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He tried to be normal after everything, to float along the same trajectory as his friends. School, job, house . . . None of it felt right. No matter what mental games he played with himself to move on. So after graduating from university he left with nothing but a backpack and a typewriter. Everyone tried to talk him out of it. He didn’t tell them he planned to look for her. He didn’t have to.
It wasn’t just the gaping empty space inside him that propelled him to Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and France. He really did want to see the world. He was a storyteller after all. He needed material.
There was magic in showing up to a new cafe or library or park with a pad of paper and a pencil. He loved figuring out how to communicate in a new language, trying new foods, opening up to a fresh blank page.
Stories flowed out of him in a totally different way than they ever had. That was real, but so was the need to hike through beautiful, remote places and the constant, instinctive scan of the faces all around him.
Maybe he was delusional because despite the gaping emptiness, he still felt her. Lucas told him that feeling was grief, love and longing with nothing to latch onto.
There were definitely days when Mike thought it would be easier if he could just believe that, but he couldn’t.
So he wandered. And he wrote. Until the day everything changed.
After three books and several years he finally heard her voice in his mind.
It wasn’t a ghost of memory. It was her. The first time she disappeared from his life and he called her on the radio he had a similar sensation like she was there, but wasn’t.
He shrugged it off before. Not again. and so he went much to the dismay of his agent who’d grown used to him living in Switzerland and needed him to meet a deadline. With the whisper had been an image of a place.
It was cold when he stepped out of the airport even though it was supposedly summer, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. It was onto a bus, then another bus, then a ferry. Snacks in between travel and fitful sleep. At least three times he convinced himself he was losing his mind as he got closer to the arctic circle and the temperature gradually dipped even lower and he shivered on the deck. His hands gripped the railing and he kept his eyes on the slate gray expanse of water.
He shook his head and closed his eyes, listened to the sound of water being sliced by the prow of the ferry and sea birds screeching overhead. He imagined her standing in the same place hearing the same sounds, feeling the chill. The apples of her cheeks and the tip of her nose would have been pink as her breath formed a cloud in the air and she left behind everyone and everything she’d grown to love.
It must have been devastating. He knew she must have been lonely. Surely she had been keeping a watch on them all since she left. Girlfriends don’t lie, they spy. The memory lifted the corners of his lips ever so slightly. He closed his eyes imagining her against a field of her favorite flowers with the wind in her hair. That summer had been some of the happiest days of his life until it all went to shit.
Movement and voices startled his eyes open. He gasped, gripping the railing tighter as he took in the view. Sharp, dark cliffs rose from the ocean. Thousands of sea birds soared and dove.. His heart sped incredibly fast filling with the most hope he’d felt in almost a decade. Rushing off the edge of the cliffs were not just three, but several waterfalls. They plunged into the sea in an unending symphony of thundering absolution.
When his loneliness became unbearable and writing her into his stories or talking with his friends wasn’t enough, he would let himself fall into his memories of what she felt like in his arms. The smell of her hair. Her cheek against his back or resting on his arm. He would close his eyes and imagine her with him, like normal people in love who got to spend their lives together. Like Lucas and Max.
All Mike had was emptiness, but staring at those waterfalls at the top of the world with cold ocean mist on his skin like dew inching closer to the solstice, that empty space pulsed with need. She was close. She had to be. He didn’t want to think about what it meant if he dragged himself all way to this place based on a delusional, desperate dream.
Twitchy and nervous he disembarked in the harbor. A small town spread out against the backdrop of gently sloping green hills. The ever present birds swooped, glided, and perched everywhere. He had no idea how many people lived in such a remote place, if there were other towns, or how to speak any Icelandic. A few gruff looking older men had been at the harbor. They were polite enough offering terse nods and directing him down the road the the guest house. Apparently there was only one.
Just off the main road through the small collection of houses and buildings that made Hawkins look like a big city, there was a three story, ancient looking house that supposedly offered rooms for the night. Swallowing down his nervous energy, he knocked.
A older woman wearing an apron covered in flour opened the door. “Halló, get ég aðstoðað þig?”
“Oh, uh, I’m sorry. Do you speak English?”
“American?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh, yeah,” Mike responded. “The guys at the harbor said you rent rooms?”
She turned around and beckoned him to follow her. “Yes, yes. We have a room for you. $10 a night. How long will you stay?”
Mike followed her into a very lived in home full of cozy furniture, books, and heirlooms. Savory smells of yeast and fish wafted through the air.
“I’m not sure,” he told her. “I’m looking for someone.”
Nerves turned his stomach. Talking to someone about her who wasn’t family or a friend still felt wrong, like the bad men would still be listening. Or that Henry Creel was lurking in the shadows waiting to kill her.
And maybe he was afraid he’d find her and she wouldn’t want him anymore. She clearly didn’t need him in the end. He still saw her face every night before going to sleep, so serene and accepting as she did the unthinkable.
“Lucky for you, there isn’t a waiting list.” The woman cut into his thoughts. “Come.”
Up a set of creaky wooden steps, past framed artwork featuring scenes from around the island. His gaze lingered on one of the waterfalls he’d seen from the ferry.
“I am Ilja. Breakfast will be on the table at 8 am. You are free to come and go as you please. Pay when you leave the island.”
She opened the second door on the right and ushered him into a small, plain room with worn wooden furniture and view of the ocean. He dropped his bag onto the bed.
“And what is your name?” She stood on the threshold with her hands on her hips. Something about her stance reminded him of Mrs. Byers though this woman, Ilja, was a decade or so older and worn by island life in the far north.
“Sorry. I’m Mike.”
“You do a lot of apologizing,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Can I help you find who you are looking for?”
“Um, well, she’s, uh . . .” His hands shook at his sides. He was not emotionally prepared for any of this. Obviously he knew she wasn’t going to be waiting for him at the harbor, but how exactly was he going to find her? “I’m looking for a woman who might have come here years ago. Another American. Maybe she goes by Jane?”
Her brow crinkles and Mike feels like an idiot. Going by Jane wouldn’t be much of a cover since she’d already used it. He tried to think of something else she might go by that wouldn’t be suspicious, but couldn’t come up with anything.
“Most who come here don’t stay, but there is one. Not Jane. Sigríður. We call her Sigga. She came to us years ago after spending time in America.”
He realized that even on this tiny island, she could be going by anything, telling any kind of story to stay safe. Picking an Icelandic name and making up a story about being born there makes more sense than showing up out of the blue. His mouth went dry at the thought of actually seeing her after chasing her ghost for so long.
“Is she here?” It was starting to feel like his chest was filled up with buzzing insects bouncing around his heart.
Ilja narrowed her eyes. “Who is she to you?”
“She’s a friend.” His mind reeled at that oversimplification. “We knew each other as kids.”
More like she was the bright, burning sun to his solar system. His entire life realigned on the night he stumbled on her in the rain. In the years since he’d watched her disappear, he survived through that light filtering through memory. How he would ever express that to anyone, especially this woman he just met, he had no idea.
“Sigga very rarely talks about her life before coming here to stay. How can you be sure she’s even the woman you seek?”
“I guess I won’t until I see her,” he countered. “Where is she?”
He took two steps toward the door. Ilja didn’t move away.
“You will wait here.” Her face was stern.
A frustrated sigh escaped from him. That feeling he used to get when there was something to do, a mission to complete, buzzed around making his chest feel like it would explode if he didn’t start running until he found her.
“Look, I know I might be on a wild goose chase. I left Switzerland in the middle of night and took three planes, a bus, and a ferry to get here because I had a feeling. I know how that sounds, but this woman is . . . she’s everything and I just want to know she’s okay.”
Ilja’s eyes softened as he spoke. With each word he felt more wrung out. Tears stung behind his eyes.
“I never stopped believing even when everyone started looking at me like I was crazy. It’s killing me because I love her, and I can’t face a world without her in it. So please tell me where she is so I can tell her. If she doesn’t want me to be here, then I’ll go. I just want to see her.”
The old woman smiled. “She’s just outside.” She gestured toward the window behind him.
He spun so fast he almost fell on his face. The view outside was spectacular. Green hills gently sloped between the guest house and the harbor where the ocean stretched to the horizon. Thick cloud cover split open across the sky letting slivers of blue and rays of sunlight to peak through.
Mike didn’t notice any of that.
His vision narrowed in on the woman carrying a basket down a worn path. His breath came in quick bursts as she moved closer and closer becoming more clear.
“El,” he whispered. A tear slid down his cheek, then another. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Brown curly hair escaped from her pony tail. Wind tossed it around her face. She swung the basket a little as she walked. So casual, her step light.
He wanted to jump out the window to get to her and fast as fucking possible.
He barely looked at the old while he slid through the gap between her and the door frame, then pounded down the stairs.
“El,” he shouted as soon as he burst through the front door. It tore through the air. She stopped in her tracks, but Mike couldn’t stop. He stumbled over the unfamiliar terrain, his heart leaping and mind reeling.
The basket tumbled to the ground and she started running too. When their bodies finally collided, both of them had tears streaming down their faces. Everything that had been missing from his life clicked into place like a puzzle piece or the threads of a story. Her body curved into his, face buried his his chest for a long moment. She smelled like the sea, Ilja’s house, and like her. Familiar and new clashed together throwing him off kilter, but he’d be wonky forever if it meant keeping her close.
“Mike,” she said. Her voice anchoring him. “You heard me.”
She pulled back slightly, her arms still around him, crying but smiling. He reached for her cheek and wiped the tears. Her eyes fluttered shut, her breath stuttering.
“I knew you were still alive.” His voice cracked around the words. “You said I’d understand one day. And I did because how could you bring me into the void with all that kryptonite on you. You couldn’t do it. I knew you couldn’t.”
“Mike,” she said, putting a hand on his cheek and rubbing her thumb back and forth on the wet skin. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He touched his forehead to hers not wanting to break their connection for anything. It felt like it might dissolve at any minute, like it had all been a dream. “You’re here.”
The hand she had on his cheek slid to the back of his neck and into his hair like she always used to do when she hugged him.
“I’m here,” she confirmed against his neck. Warm breath ghosted over the skin there. “I wanted to talk to you so many times. He told me to wait.”
“Who?”
She pulled back again. “Enzo. Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything. Promise.”
Mike stood bereft and awkward when she easily pulled out of their embrace to jog a few yards and pick up the basket of brown speckled eggs. Only one of them was broken and oozing. She just as easily slipped her hand into his and squeezed.
“Are you living and Ilja’s?” He ventured.
“I was for a long time. Two years ago, I moved into my own cottage. I work for Ilja though, helping her with cooking, cleaning, and the garden. She teaches me a lot.”
Mike was glad she seemed to be happy about her life here. He ignored the jealous tug in his chest that these people in this remote place have gotten to see her grow into this easy, unburdened woman who wore her hair long and gathered eggs by the sea.
“You never told me about this one who comes all the way here to find you, Sigga.”
A beautiful, bright smile broke across El’s face as she looked away from Ilja and at him. He wanted to kiss every inch of her, hold her until the end of the world, tell her everything about his life while she did the same. He wanted to see her cottage and wondered what it would look like, a place that was completely hers where she could be herself.
“We grew up together,” she said, echoing his earlier understatement. “In America.”
Ilja hummed skeptically. “Come, let’s have lunch.”
Inside the house, El led Mike by the hand into the kitchen and set the basket next to a large old fashioned stove. A rough hewn table that could seat twelve comfortably stretched through the room. Several loaves of round bread cooled on racks down the center.
“We sell the bread,” El explained slipping her hand from his again to tie on an apron and light a burner on the stove. An action that’s so incongruous from what he’d seen her doing in their few short years together. He loved it. His heart swelled more and more as she cracked eggs into the pan, flipped them with a spatula, worked around Ilja to plate smoked fish, eggs, and fresh bread.
“Mike,” Ilja asked, her arms crossed over her ample bosom. “How did you know Sigga was here?”
He looked to El for a clue about how to answer that. She turned with the spatula held in the air. “You know how, Ilja.”
The woman scoffed. “Let’s eat.”
In his travels, Mike had expanded the limited palate he developed in Hawkins to include all kinds of things. He’d definitely had eggs with smoked fish before, but these eggs were different. They had a thick, dark orange yoke that was sort of buttery and a little fishy.
“What kind of eggs are these?” he asked.
“Arctic terns,” El answered, smothering a thick layer of blueberry jam on her bread. She still had a sweet tooth. That gave Mike another jolt of welcome familiarity right through the chest.
“They are traditional and difficult to gather,” Ilja says with a wink.
Ilja definitely knew about El’s powers. He supposed it wouldn’t be easy to hide them from the person she lived and worked with for several years.
El rolled her eyes and reached across the table for his hand. Mike read books that described touching the one you love like electricity, a pleasant zap. This was more like a hum, a rightness that made his heart speed up and his attention zoom into her.
“It’s getting late. I assume this young man is going home with you. So much for making some money.” Ilja tapped her fork on her empty plate.
Mike wanted more than anything to go home with El, but he didn’t know if she wanted that. Maybe they needed to work up to that. He also didn’t want Ilja to lose money. She’d taken El in and gave her a home, taught her things to survive.
“Yes, he’s coming to my cottage,” El announced quietly.
Mike melted. “But I’ll still pay for the time. I’ll probably be around here too since El - Sigga spends so much time here.”
“How long will you stay?” El asked.
“As long as you want me to,” Mike responded without hesitation, squeezing her hand and looking into her eyes. So much of their time together before she’d had terror or determination in them or aching sadness. There was love when she looked at him and periods of time where she had been happy. Every one of her expressions occupied his mind during their time apart. He dreamed about them, wrote about them. And now here he was, showing him even more facets of herself. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Mike, you have a life. Your family - "
“They’ll understand,” he said firmly. “I’ll call Nancy as soon as I figure out the time difference. She’ll talk to everyone.”
She nodded and looked down at her empty plate, then pulled her hand out of of his and stood to pick up all the plates and take them to the sink. Ilja stayed seated staring at him.
“Be good to her. She’s been through enough.”
***
“It’s still so bright out,” Mike said. They walked along a path leading into town. He hadn’t expected her to live so close to all the other homes and the few businesses clustered between the harbor and the the slope to the cliffs.
“The sun will only go down for about an hour tonight. The solstice is coming.”
Arctic circle. Right. He really hadn’t considered much before showing up here. “How do you sleep if it’s bright all night?”
“Black out curtains.”
“Oh. It’s pretty cool actually. That you live here.”
He was starting to feel nervous like a teenager again. The street she led him down had a few boxy buildings that were a school and some stores. She tugged him down a side lane with a few brown and white homes. A red church stood above everything like a watch tower.
“This one is mine.” They stood in front of a small cottage with grayish brown siding and huge windows. She took a set of keys from her coat pocket and opened up the door.
He’d spent a lot of time in her bedroom at Hop’s cabin and some time in her room in Lenora. Both spaces felt authentically like her. Her spaces never were as girly as Nancy’s room or as bright as Holly’s, but still had qualities of both. Feminine and colorful, but leaning into comfort. Going into her space was always like being embraced by her.
When he stepped into her cottage, he had that exact feeling. It was small and incredibly cozy. Big squashy arm chairs and a couch fanned out around a small TV, a braided rug in the middle, brightly colored blankets and pillows tossed casually onto the furniture. To the left was a kitchen similar to Ilja’s but smaller. Light streamed in through the large windows on every outside wall. A hallway led to the back of the cottage, two open doors on either side.
“So, it’s not much, but it’s mine.” She walked into the space and started folding blankets and arranging pillows. She grabbed a half full glass of water from the end table and took it into the kitchen. “I didn’t know you would be here today.”
Mike followed her to the kitchen. “Hey,” he said and took a chance. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his head on her shoulder, placed a kiss at the base of her neck. “It’s perfect. Like I walked into your brain.”
Her posture softened, melting into the shape of his body. “You’ve been in my brain,” she said. “It doesn’t look like this.”
“I’m not talking about the void. I mean how you express yourself. Like these flannel shirts you’ve always worn and the colors you like. You’re still you.”
She’d grown up of course. He was excited to learn more about who she’d become and what she did with her days here. He wanted to spend the rest of his life navigating everything that she was and who she had become, who she’ll keep becoming here in this quiet place where nothing could force them apart ever again.
She turned around and leaned on the counter looking up at him. “Have you been happy?”
Some tightness settled in around her jaw. Mike’s stomach dropped a little. “It’s been hard,” he said honestly. “Everyone had their happy ending and I just . . . carried on. But it’s okay. This, right here, this is my happy ending.”
“I didn’t call you here so you would abandon your life.”
“I’m not abandoning anything. I’ll call my agent and tell him where I am. I can write from here while you’re out working. Eventually I can fly to Indiana and get the last of my things from my parent’s house. No one has to know you’re here. I move around a lot anyway. It won’t seem weird to anyone. Well, not any more weird than they already think I am.
And if she didn’t want that, he would go and would try to live a normal life. Maybe he’d move to California near Will and his “roommate.” At least Will understood something about living with a gut wrenching secret, about lying to protect himself and the person he loved. It wasn’t really the same, but he had more empathy for Mike than Lucas and Max or Dustin or Steve with his three kids and counting or even Nancy and Jonathan who weren’t together or with anyone else most of the time, but loved their work.
It would be empty, but he would do it if that’s what she wanted.
“I love you, Eleven. That hasn’t ever changed. It won’t ever change.”
She reached for his face and leaned in until her lips brushed gently against his. He kissed her back following her lead, slow even though he wanted so much more. In college he’d mostly kept to himself, but he did date a couple of girls. In the end it wasn’t fair to them to keep going. Nothing could live up to his memory of El. He’d even tried dating a man during his time in France. He managed to keep that going for a little longer because it was new, but it fizzled out like everything else.
“I want to show you something,” she said suddenly.
Across the room on the wall between the main part of the house and what was beyond, stood two tall bookshelves. They were full of things she must have collected. Stones and shells from the beach. A figurine of a bird. A police badge she must have taken from Hopper. A handful of dice. She had books, cassette and VHS tapes, and vinyl records. Mike gravitated toward the spines of three very familiar books.
“I’ve read them three times each,” she said as he reached out and touched their cracked spines.
“I wrote them for you.” His eyes burned again. He’d hoped she was able to read them.
She slid one off the shelf, the first one, Psyonica, and opened it to the dedication page. To my party for sticking with me. To my mage for giving me hope. “I love them, Mike.”
He didn’t say anything. He wanted to freeze frame this moment in his mind and remember it forever. His mage holding his book, the labor of his love for her and stories of their friends.
“How did you get them up here?”
“Enzo sent them.”
That name again. The only Enzo he could think of was the restaurant back in Hawkins, but that was ridiculous. “Who is that?”
“A friend of Hop’s. He helped me get here.”
“Does Hopper know where you are?” A jolt of anger constricted his chest, an unwelcome feeling in the middle of the most comfortable place he’d been in so long.
“No,” she said quickly. “I think he might believe I’m alive, but he doesn’t really know. Like you did.” She put the book back on the shelf carefully like it was precious. Mike’s chest unraveled.
“Can you tell me about what happened? How you escaped?” An unwelcome flash of memory bloomed in his mind. Opening his eyes just after she threw him from the void to find himself restrained by soldiers, his friends screaming, the shuddering whine of the kryptonite, El standing in the collapsing upside down. Then the terrible quiet once the gate was gone.
“Let’s sit down.” She walked back to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Do you want something to drink? I have lemonade. The kind you make from a packet of sugary stuff. Or I could make tea.”
Minutes later after watching her hot tea for them both in a ritual she must have done often for herself, they sat together on the couch clutching warm cups full of an herbal blend that smelled like orange and cinnamon. She closed her eyes and took in a deep inhale of steam from her own before she started speaking.
“Kali wasn’t shot. It was an illusion,” she started. “When Hop went to get bandages she told me we could get away. That I should have a chance to live.”
Mike barely got a chance to know Kali, definitely not enough time to form an opinion of her character, but he decided then that he had the utmost respect for her.
“She was right.”
“While we fought Henry, she went the gate and waited for us.” She pursed her lips and he knew she was holding back tears. He touched her knee. “When the tires went out and the soldiers pulled all of you out of the truck, she made me invisible. The kryptonite almost knocked me down, but I got to Radio Shack and went into the tunnels. She said she would be there, so I waited, but she -”
She swiped the back of her hand against her eyes.
“Hey, maybe she went a different way,” Mike said, rubbing his thumb against her jeans.
She shook her head. “After I said goodbye to you, I ran to the cabin. I didn’t know if Dr. Owens was alive, but he tried to get me back to Hawkins when I was with Papa so I thought I could trust him. Hop hid the phone number under a floorboard. I talked to a woman who sent Enzo. He said he owed his life to Hop after they escaped Russia and to Dr. Owens for getting his family out of there too. For a while he moved me to different safe houses until he left me here.”
“That’s pretty close to what I came up with,” Mike said with a smile. “I never stopped believing.”
He caught a tear as it rolled down her cheek with a finger.
“I asked him every week if I could risk contacting you. He was annoyed with me.”
“Will you ever contact the others?”
“Sometimes I reach out to Hop just enough for him to feel me. He thinks I’m haunting him.” She lets out a watery laugh.
“Maybe in a few years we can invite him to visit.” His overexcited writer’s brain had all kinds of ideas of what their life would look like by then. They could build a bigger house with a room where he’d work. He would eventually get up the courage to ask her to marry him even though he didn’t know what else he needed to do. He’d have to become a citizen of Iceland probably. This Enzo probably made fake papers for her. By then they could be starting a family.
That thought came out of nowhere. He froze. His brow creased. Since he was twelve he knew he wanted to be with Eleven and no one else. When they was older and she was firmly back in his life, he planned to take her somewhere just like this place. A peaceful faraway land where they could live out their days together without the trauma and terror that stalked her for her whole life. Mostly he imagined her being able to smile and laugh every day, but he had also thought about other things. Domestic things. Like sharing a bed or whether or not she wanted kids.
“Maybe,” she said, but he was staring at a spot on the wall beyond her. “Mike?”
One of her hands rested on his knee, a simple gesture, but suddenly monumental. Back in Hawkins they’d never done anything beyond make out and touch fully clothed. El communicated a lot through touching. A trait that drove Hopper crazy. It always felt so natural though, like he was made to be with her.
“We’ll figure it out.” He focused on her face again.
She nodded. “You really don’t have to stay here all the time. I understand that you have a life out there, in the world.”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “I’m not going anywhere. Listen I - I know we’ve been apart for a long time. There’s a lot we have to catch up on and we’ve grown older, but I . . .”
She was so fucking beautiful sitting across from him one hand on her cup and the other on his knee. The sun shone through her huge windows in the house where she wasn’t hiding because she’d become a part of this community. She was safe. Its rays illuminated the gold strands in her hair and the flecks in her eyes.
“I want, I hope we can - I mean if you want to then I want to be together like adults. Like my parents. No, not like my parents. They’re sort of . . . just together. I mean like Hop and Joyce. Except we’re younger, so we could . . . "
Her brow knit together more and more the longer he tried to explain himself. Even at twenty-seven this was just as hard as it had been when he was fourteen.
“I love you,” be blurted out. “I love you so fucking much that I couldn’t even live properly without you. It’s like you’re a bookmark and when you’re not in my life, I can’t keep reading.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that’s a stupid analogy. It didn’t even make sense. The point is . . . the point is . . .”
Her hand left his knee. She put her cup down on the end table, took his from his hands to join hers, then cradled his face with her warm hands and kissed him. It wasn’t a gentle kiss or a crashing of their lips, more like a firm assurance. He opened his mouth to let her in, grasped her waist. She reciprocated by scooting into his lap and pressed into him a little awkwardly, but he’d take it.
“Mike,” she whispered into his mouth before resting her forehead against his.
“Yeah?” He slid his hands underneath her open flannel shirt to rest them on top of her t-shirt, desperate to get as close as he could.
“I love you too. Everyone here is good to me. I like the work I do, how peaceful it is. Ilja is like the grandma I never had. But it didn’t feel like a complete life until I saw you today.”
Nervousness combusted and he was left with nothing but a warm glowing love that took over his whole chest and sent tendrils down his limbs. His mind floated in it, drifting. Words wouldn’t form instead he pulled her leg over him so he could embrace her fully into his chest and buried his face in her shoulder, but his glasses made that hard.
So she took them off and set them next to the their cooling tea. “Hop wanted that for me,” she said, her hands resting on his shoulders. “A future where I could be with you and have a family.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Can we do that?”
“It won’t be easy.” Her voice cracked. “We’re far away from everything. The winters are hard. It’s so dark and cold.”
Mike imagined being alone in this house with her while snow piled against the windows, curled up on the couch watching movies or getting up to other activities. Or he would write while she worked on something else in the same space.
“Sounds incredible,” he breathed into her neck. His hands rubbed up and down on her thighs.
“I’ll talk to Enzo about how you can contact your family and mine. Maybe at first you just tell them you’re in Iceland because it’s quiet - for writing.”
“Then I invite them for Christmas. That’ll give them a heads up that something’s happened. I haven’t spent a holiday with my family since . . .” He wasn’t sure. Too long.
“That’s a lot of people, Mike.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to rent out Ilja’s whole house,” He counted in his head. “Harrington’ll probably have to get his own rental. I think he’s on his fourth kid.”
“Fifth actually.” She laughed.
“You probably know more about everyone than I do. Did you make a bath here?”
“No, not to find people I look for all the time. I know about your dad’s high blood pressure and your mom’s newest attempt to put him on a diet. Jonathan’s new movie comes out next month in theaters. Nancy has all kinds of adventures to write her stories and I read every single one. I have a subscription to the Herald.” She gestured to a basket full of magazines and newspapers with a tilt of her head. Her hands have started moving, touching his skin, combing her fingers though his hair. “I watch Dustin be a genius in his science lab and go on road trips with Steve. Their kids run barefoot through the woods and in streams. Robin is there sometimes too. She can be open and in love with her girlfriend around them. Will’s paintings are in a gallery in San Francisco. Lucas and Max are so happy just being together and in love.”
He let his eyes slipped closed while she told him all the things he couldn’t face about his friends. He’d left them to live their happy, beautiful lives without him because he would never have that for himself. In his darkest moments he believed it would never happen for him, but the woman in his arms said otherwise.
“That’s going to be us now. Living here together, happy and in love.”
“I’m not sure I know how,” she said hastily wiping a tear before it fell, then resting the hand on his chest.
“I’m not either. Do you wanna figure it out?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. "I do."