Work Text:
The thing is, Vilde’s done everything right.
Her life has been one well planned out move after the other. She sits in the front row of every class. She starts a russ in first year. She goes to the parties and meets the boys and drinks until she can’t tell who’s feeling her up. She counts her calories and only eats salads in public and runs eight times a week. She likes William. She loses her virginity to him.
It hurts and she knows it should, that’s what the magazines and the websites and the girls in the bathroom say.
But then it’s supposed to get better.
Everything is supposed to fall in to place because she did it right.
What happens though is she gets 3’s and 4’s on her tests and assignments. She’s surrounded by smart, strong, beautiful girls with beautiful names and beautiful everything and is jealous of them. She wants to be them, wants to lead them, just wants wants wants.
She gets a sweatshirt with William’s name on it and wears it to bed. She dreams his name is branded into her skin, red and ugly. She throws up in the bathroom at lunch when she counts upwards of 8 other girls wearing the same one. And then she throws up the next day. And the day after that.
And for the minute in between flushing and looking at her pale face in the mirror, she doesn’t want anything. And then she blinks and You’re not good enough and she wants again.
And when it’s 1 in the morning and she’s trying to sleep, her mom will bring men home. Vilde will slide beneath her bed like she used to when she was little, and she’ll scream into her pillow until she’s exhausted.
~
She knows she’s not easy to like. It’s even harder to love her. She’s awkward and controlling and never says the right thing. She isn't the best at picking up on social cues so there's the added benefit of never knowing when to shut up.
Her dad left when she was 11 and her mom never pays attention to her except to be disappointed in her when she needs to buy new jeans.
“You’re not fat,” Noora tells her one afternoon while Vilde’s jumping around, trying to get her jeans buttoned.
“Easy for you to say,” Vilde huffs and puffs and falls flat on her back.
And all Noora can do is look at her the same way she’s always looked at her. Fond exasperation.
She’ll take it.
~
She googles and decides she’s pregnant.
No period. Nausea. Vomiting. Her stomach is huge.
She wants to tell someone but can’t. Every time, the words get stuck in her throat. None of it’s right and she tries. Tries desperately to be okay, to be happy.
How can she even begin to talk about this? How scared and nervous and fucked this whole thing is? She can’t face William. She can barely face herself in the mirror. She touches her stomach and hates it, hates the swell, hates the guilt that settles in her heart.
Vilde tries to imagine what kind of mother she’d be and can only picture her own. Cold and silent and so very beautiful it breaks her heart. She ends up gasping and sobbing into a wad of toilet paper during history.
She wants it out but she wants to care about it. She wants to never feel this ever again.
She wakes up one morning hung over and sore and Sana’s there brushing the hair back from her forehead with a soft look. It hits her.
“I think I killed William’s baby tonight.”
God. Fucking. Damn. It.
“We made breakfast.”
She can’t eat but Sana holds her hand on the way to the doctor and Eva smiles softly at her while Noora and Chris talk quietly and. And it’s okay sort of. Maybe she can learn. How to be more like this. More like them. More kind and more understanding and more listening. Just more. Maybe she could be good at this with them at her side.
~
There is no baby. Never was a baby.
Eva had rubbed her back on the way home after the doctor and she’d felt okay for 10 minutes before being alone again. With her thoughts.
You’re not good enough.
Vilde pushes herself to run faster and farther and doesn’t stop until she falls to the grass, sweating and panting, her lungs all but exploding inside of her and there is no baby. Just stress and not enough food inside of her and more stress. Just fat.
It’s something she never had and it’s overwhelming, all of the possibilities of what could have happened. What she hopes never happens.
Vilde watches the sky turn inky blue and black, ignoring the hot tears that slide down her cheeks, the mix of guilt and relief churning away inside of her.
~
So she drinks and goes back to the parties and let’s boys touch her again.
You’re not good enough.
She gives head to some of them and she’s not very good at it. Boys grab handfuls of her hair to keep her head still. She doesn’t like it but they smile at her and maybe that means it’s okay.
You’re not good enough.
Eva laughs into her hair when they trip over each other’s feet trying to climb the stairs in Vilde’s house. Eva collapses in her bed and giggle snorts at something Vilde can’t understand. She falls next to Eva and their fingers meet, curling together. Vilde smiles at the softness of it.
They fall quiet, their breathing echoing in the space between their faces.
“I think Jonas is cheating on me.”
Eva’s voice is small and quiet and Vilde reaches for her, touching her hair and her cheek and watches Eva’s eyes fill with tears and how could anyone do that? How is that possible? How could Jonas see what Vilde’s seeing and… what? Not feel his heart beat out of his chest, not feel warm and happy and like maybe things can be okay?
The next morning Eva is texting Isak and yelling into her phone and Vilde waves goodbye, watching Eva stumble out the back door.
Later, she pulls the sheets off her bed, tossing them in the laundry. She opens the window, trying to air out the smell of Eva’s perfume. She looks at herself in the mirror and speaks quietly, “You can do this. You are a girl who likes it when boys touch her. You like them too. You can do this.”
You can do this. Please do this.
~
Isak Valtersen has never been on her radar.
He’s the guy who crumples up her party invites and tosses them on the ground right in front of her.
Still, it’s important that she know who she’ll be going through three years of school with and he is Eva’s boyfriend’s best friend after all. Outer circles and all that.
But then Eva and Jonas break up. Suddenly Isak is everywhere, hugging Eva and asking her for coffee and looking at her from across the courtyard. And it’s in her stomach, this bitter burning feeling.
She watches him like. Like she watched William and other girls. Except it’s different this time. It’s her friend, it’s Eva and it’s her sadness and her smile that’s so rare now.
Until she sees it. The flicker of guilt sometimes on Isak’s face which she’s paying more and more attention to now. And then Christmas happens and she sees more. Isak laughing with Jonas and leaning a bit closer when Jonas elbows him and the small smile.
It’s almost like a mirror.
~
Porn is gross and Isak’s gross but Vilde approaches him anyway. She doesn’t know what to say, they’ve never really spoken, and the words just fall.
“You know. The gay thing.”
“I’m not-“
“It’s okay,” she smiles at him, reassuring. “I have a secret too.”
You can do this.
He looks angry and gets right in her face. “There’s a little something called tact, Vilde.”
She blinks. And blinks again. “Was it rude of me to say that?”
“Yes. It was very fucking rude.”
“Oh. I won’t say anything I promise.” God, she should’ve googled this shit.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Exactly.” She’ll follow his lead and maybe they could get along.
~
They’re friends. Sort of.
“It’s okay not to be able to name something yet.”
Isak won’t get in to it, Jonas and Eva and the whys of it all, but it’s okay. Vilde spends a lot of time googling and reading and realizes she’s kind of a bitch for just approaching him like that out of the blue, for the words she used. She tries to apologize in the limited ways she knows how, like sitting with him and trying to talk about anything else.
Eventually it works. He smiles back when she smiles.
~
Isak has really long legs. Like freakishly long and it’s not fair. She has to really push herself to keep up with him. Sometimes she wonders what he’s running from but he’s not much of a talker so she just tries to keep up and instead fills the silence with her own shit she’s never really been able to get out.
Like William and her stupid stupid body and tries to say it without so many words. How much she hates her mother and hates herself for hating her mother. How much she hates food but loves food and wants to drown herself in ice cream.
One night he brings her ice cream and it’s so sweet and unassuming, he rolls his eyes when she pats the top of his head.
~
Word spreads that Jonas can make a girl come with his mouth and Vilde’s eyes snap to Eva, who looks like someone punched her in the stomach. She wants to hold her hand. Clenches her fist instead.
You can do this.
Later, Eva kisses Chris at a party and Vilde sinks further into the couch cushion, drunkenly wondering when it’ll be her turn.
You can do this.
~
The tables are turned though and it spreads around school that she’s blowing Isak Valtersen in the park.
“No. Not really.”
“What does ‘not really’ mean?” Noora’s got that look on her face again and she and Eva keep exchanging looks and Vilde wants to tell them they’re not that great at keeping their voices down about things they find on people’s phones.
“‘Not really’ means that we run sometimes. That’s actually it. Just two people. Burning calories.” Jesus.
Sana’s eyebrows raise in disbelief and Vilde just wants to die when Chris pipes up next to her. “You’d have very blonde babies. Beautiful and blonde.”
“Oh my god Chris.”
~
“Jonas thinks we’re dating.”
“My friends think I’m blowing you in the park. I win.” She grins at him while he groans.
“Fucking hell.”
“Why don’t you want me to be your beard?”
Isak’s face lights up with his laughter, shaking his head and Vilde feels warm.
They’re quiet, passing her water bottle back and forth, the sting of the wine in the back of her throat.
Isak’s just taken a large gulp when she drops it on him. “Chris says our babies would be beautiful and blonde.”
Wine comes out of his nose and Vilde cries laughing.
~
He tells her one night that his dad’s gone too, recently, like the month before, and he doesn’t know how to take care of his mom and doesn’t want Jonas to know how he can’t sleep. The running helps.
So they run. Away from things. It’s good. They can work out if they’re running toward anything later.
~
“You okay?”
“I’m great!”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.” Vilde sways towards Isak, all blurry and blonde curly hair and she’s drunk again at a party. Someone had groped her ass and Sana had slapped them away but not before Vilde’s eyes started tearing up. So she drank and drank some more.
“Vilde you’ve been singing to a pile of coats for the last 20 minutes.”
“They appreciate my rendition of Dance The Way I Feel.”
He huffs out a laugh and they sit on the floor in silence for a second.
“How’s your night?” She’s like 2 minutes away from passing out but she can still be polite.
He grimaces and shakes his head, leaning back on his hands. “Sara and Ingrid are having a pissing contest. I don’t want any part of it.”
She squints at him and sees the puffiness of his mouth, the red marks on his neck, his overall harassed expression.
“Ah.”
More silence and Vilde’s fading fast. She's okay with it though. It's Isak.
“Isak?”
“Hmm?”
“You ever feel like the world’s made of glass?”
“No, I feel like the world’s made of shit.”
“Well obviously. But I meant like, this world.” She hiccups and gestures to the space around them.
His face scrunches up as he looks around them at the floor they're sat on.
“This world.”
“Yes.”
“Glass?”
“Your life Isak.”
“Ah yes the lesser known world.”
“Yeah. Like. You ever feel like if your life has just one tiny crack… everything else in it will just-“ she swipes her hand through the air, knocking some coats off the pile. “Shatter?”
He just stares and she leans heavily against the pile of coats and closes her eyes, feeling so heavy and tired tired tired. She slips away with the feeling of being lifted, weightless, Isak’s voice in her ear, warm breath on her skin.
“All the time.”
~
She meets Isak’s mom once.
She’s stalling, holding a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough in one hand and a fruit salad in the other when she sees him at the end of the aisle, a woman walking ahead of him, trailing her fingers along the items on the shelves.
“...we don’t need anything. I did the shopping the other day, remember?”
She waves him off, eyeing the apples, both of her hands held over them.
Vilde can see her lips moving and without even thinking, she moves forward, still clutching her snacks in her hands.
“Hi Isak.”
He looks absolutely terrified and she’s about the back up, when the woman he’s with turns and she immediately knows this is his mother. They have the same hair, the same eyes, the same cheekbones. Vilde smiles.
Isak’s shaking his head at her, his eyes wide, when she says, “Hello Mrs. Valtersen.”
Looking at her now though, Vilde can tell something’s… not quite wrong but not quite right.
Isak’s mom steps toward her, Isak closely at her heels, and Vilde doesn’t know what’s happening until she feels hands on the sides of her face. Isak’s mom is cupping her face, holding her still, staring straight into her eyes.
A quiet tense moment, Isak’s mouth in a tight line, his hands hovering over his mom’s arms. Then.
“You have a beautiful heart.”
Spoken so clearly and directly and she smiles widely at Vilde afterwards. Another thing Isak shares with her.
She watches Isak slowly relax, lowering his arms and taking a breath, his eyes never leaving his mom.
Vilde smiles back. “So does your son.”
~
The thing is, Eva kisses her and it’s different. Right. Actually really fucking right. Like nothing else has ever been right except this.
She’s never had that much tongue in her mouth.
She remembers Eva’s fingers trailing down her chest, leaving tingles in their wake. She’s never been touched like that. Like they wanted her just as much as she wanted them. She’s never wanted like this.
You’re not good enough.
Shut up. Fuck. It's okay. You can do this.
And it terrifies her in the most wonderful way.
~
Someone stuck a neon pink postit to the bathroom mirror in the girls’ room and Vilde’s been staring at it for a while.
She’s hungover and her head’s pounding. Isak’s texting her because they forgot all about their assignment and she knows he’s probably frantically typing away but she can’t bring herself to find him yet.
You’re beautiful :) the postit says cheerfully to her.
She smiles slightly. It’s something Noora would do. Leave notes like that for girls to see. Or Eva. Eva would do that too.
Vilde looks at her reflection. Breathes. Her heart pounds in her ears.
You can do this. You have a beautiful heart.
It’s okay not to be able to name something yet.
I don’t have to pretend with you.
“You like girls.” Her reflection goes blurry before she's even finished saying it, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her voice is rough and her throat closes up but. It's something. A tiny, kind relief. She washes her face and wipes at her eyes. Breathes deeply, her shoulders and chest light. It’s going to be okay.
She finds Isak in the courtyard with his laptop and his black eye, purple and blue standing out against his pale skin, his hoodie pulled up over his hair.
She sits across from him, the postit folded in her hand.
He glances at her, eyebrows raised in question. “Okay?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
It’s starting to be.