BUTTERFLIES

CHAPTER EIGHT

After our night in Rørøs, the rest of the trip flew by. We only spent two more days in Oslo so my class could finish it's tour.

The first morning back in Copenhagen, I awoke to four missed calls from Lena and a buzzing from the doorbell.

Shit. What is happening? I thought, still half asleep. It was before 8 and I had grown accustomed to a later schedule since Lena. I stumbled out of bed and walked up to the buzzer, pressing the button to talk before I even really knew if I could speak this early.

"Lena?" I asked, groggily.

"Mari, I need help," I heard her respond from the front stoop.

"Oh, oh, okay," I said, alerting to the panic in her voice. I buzzed her in without asking anything more and went to unlock the door. I could hear her running up the stairs, so I stepped out into the hallway in anticipation.

She didn't look like herself, or at least any version of herself I had seen before. Her eyes were wide and glossed over with tears, though it didn't look like any had fallen yet. She pushed past me into the apartment and then turned around and grabbed my arms.

"Jemand hat uns gesehen, ich glaub', they took a photo of us..." she said, her voice trailing off, speaking urgently but still softly, not yelling.

"Oh my god," I could barely process what she said and much less respond with anything helpful. I sat down onto the edge of my bed and she sat next to me, trying to elaborate on what had happened.

Looking at her, despite the gravity of the moment, she had a wild beauty to her, a beauty of bewilderment and messy hair. There was always a raw beauty when people were at their most vulnerable.

"Okay, Lena, slow down. Let's breathe for a minute, everything is going to be okay," I tried to calm her.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her forehead. As I held her, she sunk into me, resting her head on my lap. I felt a tear drop from her eye onto my thigh. I gently caressed her temple and combed her hair with my fingers. I didn't know what to say, so I thought it better to offer silence. I wanted her to know I would listen.

After a few minutes, she sat up and wiped under her eyes, her sweatshirt pulled over her hands.

"I wasn't ready," she whispered. At this very moment, she looked really small.

"I know you weren't," I consoled, pausing a moment before clarifying, "Someone posted a photo of us?"

"Yeah, I think so. Lisa had called me a bunch of times when I woke up and said it was an emergency, and I was worried something had happened to my family but it was this. Look," she said, pulling out her phone and opening up Instagram. She went to her tags on their public account and there we were, filling up nearly every tiny square.

It was taken from behind, so both our faces were hidden, but it was very clearly Lena. It was from the train station in Oslo, right before we left. It would have just been a picture with a friend had we not been holding hands.

"Oh. Oh my god. Lena, I'm so sorry," I said. We never held hands in public for this very reason, but for the one minute we did yesterday, this happened. I suddenly felt an overwhelming gut-wrenching fear wash over me. What if this ruins us? I thought. But I couldn't show her this fear. This didn't affect me the way it affected her, no one even knew who I was.

"Well, do you want comfort or advice?" I asked. I always asked this to people when they came to me with a problem, it helps to avoid arguments. Sometimes it's easier to be comforted at first, rather than being faced with the truth. Ignorance can be bliss.