“I will,” I said. I glanced at the others in the lobby. Cael held out his hand, signaling to me that it was time to go. “I’ll speak to y’all tomorrow. Love y’all!”
“Love you too!” they shouted back in unison, and I hung up, feeling lighter. As I walked up to Cael, he wrapped his arm over my shoulders and pulled me to his side. We were caring less and less if the others saw us this way.
I’d also noticed that Cael never called home. Leo had told him this morning he’d spoken to his parents again to let them know he was okay. That seemed to be the case most days. Cael acknowledged Leo with a tight jerk of his chin. I hadn’t broached the subject of his parents with him. He was making such good progress, but it was clear he was still in the emotional trenches, and I didn’t want to pry too hard as to why. He was less angry. He was joking and smiling more these days. That was incredible to witness. I feared pushing him too hard about his parents would only see him retreat. And like Mia and Leo had said, I needed to let him explore his journey through grief himself. Even though I just wanted to make him better.
We climbed into the bus. Chills raced up and down my spine with excitement. This was a bucket list item for me. Poppy came to my mind as I thought that, but rather than letting the image disable me, I pictured how excited her face was and how pleased for me she would be. We’d often dreamed of seeing this together—her, me, and Ida. Rune’s text came to mind like a warm blanket being cast around me.
She’s with you …
I wanted to believe it.
Although the Aurora Borealis could be seen from Troms?, to get the full effect we were taking a bus out of the city, away from its lights and to a place of solitude where we could see the most activity.
Cael smiled at me when I glanced out of the window, the city fading to the background and the heavily packed snow around us our only view. He placed a hand on my knee. Butterflies filled my chest, then swooped down to my stomach. It was a sensation I was becoming more than familiar with. Every day, when Cael was close, they awoke.
I let myself take a glance at his lips. Lips that had so very nearly kissed mine. I could still feel the heat of his warm, minty breath on my cold skin. Still feel how soft his lips were as they lightly brushed against mine.
I felt like everything between was going at hyperspeed, like we were in a vacuum where we felt and experienced more than we ever would back home.
Our emotions were high and we were grasping onto moments that lifted us and made us feel seen.
I felt more than seen by Cael than I had by anyone before. Being as introverted as I was, it was almost impossible for me to let people in. But he’d gently knocked on the door to my heart, and carefully stepped inside. He hadn’t barged in, hadn’t slammed it open. But softly, carefully, asked to be let in.
And I liked him being there. But it terrified me too.
Cael took hold of my hand and leaned against the bus seat’s headrest, oblivious to my affectionate thoughts about him. He closed his eyes, and it gave me license to really study him, unobserved. He was so much more than I’d given him credit for at the beginning of the trip. I’d seen his tattoos and gauges, his stormy eyes and clenched jaw, his cutting outbursts, and assumed he was cold and brash. Someone who didn’t want the company of others.
But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He was kind and pure and sensitive. I wanted him to heal from his brother’s death as much as I did from Poppy’s. I’d still only received breadcrumb details over his brother’s death. And that was absolutely fine. Due to the nature of Cillian’s death, I expected it was almost impossible to speak about without breaking.
Since we’d been in Norway, I’d sensed more of a change in Cael. I wasn’t sure we could do what we’d set out to do—to forget our grief for a little while. But we were trying, and I did feel lighter. Without grief’s heavy weight pressing down on my neck, I was able to look up and see the sky. See the stars, the sun, and the moon.
I was about to see the Northern Lights.
I’d had a one-to-one session with Leo yesterday. We’d talked about CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). It wasn’t the first time I’d tried it. It was a way to reframe my thoughts. Turn them on their head to find a deeper meaning within them. Back in Georgia, Rob had tried it with me too. The difference here was that
I was willing to try. Back home, I’d been a veritable statue, soul-trapped inside of my frozen body, unable to break free from grief’s ice-cold fists.
Here … my body had begun to thaw, allowing me to try. And I
was trying. Here in Norway, I’d been trying more than ever. Rune had tried that approach with me too. That instead of being sad that Poppy wasn’t here with me, I should experience this for her—for us both.
It wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t easy. And if I let my guard down for as short a time as just a few minutes, sadness tried to crash against me with the force of a tidal wave. But I was fighting back, at least for now. I was embracing the brief reprieve of peace.
As I stared at Cael, sleep taking him to safety for a while, I hoped that was true for him too. I stared back out of the window again. All that greeted me was snow. Miles and miles of snow, nothing else in sight. The bus crunched on the ice beneath its tires, and I laid my head on Cael and let the smell of sea salt and fresh air dance around me.
If someone had told me several weeks ago that I’d be here right now, with a boy I liked, in Norway, about to see the northern lights, I would have thought they were lying.
But if life had taught me anything, it’s that it can change on a dime.
It was nice for the universe to show me that it wasn’t always for the worse.
The sun began to lower in the distance, and I could already see lark-natured stars waking and casting their brightness into the not-yet-dark sky. It was as though they wanted front seats to the show we were all about to see.
Stars … they would always remind me of Poppy. When she passed and I was searching for a meaning to her loss, or when the urge to see her again became so overwhelming, I searched for anything to carry a sign. The stars became that for me. Space was vast and mostly unknown. It made sense to me that Poppy could have become a star after she passed. She’d shone bright enough in life that she would blaze in the heavens. For months after her death, when the wound was raw and disabling, seeing the stars had always brought me a small amount of comfort. At night, I would trick myself into believing I was seeing her again in the sky. Some nights I wouldn’t let myself sleep until dawn broke and the stars had disappeared.
Just so she wouldn’t have been up there, all alone.
I was younger then. Maybe it had been a silly fantasy, a way to cope. But even now, at seventeen years old and almost four years into her absence, I still stared at the stars and missed her.
I’d once read a book on the aurora borealis. Why it happened and the many myths and beliefs different cultures had given for its existence. The one that was standing out to me right now was that it was ancestors stepping through the celestial veil, showing their loved ones they were okay. Deceased souls appearing to our eyes to reassure us they were still living, in some fashion.
At that thought, a dart of sadness hit against the protective bubble I’d created around myself, trying to break in. But I held strong and pushed it away.
Then I felt two squeezes of my hand.
I tilted my chin up and saw Cael’s sleepy eyes searching my face. I gave him a watery smile, and he kissed me on my head. Tucking back into the padding of his coat, I took solace in the quiet of the bus.
A while later the bus came to a stop and our guides made themselves busy creating a viewing spot for us with chairs and cameras and hot drinks. As I stepped from the bus, the bitter coldness took away my breath. The breeze sailed into my lungs, and each breath I took felt like it was scalding ice-fire.
I pulled my scarf over my mouth and reached for the hot chocolate we’d been provided. As I held Cael’s hand, we took our seats—side by side—as dusk quickly fell over the land. I could see the faint flickering lights of Troms? in the distance, but out here, we were isolated and witness to the eye-opening vastness of the sky that cities and towns often disguised.
Stars seemed to pop into the sky one by one in quickening succession. I was transfixed as constellation after constellation began to appear, looking clearer and more profound than ever before.
The entire group of us was silent, waiting for the burst of color that was expected. I gripped on to Cael’s hand so tightly I worried about hurting him. But he was gripping my hand tightly in return. Unified breaths were held as a flicker of green began to descend from the sky. I stayed stock-still, like any movement would disturb the shy thread of light and scare it away.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.