AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I open my eyes, my vision blurry from tears and my eyes sore from crying, not sure what he could be sorry for. After all, it’s not like he lost his grandmother.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, pulling back to look at me with those intense eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
My breath catches in my throat. “What are you sorry for?”
He doesn’t answer me, just keeps stroking my hair, his eyes never leaving mine. What am I supposed to think after he says something like that? He looks away from me, and I reach out, taking his chin in my hand, his stubble rough against my skin.
“James,” I say, my voice trembling. “What are you sorry for?”
He looks me in the eye and says the words I’ve been waiting for since the day he came back.
“I’m sorry for hurting you.”
“Oh,” I whisper, feeling my heart swell a little. It doesn’t change things, but I’ll take what he’s giving me because I’ve learned that sometimes things need to be broken down into pieces if they’re going to be rebuilt.
If it’s even worth rebuilding. I’m still not sure on that. I’m not sure about anything in this world anymore.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you,” he says again, a look of anguish on his face.
“I know,” I say, cupping his cheek in my hand. “I know you didn’t. You were a mess; I was a mess…”
“I’m still a mess, Laila.”
I can’t tell if he’s warning me or not, but I nod. “I know that too.”
He sighs and kisses my palm before moving off the bed and pulling back the bedspread, both of us shuffling under it, a cold draft coming in from the thin windowpanes now that our body temperatures have returned to normal. “We better get some sleep,” he says. “Tomorrow is going to be hard.”
A lump builds in my throat as I rest on his chest and his arm goes around me. “I know.”
He kisses my forehead. “And even though it’s going to be hard, I’m going to be here with you, every step of the way.”
I give him a quick smile, appreciating the hell out of him.
He’s going to be by my side for now.
That’s going to have to be enough.
Seventeen
JAMES
Helge’s funeral was beautiful, held at a white church in the middle of town. It felt like everyone in the town showed up. There must have been at least sixty people or more, some even standing outside the low stone walls of the graveyard and watching from afar.
She was buried next to her husband, Kolbjorn, and next to her children, Hedda and Erik.
I held Laila’s hand the entire time. I wanted to be her wall, the thing that could shield her from the world and everything bad in it. But I could not shield her from her grief, and that was a hard thing to come to terms with. Each tear that fell, each sob that escaped her lips…I wanted to take it all from her, free her from her pain.
But I couldn’t. I could only be there and try to be a source of comfort.
I wasn’t the only one doing that, of course. Laila had an endless stream of love from the villagers, neighbors, and friends. I met her cousin Peter, someone she doesn’t speak of very often but who I understand is her only family left, and it was touching to see them together. He’s a very quiet, stoic fellow in his late sixties, with a wife and a daughter who live in Canada. He promised Laila that though the house is hers now, he will take care of it for as long as she needs him to, which she seemed so touched by. The house is special and should be passed on through the generations, but at the moment, with her job in Oslo, it doesn’t seem like she’ll be able to use it anytime soon.
“That was nice of your cousin,” I tell her on the walk back to the house. We were given a ride to the funeral by the neighbors, Ann and Terre (they insisted, practically snatched the rental car keys from my hand), but Laila wanted to get some exercise and process everything by walking back. She said it’s only a half-hour walk, but the roads aren’t fully plowed, so it makes it a rather slow stroll through the snow.
“Yeah,” she says with a sniff, wiping at her eyes with her mitten. “He’s always kept to himself, you know. Growing up I didn’t see Peter’s daughter, Ingrid, very much. I think they, like so many people my age in this town, weren’t sure what to do with me.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “I was a strange kid. I mean, I still am, but…yeah. I listened to dark music—you know, Norwegian metal, that type—I dyed my hair black. Did everything except tattoos and piercings, and that’s only because I’m a wimp when it comes to pain.”
