Page 62 of Entwined in Norway

Ida proposed a circular route that went around the edge of Vangsvatnet, a lake at the base of the mountain they rode up on the gondola yesterday. The west side was a main road which would be good while Ida got her biking game pinned down, and the ride back to town was on smaller, quieter roads, through green fields and farmland on the banks of the lake.

She led the way, and he was happy about that. Now he’d got a taste of having the wind in his face as he cycled, he wanted more of it and he might get carried away and leave Ida behind. Everything felt good, and he felt like whooping every time they had a small run downhill where he felt the tiniest bit out of control and had to overtake Ida a couple of times to avoid running into the back of her.

‘You look like you’re enjoying this,’ she called out as he overtook her on one such occasion.

He squeezed his brakes at the bottom of the incline so she could catch up with him, and they rode side by side on the road. She was definitely more at ease now, but she wasn’t confident enough to take her eyes off the direction of travel. Whereas he was loving the view. The water was still, perfectly reflecting the landscape around it like a mirror. It was truly beautiful.

‘I am loving this, Ida. Best part of the trip.’

He knew she was dying to look at him, to see if he had a glint in his eye to tell her he was teasing. Of course he was. Being with Ida somewhere where she could let herself go, not be at work, or too close to work to feel she could switch off, that was great to see.

‘I’m kidding.’ He put her out of her misery. ‘Turns out you can be a lot of fun to hang out with.’

She laughed, and he loved seeing her light up like that.

‘I don’t think anyone’s thought I was fun before. Except maybe Emil.’ She pulled over onto the side of the road where the shore of the lake levelled into a beach. ‘I need a drink.’

‘Let’s take a break then.’

They propped the bikes up against a tree and sat on a couple of rocks near the water.

‘Every single view in this country is awesome.’

‘Isn’t Canada like that?’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t think anywhere else would be. And also we have a lot of endless flat parts which you don’t have. There’s something spectacular going on across the whole of Norway as far as I can tell.’

‘That’s probably true. But I think this part of the country is the most beautiful.’

‘I’m so glad we did this. I love Lysgården, but this has scratched an itch I had.’

‘You’re properly sporty. I mean, I knew that had to be the case because you were a champion snowboarder, but I hadn’t realised that you needed the activity and the sport to make you…’

‘Happy?’

She nodded. ‘You’re happier since we came here. In the great outdoors, being more active. That’s what you need, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know if I even knew that until today, which is crazy. The snowboarding isn’t what I’m missing. I mean, I’m missing it, but because of the community and friends I don’t have now. Not because of the relentless training, my whole body being sore all the time, and my whole life being run for me around competition dates. But that’s a lot of stuff to replace, and I was focussing on how I was going to fill my time instead of what parts of that are the parts worth replacing.’ He looked at Ida to see if she could make sense of all of that which he was only processing himself as he was talking. It was like a revelation, all because of a bike ride.

‘So what I’m getting from that is you want to be a championship mountain biker?’

He laughed. ‘Your English is terrible then.’

She scooched to sit closer to him. ‘I think your life was all about one goal, and when that was taken away, you thought you needed a new goal. Maybe it doesn’t have to be one thing. Maybe it’s about building a life that’s all the things you enjoy so that if one day one part isn’t going well, something else can still give you some happiness. Maybe one good thing to come out of your accident is that life doesn’t have to be all or nothing anymore.’

It made a lot of sense. And also made him realise that his goal in coming to Norway was to use the legacy to help him move on. His mom using that as a guiding star for him had been almost the only thing he’d had to cling to, and maybe she was being smart and knew already that he needed to switch his attention from snowboarding to a new goal. Going along with that might have brought him here, to Norway, but being here had made him realise he didn’t need that. And it was kind of a relief. Especially since that meant that telling Ida about the legacy didn’t hold as much importance for him as it had a couple of weeks ago.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said, hauling himself to his feet. ‘The other side of this lake looks perfect for skinny-dipping.’

‘We didn’t bring towels.’

He grinned at her and raised an eyebrow. ‘Huh. I expected a hard no to that suggestion. I think my sense of adventure is rubbing off on you.’

‘Don’t think you’re the first man I’ve been skinny-dipping with,’ she said haughtily, taking her bike and straddling it before clipping her helmet back on.

‘Oh, really?’

She side-eyed him, and he knew she was lying.