Good at Being Alive(82)
“Six children?” I reply, pulling him closer by his belt. “Have you met me? They’d be removed by the authorities for neglect almost immediately.”
He smiles. His mouth is so close to mine. Close enough to graze my lips. “I’ll have to earn enough for a team of nannies too, then.”
“Cut!” shouts Lars. “Guys, come on! That was the perfect moment for you to show the audience your marriage won’t work, and you made it look like you were about to bang instead. Try to dislike each other a little more tomorrow, yeah?”
We promise we will. He does not appear to believe us, and I don’t believe us either.
Jon and LJ pack up the gear and Theo helps load the van. Thanks to the midnight sun, it’s only dusk out, though it’s well after nine. I cannot believe our night together is ending so soon—Theo’s house isn’t even in the same section of Bergen as ours, so there’s no way we can both “happen to meet on a walk”—probably for the best, as I don’t know the local laws on public nudity.
When they’re ready to go, his fingertips brush mine. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
“I’m going to be much better at hating you then,” I whisper.
“I hope not,” he says with a quiet smile, and my heart goes thud, thud, thud so loudly I’m worried the crew can hear it.
I don’t ever want to be better at hating him. I don’t think I’m capable of hating him. And if that’s true, how am I going to survive it if I’m not what he wants in the end?
* * *
? ? ?
The next morning we ride to the top of Mount Fl?yen via funicular to get a bird’s-eye view of Bergen—tiny and uniform below us, with the North Sea encircling it, and what appear to be mountainous islands in the distance. The air is crisp at the top, and Theo hands me a sweatshirt he shoved in one of the crew’s bags.
“You sure you don’t need it?” I ask.
His mouth curves gently to one side. “I didn’t bring it for myself,” he says.
I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Has there been a single trip where he hasn’t taken care of me in some way, whether it was cutting up donuts in Iceland or beating the shit out of Caden in Paris?
It’s going to be hard to give that up, once filming is done.
At a small café atop Fl?yen, we eat open-faced sandwiches—with enough veg we’d just call them salad at home—and then head to the base of Ulriken, the highest of the area’s seven mountains, so that we can run to its peak up thirteen hundred stone steps. I’d hoped we might at least get some privacy during the run but no, they’ve hired someone to film us by drone.
“When are these fucking cameras going to be off us?” I whisper while the crew sets up.
“Not until Geiranger,” he replies with a quiet groan. “We’re glamping at the base of a waterfall. Sharing a small RV.”
Jon shouts at us to turn on our mics. Reluctantly, we do so.
“So how small is the RV?” I ask.
“Incredibly tight,” he says, glancing at my mouth. “So fucking tight. I’m definitely too big for it.”
My thighs clench. I can’t wait. I also can’t believe we’ve only got three nights together and we’re spending two of them apart.
We start our run, which should only take thirty minutes, but there’s a problem with the drone, so they make us wait halfway up until it’s fixed.
When I know they can’t see us, I lean against Theo as we take in the view—lakes and the city below, mountains in the distance. I don’t know who it is I’m becoming, this girl who enjoys running up the side of a mountain and only wants to rest her head against Theo’s now sweaty chest, but maybe this is the person I was meant to be: someone who doesn’t have to hide what she loves and what she’s good at, someone who’s allowed to be the best version of herself.
In spite of the year I’ve had…in this moment, I’m happier than I ever remember being. Because of something I stole from Bronwyn. Because of something I might not be able to keep. The realization terrifies me.
“What’s the first thing you’ll do when we get divorced?” I ask.
“That isn’t funny anymore,” he says, looking away.
I was trying to remind him that I’m in on the joke. That it’s okay if I’m not his first choice. I suspect, however, that I’ve hurt him instead. And, the truth is…it wouldn’t be okay if I wasn’t his first choice. It wouldn’t be okay at all.
Bex
The day of our drive from Bergen to Geiranger by RV kicks off with a fifteen-mile run through downtown Bergen and into the surrounding hills. My legs are somewhat leaden from yesterday’s jog up the steps at Ulriken, but when I try to persuade Theo and Lars that we should cut it short or stop to check out the old wood-framed merchant homes that line the harbor, neither of them bites.
“You’ve got this, Bex,” Theo says, his smile warm, and in the end, he’s right. Eventually my legs get a second wind, and though I’m never going to become someone who refers to a fifteen-mile run as “easy” or “pleasant,” after long runs in sweltering Paris and New Jersey, the cooler temps make it almost okay.
I have just enough time to shower and throw my stuff in a bag before the RV is idling in front of the house, with Theo grinning at me from behind the wheel. For a single blinding second—even as Jon is descending from the RV with the camera on his shoulder—I allow myself to imagine that it’s just the two of us here, setting off in an RV to marvel at mountains and fjords and endure long, painful runs.