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At Eva’s cabin, Vilde feels like she can finally breathe.
She’s always loved the city, the bustle and urgency to do things, to be someone, but lately, it’s lost its appeal, the sparkle of nightlife and eagerness of job interviews turning into something reminiscent of an artificial chore, never-ending drudgery. She tried to be poetic when explaining it to Eva, making some comparison while sipping champagne at a rooftop party hosted by the company Noora now works at, but as soon as she compared her stress to the feeling of never being able to fully wipe off all your makeup, Eva was already calling her aunt, asking if they could take up an offer on the cabin for next weekend. She never minded if Vilde was basic, or even bordering on superficial. Vilde thinks she loves her for it.
“We needed a change, didn’t we?” Eva asks, the entire statement drenched in a sigh. “I’m tired of adulting.”
She says the last part in English, her words more pronounced. Her upper body hangs off the railing of the balcony, her cheek on top of a bottle of rosé, fingers tapping against the chipped, unpainted cedar. She’s halfway to drunk, her lips barely leaving the flared spout to speak. Vilde feels like they’re in high school again.
“Yeah,” she says, and then because she’s both drunk and sentimental, closes her eyes to think about how they used to be— sharing kisses and gossip under neon lights in russ busses, clueless and boy-crazy for all the wrong reasons. She knows they’re both better people now, but there’s a part of her that yearns for the simplicity, the unwavering ambition, the nights spent living however they wanted, just because they could.
Sort of like right now. This is the closest Vilde has felt to that in awhile, anyway. Networking parties should not deserve the honorary title of “party,” she thinks, not even if they’re at the fanciest hotel in Oslo and come with free cheesecake.
“I took you from one rooftop to another,” Eva drawls on, gesturing grandly at the scenery around them. It’s all rendered pitch black in the night, the crescent moon barely a source of light, but Vilde knows what it looks like well enough to see it in her dreams. Sometimes she does.
“This one’s better though, right? Even though we don’t have glass chandeliers or butlers serving prime rib?”
Vilde nods enthusiastically, as if the harder she tries, the more Eva will be able to make out her shape. There’s one fading bulb above them, perched in a traditional looking lantern by the sliding door, and it’s not enough for Vilde to see Eva in the ways she wants. To be able to be seen back.
She slips closer to Eva’s side, their arms brushing, and at the same moment she makes grabby hands for the bottle, Eva nestles against her side. Vilde drops her hands, forgets she even wanted anything in the first place.
“I missed this,” Eva sighs into her shirtsleeve. Her hair tickles Vilde’s cheeks and Vilde has half a mind to press her lips against the top of her head.
“I missed you,” Eva goes on, clarifying, and Vilde takes her liquid courage and utilizes it, does as she really wants and presses her mouth to Eva’s hairline.
Vilde thinks she loves her.
Eva doesn’t react, but just softens more into Vilde’s figure with every passing minute. The bottle dangles precariously from her fingertips, her nails painted a shiny gold and glimmering against the glass. Vilde watches it sway. Doesn’t care if it drops if it means Eva ends up closer to her, or at least stays right where she is, right here. Right here is good, she thinks. Right here is enough, even if she dreams for more.
She kisses Eva’s head again, three times, one for each time the wind picks up, pushes against her back and urges her closer, further. Into the comfort of Eva’s weight and the gentle press of the railing against her ribs. It’s a silent game, a dare that’s all in Vilde’s head, but she’s thankful for it all the same. This is all long overdue: bravery, knowing what she wants, and time spent with Eva that feels the way it used to.
“We should take a bubble bath!” Eva says suddenly, jolting away with a newfound giddiness. It’s like the wine replenished her, brought her back to how she was earlier, in the energized stage of drunkenness when she’d given up on cooking dinner in favor of a dance party.
“We’ll make our own club right here, just for the two of us,” she’d said, then skipped through the foyer of the kitchen— once, then twice, then back for the finale, dragging Vilde along until whatever remixed Danish pop song she was playing finally ended.
Vilde’s chest burns with that same adrenaline before she even takes her first step to follow Eva back inside. She digs her bathing suit out of her luggage, then asks Eva for help tying the straps even though she can do it just fine on her own.
Vilde knows she loves her. Knows she’d follow her whenever, wherever, for anything and everything. And maybe, if they’re lucky, wherever is where they’ll get to go, even if just for tonight.