Chapter Text
The brisk morning air had been eating my ears from the front of my apartment building to the tram, from my stop and to this coffee shop. This trek used to be something familiar and comforting but ever since I moved about two and a half years ago I had forgotten all about it. Well, I shouldn’t say I had forgotten it all, those icy blue eyes never became something I could erase. It had been my daily ritual for all of uni; wake up, coffee, stare into those eyes, school, work at the bookstore, “decaf” coffee, blue, go home, sleep, recycle.
As I finally step into the shop, the warmth curls its fingers around mine and spreads throughout the rest of my body. My eyes flutter closed thanks to the reunion of a long forgotten haven. This reunion is short lived as my euphoria is interrupted by his voice, “Isak?” In no other case have my eyes shot open as fast they did, when my searching eyes rested on his face for the first time in so long, the air was knocked from my lungs.
Oh my god, oh my god, Oh MY Fucking God! HE’S STILL HERE?!?!?!
“This has to be of some divine intervention? Where have you been, young man?!?” he laughs, “I haven’t seen you in, what? Two years?!?”
Divine Intervention? Wrong, this was in no way, a miracle of God, but the reaction does not cease to decrease the fluttering in my stomach or the flushing of my cheeks.
“Halla, Even.” I can feel my face burn bright tomato, as I step further into the shop towards his counter, while I preen from his enthusiastic welcome back. I decide it’s best to ignore his pleasantries though, “Can I get a -” “Large black coffee with soy milk mixed in? Or has that changed?”
And what?!?!?
“We both remember how often I came in here, I had ‘regular’ status, but it has been a long time since then. How do you still remember my order??” I don’t doubt that I looked any more surprised than I sounded. I had come to think that he and I had built a friendship but I did not believe that it extended past the hiatus I had taken from Oslo.
“Well, how could one forget such a simple order for someone that ordered it close to everyday?” The confusion has not lessened, if anything I have entered another level of confusion, “You aren’t as forgettable as you’d like to think, Isak.” Even chuckles as he spins around to start my order without further confirmation that his memory was still valid.
“So where did you end up after uni, anyway?”
“I moved to Trondheim, for familial reasons. And you? What have you been up to?” My efforts to deflect were never a thing Even was fond of and I knew he would push the wound open a little further.
“Well, I’m still working here so my film with the boys hasn’t gotten it’s wings yet, but why did you move back then?” he absent-mindedly asks while leaning against the counter stirring in my soy milk. “Well, the familial reason died.” I blurt out, the next words that leave my mouth are a tad more jilted and sad as I breath them out. “So there was no longer a reason for me to stay. Ergo, here I am, right back where I started.”
At my confession, Even abandoned my drink to walk back up to the counter where I am stood. “Are you alright?” Thankfully he doesn’t ask anymore about the dead. Explaining that my mother died under my care so recently is not something I can allow myself to think or talk about without causing a scene. So, deflection. “I’m bouncing back, you know? I only got back a couple days ago and you are the first to know that I am back.”
“Well, Isak, I will have you know, I am very flattered that you decided to revisit this shop. I was worried I’d never see you again, and you know how I love our TED talks about your parallel universes and my running film of life theory.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as TED talks -” “Isak, you would wax poetics about them and cite detailed research!! Saying they were anything but TED talks is a crime against the entire barista staff. We had all been subjected to your adorable ramblings, four days out of the week.”
My “adorable” ramblings? Did he think I was adorable? This conversation was not in any way, shape or form, what I had expected when I had re-entered this place. “I happen to remember you being the instigator that started all of that, mind you!” The easy banter that we have fallen back into is very reminiscent of the time before my move. I can’t help but think this is more than what I had remembered. Had it always been this easy? Had we always been this comfortable with eachother?
“Okay, Isak, if that’s what helped you sleep all these nights, I am happy to let you keep living in dreamland.” He smiles lightly at me and my heart stutters. “Can I get your number?” The words leave my mouth before my brain even formed the thought and I find myself digressing into a blushing mess. Even seems as surprised as I am while he carefully hands me my coffee, and at the last second deciding otherwise as he pulls back and grabs the felt pen from his apron and scribbles what I would assume is his number onto the paper cup. “I was beginning to think you were never gonna ask.” For the first time, I see Even blush. It had seemed Even was incapable of being flustered up until this point and there is nothing I can do to stop myself from voicing this thought as I take back my cup and walk backwards out of the shop maintaining eye contact. Clearly amused, Even breathes through his easy laugh, “This newfound confidence suits you, Isak. Put that number to use, would ya?!” With my empty hand, a finger gun forms and shoots. “Will do!” With that I take off for my first day of work as the new astronomy professor at UiO.
A Week and a Half Later…
The coffee cup is still sitting on my kitchen counter in my barren apartment. The boys had come to help me unpack all my boxes and move in my new furniture. But when the, arrived, we ended up only hooking up the tv and xbox and pulling out my comforter to set up a day of Fifa, beer and pizza. It was a good welcome back, aside from being badgered over my single status. They complained that I had had “sooo many opportunities to hook up and find a beau.” If only they had known why I had actually moved instead of the lame excuse that “I needed a change.”
There had been no time for myself the whole two years up until a couple of months ago but even then, the funeral planning all fell onto my shoulders. But back to the coffee cup, I had been staring at it for the whole week and a half that I had had it. It taunted me with the fact that I, in no universe, have a good texting personality. I always become too formal and seem like I’m over analyzing every response I make and it’s overall embarrassing as hell.
I wanted to call but then I figured calling Even is a bit too forward when we have never even spoken outside his place of work. It was a serious predicament that I could not stop obsessing over. The only solution I had thought of in all this time was that, I was a lost cause and must seek professional help. Enter Vilde.
I had not seen Vilde since I moved out of our apartment and moved to Trondheim, but we had skyped for the two years at least once a week, she had quickly become more than just a convenient roommate to me. She became my best friend and only real confidante. To Jonas’ credit I confided in him and trusted him as my best friend, but I did not want his pity over my mother. I couldn’t accept it even if he had offered it.
Vilde had found out when she came to the flat one night at 3 am and found me in the kitchen on the phone with tears streaming down my face as I was told my mother had attempted to kill herself. She immediately became my saving grace.
She lent me money to travel to Trondheim to see her and she even came with me at my request. She held my hand through the entire week of our trip and missed all her classes without complaint. She and Eskild were the only ones who knew the real reason I moved and it would remain that way.
She would also become my boy counselor, as I called her up and dragged her to my new apartment.