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"I know your secret.”
Isak blinks lazily up at Vilde, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah? And what’s that?”
Vilde tilts her head to the side, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder, pink scarf wrapped around her neck and for a second, she observes him.
Isak’s about to get up and leave when she says, “You know. The gay thing.”
All at once, Isak can feel his throat close up, his entire body going still. He briefly glances around the courtyard at the other students and how far or near they are before looking at Vilde.
“I’m not-“
“It’s okay,” she says, briefly smiling at him, her face lighting up. “I have a secret too.”
“What’s your secret?” Isak asks weakly, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Vilde frowns. “That’s why they’re called secrets. Duh.”
~
Isak can’t tell sometimes with Vilde. If she’s incredibly perceptive or if he’s incredibly easy to read.
“Was it rude of me to say that?”
“Yes. It was very fucking rude.” He’s short and to the point because jesus fuck he does not want to be charitable to her.
“Oh.” She frowns and looks down at her shoes. “I won’t say anything. I promise.” She sounds worried over it, over his feelings and it’s. Weird.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Exactly.” She nods her head, the sparkle back in her eye like there’s an understanding between them and he walks away, still fucking confused.
~
She's not malicious. She doesn't hate him. She just wants... whatever it is Vilde wants. And apparently she wants to sit with him in the mornings, chatting his ear off about things he doesn’t care about and finds him in the hallways and Jonas looks at him like he’s lost his mind and maybe he has.
She doesn’t tell anyone though. She doesn’t repeat it in front of people. Because there’s nothing to tell, he reminds himself firmly.
Something though loosens in his stomach. Sometimes she meets his eyes when Jonas kisses Eva at their lockers and it’s. Nice. Sympathetic. Like he’s not completely alone.
When she smiles at him from across the courtyard, he smiles back.
~
He watches her dissect a salad across from him for 5 minutes before she starts talking to him about his gayness like she’s commenting on the weather.
“I get it. Why you like Jonas.” She holds her utensils delicately, tomatoes across from green peppers, corn next to the carrots. He watches her plate turn into a color wheel. “He’s smart. His hair’s very curly.” She pauses, her cheeks turning red. “Eva says he’s a good kisser.”
“I-“ Isak shakes his head, stuffing some chips in his mouth because he honestly has no idea what the fuck his life is. “I already told you. I’m not.”
“What? A good kisser?”
He glares at her, but she’s not paying attention, spearing a piece of suspicious looking cabbage onto her fork, holding it up in the sunlight, scrunching her nose at it.
Isak’s own nose scrunches as well before he can stop it.
“It’s okay not to be able to name something yet,” she says quietly.
Isak blinks at her. Vilde gingerly takes a bite of the cabbage. And spits it out on the pavement. Isak snorts and hands her some chips.
~
“Why do you think I’m…?”
“A ouija board told me.”
“No I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Vilde.”
“I heard Eva and Noora talking about the huge gay porn collection they found on your phone.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. You’re not very good at this keeping secrets thing.”
“I’m the best at keeping secrets. I’ve kept your secrets.”
“Because I haven’t told you any of them.”
“…Oh.”
~
His parents fight a lot. His dad works too much and is never home and his mom forgets things, like Isak’s existence, and is home all day.
And Isak can’t breathe sometimes.
He gets up early and stays out late, unable to articulate just how restless he feels all the time, like something’s crawling around inside of him, over his skin and he can’t get it out no matter how much he meddles in Jonas and Eva’s relationship or how much weed he smokes or how much he does not think about kissing boys he sees at parties.
He finds Vilde at the park some nights. She runs and does crunches and sometimes he joins her.
Sometimes they sit on a bench and she tells him about her parents’ divorce. How she hasn’t seen her dad in almost 5 years. How her mom sometimes looks too long at her arms when she’s wearing short sleeves or her legs when she’s wearing dresses and never keeps ice cream in the house.
Isak thinks maybe she doesn’t want to go home either.
One night Isak brings her a pint of mint chocolate chip. She smiles at him brightly and reaches up on her tip toes to pat the top of his head. He rolls his eyes and they eat ice cream in the dark.
~
“Are you dating her or what?”
“Nei.” He shrugs Jonas off and shuts his locker.
“Because you know. It’d be okay if you were. Weird. But okay. If you liked her.”
“Of course I like her, she’s a nice person. That’s it.”
Jonas lifts his eyebrows in a way that is so familiar and it hurts to look at and Isak hates himself a little.
“Whatever.”
~
“Why don’t you want me to be your beard?”
Isak almost starts crying he’s laughing that hard because of course she’d be pissed that he doesn’t want to be in a fake relationship with her.
~
She tells him about William. About how she thought she was pregnant. About how she thought that might make people stay, make her worthy of something. Attention or whatever. But also about the relief that came with finding out she never was. The relief that came with not having to pretend about William anymore.
“Pretend what?” He looks at her sidelong and she stares right back, like it’s obvious.
“You know.”
~
Vilde likes wine. A lot. He knows she keeps it in her water bottle sometimes, her eyes turning glassy when they run in the park, her laugh carrying over the trees in the dim light. He makes sure to walk her home now.
Tonight though they have to be writing an assignment. He’s nursing a black eye and wounded pride, his dad leaving and Eva hating him and Jonas not knowing what he did. His mom yelling and crying about hellfire and eternal damnation. Isak not knowing what to do and being scared and feeling helpless and worrying, always worrying that she’s going to hate him. The guilt is eating at him. All the things he can’t name. Anger and shame and fear. So much fear. He had thought punching someone would make it better but all that happened was he got punched back and now his face hurts along with everything else.
And he knows he deserves it.
Vilde takes pity on him, breaking out the corkscrew early.
It’s when he’s on the floor, his head on top of her legs, and she’s reaching for the third bottle of red when it spills out.
“I kissed Eva.”
He twists to look up at her, at her red stained mouth, his snapback on top of her head, blonde hair stringy and sticking to her face and neck.
She looks like she might cry. “I said it didn’t have to mean anything. But. I think it does. I think.”
“Oh.” He’s never been good at comforting people. But Vilde reaches for his hand, hers cold and clammy and trembling. She squeezes his fingers tightly, smiles.
“I haven’t been able to name it either.”
~
“Why’d you tell me?” Isak asks her quietly, still drunk off wine and still mulling over Vilde and Eva and Eva and Jonas and Jonas and Isak and Isak and Vilde. His head hurts with all of the circles their lives create.
Vilde’s head is lolled to the side, her eyes wet. Her hand is still in his.
“That I’d rather kiss girls than boys?”
He nods. How are you supposed to figure that out? How can it just be like that? How can he name it, if only just for himself?
She sighs, her body deflating like she let go of the entire world inside of her.
“I don’t have to pretend with you.”
And for once, he knows what she means.