hovering,
was actually expecting an answer.
His eyes unmoved.
Her head nodded vaguely and without another word she felt a pull by a familiar hand. First she stumbled, tripping
over her own feet in the grass, falling into his tightening grip.
When the blonde found her step, she just stared at the peculiar view of their fingers, intertwined.
A gentle tug in the direction of a car she didn’t recognize.
The brown haired guy was able to sense every detail of her warm hand, gripping his solidly.
The pulse in his bloodstream racing.
It didn’t even take two minutes until the whole action was over. Irritated looks and smiles breaking, lips curling.
Evas party guest were almost as surprised as Noora, but already started laughing at the bizarre scene, that had just
unfolded itself in front of them.
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The quite mumbling of a radio show disrupting the humming silence of the engine. The air condition making the air
inside the car cold and tangible. Oslo glowing in evening light and leather under her fingers feeling rough but soft.
He was obviously steering into the city.
They must have been driving for five minutes now. From time to time curious and vague glances at the profile of the
other one. His heart feeling like it was about to jump out of his throat.
Her hair looked longer.
And she just said nothing. — Why wasn’t she saying anything? She hadn't spoken a single word.
Fuck.
He wished he had prepared what to say to her.
„Just do and don’t overthink it.“
Chris’ simple advice, after his great escape from London in the early hours.
There wasn’t a big discussion. Chris knew what his best friend was about, when he showed up at his doorstep. Out of
the blue, asking him if he knew where Noora was tonight.
Another few minutes passed by, and the car came to a hold in front of his old house.
He unlocked the entrance door of the house and let her walk past him. Her presence clear to him while blonde hair
moved by, close.
The two of them going up the old wooden stairs. Hands gliding on the same handle. Old wooden stair steps, cracking
under their feet. Nooras gaze wandering up and down his moving back in front of her, taking it in. Fighting back the
urge to lay a hand on it.
Keys turning.
Unsure to take off shoes or coats, they were left standing awkwardly in the dimmed light of the hallway.
The memories of this place crashing down on them. Familiar scents breathed in. She didn’t even dare to think of the
bedroom of this flat. But couldn’t help it and stared at him.
Her chest felt as if somebody had put a belt around it. Buckled it extremely, compressing her rib cage.
Being too overwhelmed that William was actually across from her.
Standing a few steps away, he looked right back. Recognizing her every move. Brushing his fingers through the long
forehead hair with one hand, almost crushing the car keys in his other one.
The brown head tilted the same way down at her, as he used to. Eyes fixated, absorbing hers, leaving her body glued to the floor.
After an eternity of this glaring void, the tension between them got remarkably sensible and bursting. In Nooras hands
a tingling sensation, her body making little abrupt movements. She gasped for air a few times, as if she was about to
say something. But she was lost for words and so they were stranded in the grey narrow hallway, an epitome of high tensed
feelings and senses.
„Fuck“ William breathed out deeply and loud. No capacity left over for control. His car keys slipping to the floor.
A metal sound cutting the moment.
Taking a big swift step at Noora, reaching for the back of her neck with his hands, almost crushing into the blonde,
and meeting her lips.
His movement startling, like hers once did, to him. The very first time they kissed. Coming way too fast, way too close,
only to find each other. It was like as if somebody had switched on a light.
It only took Noora a second to get her out off that paralyzed state and respond. Her hand striking up and diving into his hair.
Loosing any resentment, or composure and reluctance. There he was.
A body, hers seemed to remember directly. Betraying every goddamn thought ever about dependence, getting directly into
sync with him.
He had crashed her against the wall, his hands protecting her head.
Compressed by him in front, and the hallway wall in her back, Noora was robbed of any breath left in her lungs, her hips
pressed at him. She felt him and she had missed this terribly. It was like her heart was breaking, and she was finding back simultaneously.
Lips parted her own, meeting a tongue, searching nevertheless gently. A hand wandering to her rib cage, pulling her so close
to his own chest, to minimize any space left, leaving her gasping and dizzy in his arms.
She was thin but still remarkably forceful, and not fragile.
After a minute she realized what was going on, her feeling faltered. Her mind snapping her out of it. Heavily light-headed.
„William —“ she whispered week-kneed against his lips and kisses.
Nothing. Kiss, after slow kiss — meeting her lips.
„William— Stop.“ A stuttered breath. Making her heart hurt more than before.
Her hands already leaving his hair, trailing down his warm chest with open palms and fingers until they just hung limp next to
her sides. Shoulders powerlessly sinking. Her whole body trembled, and she sacked lightly against the wall behind her.
His hands still resting firmly on her ribs and neck. She didn’t know if she wanted to scream at him, let go and cry,
or kiss his lips once more. A mental chaos fighting in their heads, their Amygdalas had taken over. Going full speed,
bathing them deep in mutual attraction. But also flooding them, with fear and vulnerability, exposure and valuation, at the same time.
William stopped. She could feel warm air breathed against her face.
He separated himself from her, still left leaning forwards, slightly bent down.
The movement of his lips, hidden by her hair on her cheek, warm and light. Her view lifted, directed lost and afar, at the grey of the
hallway wall. She could hear and feel more, than she saw at the moment.
Being so close to her, left him mindless. Her smell and her desperate kisses. It took more of him, than he imagined possible, to let her go
of his embrace.
His fingers lifted their pressure of her chest. Mimics closing in, his chest leaving her, shoulders rolling back.
„Unnskyld“ he mumbled and let his leg take, a wide and slow, falling step back. Wiping his upper lip.
Their mouths at least hadn’t forgotten.
It physically hurt to see and not touch her. Everything in him carried him to Noora.
Brown eyes piercing her, yet she could see him reclaim control. Feeling her torsos’ breathing pressed and not any lightened since he had let go.
William looked back, meeting the blondes eyes, again.
In a sudden move he averted his view and slipped out of his shoes.
Without warning, all in a casual and composed demeanor: „Water?“
Leaving her back in the hallway.
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Noora was holding her glass in a firm grip, as she walked through the living room, looking through the white curtains,
out of the windows. Anything but to turn around.
Facing him at last, she saw William leaning in the door frame observing her. That very same view in his eyes, she had
seen a thousand times. Bluntly admiring her, shameless and unblushingly intensive, from time to time.
„You are here.“ she gets a small hit by looking at him, but keeps her light voiced composure.
„Yes“ short, but not rude, looking her straight in the eyes.
„Yeah“ she repeats quietly.
The ring on her finger now absently and unrhythmically tapping against the water glass. William began to move and
started walking in her direction, slid past her, in reach to smell him. He leaned back in a white armchair, lifting one leg
above the other, looking at her. He seemed somehow as exhausted as she felt.
As his view got too stirring, Noora let herself down on the couch next to him. In a forgotten and relaxed movement,
surprising herself, the blonde tugged her legs under while sitting down.
„Are you visiting?“ Her gaze and mimic regaining a bit hold.
„Kind of“
And a pressure, sinking her shoulders down, a light sigh left her lips, her composure leaving with it.
„William — I“. She stopped.
„I want to talk to you“. His voice. His mouth. Too fast. Noora pressed her lips together feeling an immense pressure in her
whole body. Like she would burst, if she’d let go and breathed.
„I — did you get my Email?“
„Yes.“ shortly gasped.
She couldn’t bring herself to answer in more than a basic demeanor. Feeling the grey cotton couch cover rough under her.
„ I don’t know what I am — Your absence in the flat….“ how was he supposed to find words for this? His voice pressed, and
lost, and maybe slightly blaming.
Her courage a small coal, she kept on swallowing.
„I still want to take you to Blenheim palace“ It sounded like a question and abrupt.
She stared at him. A variety of feelings pouring at him from her corner.
He breathed out his own hold breath. Around his lips a slight resemblance of that old, convincing smile appearing.
„I miss playing dot to dot with your freckles.“ Now he had hit the jackpot.
The expression of agony settled hard on her face at last. Hitting him like a wall when it fully occurred.
„Noora I —“
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To: ALICE (+443789766209)
Alice, I met you when I was too deep in shit to properly meet you. I’m sorry,
I have to go back. I am sorry.
__
When she finally woke up, only to find him sitting plunged forwards next to her, the brown-reddish haired girl
could directly feel her chest sinking into her stomach.
He had tried to explain. He was sure he hadn’t found the right words. Any words would’ve been better or more
deserving for her than his rambling, but they were all he had.
In a surprising calmness Alice had sat up. Next to him, joining him in staring at the wall. Him, who she’s been
so close to, just hours ago. His smile, she remembered, never being so free when facing her, than in the pictures
next to the blonde.
She had left him alone with a simple kind bye, and not even a rant in her head going on, as she closed the apartment
door behind her. The hallway smell waking a bit the calmness state. Alice had expected a voice in her head.
Proclaiming, that she should’ve known. But deep down she must’ve known, or she would not have left this flat without a talk.
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Williams leg had come down and his upper body was leaning in Nooras direction. Recognizing the need in him
to salvage what was left, of what he once deemed permanent. She hadn't talked for a while, and he had let her.
She had to say something at some point.
Outside the sun, leaving them harsh, almost hurrying. Long stripes of light on the wooden floor. A color play
of bright orange and a soft purple bathing the wood, Noora staring at it.
She sighed, while looking back at his face. It was bathed in the same strong warm evening shadow, shining from
the wall. Her head slightly tilting, when finally talking.
A deep breath.
„It was like his validation consumed you.“ her voice breaking the silence, slightly trembling, disgust and hurt
lingering barely on the surface, not completely under control.
„It felt like, — it had become the single, most important thing on your mind and I —I understand that,
I really do. “ Eyes pleading with him, a look he almost could not withstand.
„I just — ah - I couldn’t watch you trying so hard anymore! All the while I,
—you were so absent!“ the last part coming out hard, while anger with herself and him fought seemingly,
„Your desire for his love is a wound of your reality, and — it will stay —“
Air out.
„He made you so empty William!“ Her hands gesturing with open palms.
„It’s like he drained you, —and it made me so angry and sad to witness.“ her eyes, her forehead, her brows,
everything meeting his, in sadness.
Another breath in, her eyes wiped with the sleeves of his sweater.
She had been extremely cold in her satin jumpsuit. Taking a shirt from him, in his bedroom had been
simultaneously sickening and exciting like an accidental electric shock by a power cable.
Her eyes resting back on him.
„You know your father…“ her brows thigh-tend, „who you wanted to be recognized by? For who you were?
He can't see you!“ Her voice striking in anger over the incapability of the man, her tone resembling it.
„ And I —“ her arms widening now, a voice trembling, „I couldn’t get to you anymore!“.
William could see the blonde girl struggling for words, in front of him. Her whole tall body in an urging,
tensed posture. Eyes red in their corners, watery.
„I know it was partly my own fault.“ like a trembled cough like a shiver on him.
„I couldn’t do it. —Face Niko in front of a court.
— That certainty I had from confronting him at the pub? .. It just slipped out of me when I got off the Tram.“
Her extended arms sagging lightly, explaining desperation in her gaze.
„I know he didn’t touch me — but he took those pictures? and still — he hadn’t done „anything“ so to say,“
Eyes in pain looking at him like a question. Her head slightly shaking.
„I just felt like — I was exaggerating?“ Nooras shoulders were so tensely lifted up, her whole body language
in an expression of anguish.
William could feel his neck incredibly hard flexed, and his jaw hurting.
„I couldn’t shake these fucking thoughts! — I know they were not the truth, its just— just like a concept of shame,
but — I couldn’t.“
„I felt it in the way you touched me.“ Her voice was breaking. Outright hurt and anger and blame coming at him
„It felt like I disappointed you so greatly“ she looked at him „and I started to feel, as if I could not be the same
person you fell in love with anymore“
The blondes agony slipped aside and adrenalin took over again as his body leaped up from the couch moving
in a few paces towards herself.
William didn’t run her over, or knocked her against the door frame behind her.
But his body still coming too fast, too close, not throwing hers back; when they finally met.
„I didn’t know how to talk to you anymore.“ breathed out harshly out of her lungs, as she felt him colliding and
compressing them at his chest.
Williams throat felt incredibly tight. He hated it to see her like this.
The words hurt. But the part that hurt the most, was Noora telling him how shut out he had made her feel.
Absolutely alone and unreachable for her.
Looking at Noora, with despair on her face, tears slowly making their way down her cheeks, made him feel like
somebody had hit him ruthlessly in his chest.
She cried at the hollow of his shoulders, pain getting pressed into his chest, by his hand on the back of her head.
The other hand had reached deeply around her ribs. He lifted her slightly up around the torso, leaving her standing
on her tiptoes, and pressed the blonde girls body in his. She took a deep breath.
Raising her arms finally around him and hugging into his shoulders. The sleeve of a sweater wiping her cheeks
„You are not your past, you know?“ her voice breathing out convinced into his neck.
„You’re not that little boy anymore. You managed to grow up all by yourself, William. With only a few, truly caring people.“
He rubbed his cheek on her head, his eyes absently concentrated on smudge in the door frame behind them.
„You have your ways, and you're minimal in your decisions — for behaving, but you are loyal and smart and that is your
own achievement! — Your father didn’t have a part in it.“
It felt incredibly to tell him everything. She still could sense immense fear leaving her, but the thoughts who had been
contained, for too long; Her sadness, her despair and maybe also anger at him, — for neglecting her, perhaps even for
being disappointed in her, had to get out.
And maybe saying all of this meant she would not get him back, but at least she was able to explain herself, and liberate
herself from all of these images, thoughts and notions, which had lingered in her mind like ghosts for months now.
„I never wanted to make you feel like this“, Williams voice sounding hollow and quiet.
He moved back giving her space, but keeping his arms firm around her.
„Niko — I… When that dismissal came and it said the case — the charges had been dropped,
— I just, — Noora I didn’t understand what happened.“ His shoulders shrugging, „You lied, but that wasn’t what made me furious,“
He had gotten his voice back, and it was visibly changing.
„He violated you, — my brother had undermined your genuine trust in others, to not be harmed like this - in a vulnerable way,
by anybody really. — And he“, he shook his head, she could feel his cramped back muscles under her fingers.
„He just got away with it.
There was just nothing for him.“ His voice in disbelief and numb rage. Falling and becoming hollow with the spoken words.
„And there was nothing left for me to do.“
„You obviously didn’t want me to know, and you didn’t even tell me the hearing was happening,“
„There was so much anger Noora, — and I was unsure how to be around you since it felt like — I could not help, you seemed like
you didn’t want it.“
He took in a deep breath. „He is my brother, and he had made photos of you.“
Outright hurt and disappointed disgust resting hard on his face. Letting out an nauseating truth.
Noora felt like she was completely disconnected from everything. Relieve and hurt washing over her simultaneously.
„and my father“ She could hear him, and fell his chest, take a deep breath „—I am too easily persuaded by him that I am worth nothing“
He looked at her. Her hands leaving his arms and going down and around his chest under his jacket.
Feeling heat and warmth around his hips, meeting behind his back.
„It’s not possible to destroy a self-image with one comment.“
Her lips lifting into a sad smile and with a slightly tilted head back, she repeated his own words.
Trying to make his fathers words count less.
Though he had to suck up a lot more than one comment by his father, William understood her point.
„He is not important.“ Her cheek stroking over his jaw „You don’t need to impress him anymore,“
„Noora“
Like a question, murmured in her hair.
Leaving it up to her. A little nod, an Okay. A smile, with a head laid back to look at him.
There was no need for rush. They had a lot left to say. And both knew it.
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She was standing in the door frame to his bedroom. Looking at him.
They had spent at least a couple dark hours, which slowly changed into morning ones, side by side on his bed.
Face to face, kisses and strokes softly and lost and fast on them. Arms wrapped so tight around each other.
It seemed easier in the dark, to let go a bit and indulge in the other ones company.
_
„Do you remember the night of the Dinner with your father and Niko?“
Her pain pounding like a stereo in her body. Pictures of him loving somebody else, vividly alive in her head.
His eyes were tired, despair crumbling him. He looked up from the edge of the bed, facing her.
Closing his eyes shaking them, in exhaustion of the situation and not knowing what to say to her.
„Noora, —we still hadn’t talked.“ short, but the simplest truth.
Noora knew he was right. She knew he was right, but it had hid her like a full-blown metal ball, she literally
felt being smashed, though not moving.
She knew, that she’d known this on her own. But right now, the blonde only felt a deep pulsating whole where
her chest was supposed to be. Her head reeling.
After along pause she looked at the guy, sitting lost on the corner of his bed.
„What was her name?“ Why on earth would she ask this?
„Alice.“ quietly.
‚ALICE‘
He had found his own personal tone for her name. This wasn’t saying a name, this was A-L-I-C-E, as in, I’ve slept with you,
I’ve seen you. Most likely passionately, if she imagined it.
She didn’t want to know.
She was so convinced, as she realized the conversation was going in the direction of other people, that she did not want
to know who the girl was. But still, she had asked.
It would’ve been easy to mistake his appearing expression, as something ominous or hovering. His eyes meeting hers.
But all she could see were emotions, flooding at her. He was a tall guy and had sunken in so much.
She remembered the grey morning after their turbulent night, following the Dinner with his father and Nico.
When she woke up in the same empty looking bedroom, with only a b/w picture series of the two of them on her nightstand left;
her thoughts straying a while, feeling the pressure of the room creeping for her, and on the other side, his warm chest on her back.
It was like a feud between reality and an illusion, fighting for reigning privilege.
Warm, deep rhythmical breaths at the skin of her neck. He still must’ve been asleep.
Brown eyes silently gazing at the back of her head. Feeling her warm shoulders on his chest. Her blonde hair and the peak of a lost
view in her face. Unsure of what to say.
He hadn’t stopped - but also not changed his mumbled good nights in her ear, after this night.
When he arrived late, while she had already found comfort in their bed.
But his good mornings had begun to be lost to her after a while, as he always already had left when she woke up.
It was like a perfect cycle. Their days misery and silences got fought in the nights, with wrapped arms and deep and desperate kisses.
But once they seemed to fade too, she left.
_
He was right; and the thought of her own kiss with Youssef, circling in her head.
Her mind going slow. Remembering a talk with Sana. She had learned, to try to understand him back then.
Learned to try and focus, while getting crashed by her own feelings. To look further and try to understand, why he did what he did.
But obviously not enough.
And deeply hidden, she understood. It didn’t mean her heart did not wreck. Or her body not physically hurt when thinking about
his hands trailing another body, and his lips kissing another name into skin. He hadn’t expected this situation either, no matter how
many times thought about.
She remembered the night on the bridge after the benefits party.
She had gone after him, on a defending, slowly crumbling rant. How he could not be mad at her. Pointing out his obvious
qualities and how she was trying at least, to do the right thing. Though there were more to it and so her head fell slightly back
and to the side. Her face showing in despair that she knew that he knew, that this, was not all of it.
Noora knew now, that, there was in fact, a consuming love possible which didn’t need to be space less for anybody else. Her need
for him literally feeling like a personal weakness, not being one. It rather defined her being brave and able to be independent, if she
loved him and lost control.
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Earlier, he had mumbled in the darkness into her hair, „ I though about this here back in London.“ His voice quiet and husky.
An arm on his forehead. The other one pressed around her chest, pulling her tightly on his own. Both laying on the cover of his old bed.
He stroked her hair absently, looking ahead into the dark blue and all of its shadows left.
„They were so small in the beginning — I couldn’t quite get them (?). I would get back home from work and lay down on the bed,
or anywhere, until they were coming. It was like, I closed my eyes and try to image this moment.“ A breath in.
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And then;
there was nothing left to say. No silences more needed or survived. Just the urgent need to be close.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
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Noora,
slowly moving around in Williams long, grey sweater and his socks on the wooden floor.
Oslos’ night outside, being deep asleep behind the windows.
Smiling at him,
with her light blonde hair tucked behind her ears.
She had hung around his arm until he’d let go of his mobile phone. High up in his hand. Looking down at her and a laugh,
surprised by her goofiness and sublimity, met her eyes.
Getting his phone handed, and connecting it to the stereo, in victory.
They had knocked over the standing lamp next to the living room couch earlier. Its light now shinning warm and soft, hidden
behind the chair. Making her nude legs shine and left her upper body soft blue in the shadow. Her feet dancing forth and back,
one hand holding her cup with cocoa.
He had come to the conclusion that she in fact, was not aware of how lovely she was.
„Seriously?“ he laughed.
Her forehead striking a bow,
blue eyes open in displayed seriousness, — looking at him in amiability;
„Jooaaa“ a high-pitched, amused and convinced agreement.
The End.
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Bonus: (slightly Chris S. canon changing :D)
ALICE - I hit you like „what you sayin“
„Gotta know I ate it, she so sweet, now and later
I want that all the time, all the time,
I’mma give you all of mine when it’s…“
William and Chris had a couple of beers in his apartment before leaving for Eds’ party. He was launched in his chair
resting his arms relaxed on the armrest, Chris laying on the Couch opposite of him. He still tried to understand what
Will was „explaining“ by comparing sex with any girl to the one with Noora. Still, not getting the point.
„Jezz bro!“ William sighed out, let his head fall back on the chair.
„It’s like i expect sex with a random girl from a tube station is like —having sex,“ his left palm lifting and pointing out
„and Sex with Noora was,“ he gasps shortly, „was like having sex with her. Do you get that?“
William looking up at his friend. Arching his eyebrows, in total oblivion to the fact, that Chris might not understand him.
„Yeah I guess“
„Yeah?“
Chris looked up from his mobile phone at him „Yeah it’s like with Eva. Its — like, I like everything about it, you know?
and I like that she's there and not some really hot random one.“ It sounded almost surprised.
Returning his concentration back to scrawling through his phone, absently pretty convinced now: „Yeah I like being with Eva“
William stared at his friend, lifting an eyebrow and started to chuckle
„Okay“ he laughed surprised.
Chris averting his eyes from his phone, looking at him „What?“
The other guy still laughing lightly sunken in his seat.
„Fyfaen, what!?“