Apart

LHR-OSL

She just left.

There were no goodbyes or notes left. Not even the almost empty bottle of shampoo stayed in the shower when Noora had collected every last one of her possessions in the well traveled suitcase she had brought to London.

Her fingers traced the slightly faded ‚I love Madrid' sticker she had put on the hard cover to mark it as her own. Madrid, another city, another unspoken goodbye. She still so intently remembered her parents' angry voices over the phone when they had discovered their daughter's escape to far-away Spain. But that had been different, at least she repeated that thought in her head; over and over to drown out any voices doubting her decision.

She wasn't running away this time; no, she was returning home. To the place where she could always expect her new family to welcome her, to the city all her friends lived in, even to the school and gossip she had been part of for the last year. How she missed Eskild, the inappropriate snarky comments he would great her with instead of good morning or hello. And Linn, her head in a blanked and mouth in a straight line, only ever leaving the seclusion of her room for a bottle of Funlight.

Her lips slightly curled upwards at the thought of all the faces her friends would make when the saw her. Eskild would most likely pick her up like a little child and even Linn might grace her return with the smallest of smiles. Eva, gasping at her with a loving ‚fucking hell Noora!', Vilde's ecstatic exclamations of joy, Chris dropping a cheeky comment and Sana's always knowing smirk.

The unexpectedly loud siren of a passing ambulance pulled her thoughts back to England, London, the apartment she was about to vacate. The floor and every surface was bare and neatly polished, resulting in perfect rows of little specs of light covering the marble kitchen counter. The sheets of the unnecessary big bed were perfectly folded, the windowsills cleared of any dust and not even one pillow graced the cold leather couch, Noora had barely set upon twice. If she didn't know any better, she might say the apartment served as a show room, every last piece of furniture was perfectly positioned - not once moved - there were no decorations saved for the guitar, leaning against a living room wall, he had brought from Oslo; the only reminder that this had indeed been their apartment.

It looked untouched, empty, derived of any life or joy, she found. The walls were too white, the wooden floors too shiny and there was no lingering smell of freshly made coffee or his perfume she so adored in the air.

As somehow reassuring, it also had a slightly dreary connotation: she hadn't left a single mark in the whole apartment; as if she had never lived her for a single day.

Another loud honk, this time it was the taxi she had just ordered some minutes prior. One last look around the half empty rooms and then the key turned in the lock for the last time before she hoisted her suitcase down the steep set of stairs leading from their apartment.

The ride to Heathrow was short and somehow her mind had remained completely calm, as if nothing was out of order. She should feel bad, feel anything but indifferent and yet their wasn't as single tear or uncertain look thrown across her shoulder. Her eyes were strictly trained forward, away from the British capital and focused on the way leading her back home, or as close to home as she had ever known.

After navigating through the airport and finding her window seat on the plain, Noora sensed the lack of sleep from the previous night catching up with her, so shortly after leaving the British coast her eyes fell closed and stayed that way until the decent to Oslo.

She had been up the better part of the night, knowing full well what she was about to do the next morning. The debate in her head - whether or not to tell him - had been quickly decided by the memory of his pleading eyes when she had once asked him for space after the bottle incident. If that had been his reaction then, she was absolutely certain she couldn't take his sad face now.

But she had spent that last night alone, as she had many nights before. He would work long hours into the late evenings more days than not and since the office also offered a couch to sleep on, Noora had the huge bed to herself. It had only made it worse and his absence more noticeably, when she would toss and turn in her dreams and never once accidentally hit his shoulder with her arm or find herself waking curled against his chest. Even the pillow placed on his empty side of the bed had lost his familiar smell.

Of course she would tell him, explain everything; but maybe it wouldn't be necessary. After all this return to Oslo didn't exclude a possible trip back to London in a few weeks. Maybe she just needed to see her friends, have fun and get dragged along to High school parties for a month. Maybe that could be enough, it might fill the hole in her chest.

This wasn't breaking up, this wasn't falling out of love, this was simply her going back to Oslo. There was no need to tell him as their was nothing to tell.

What could she even write?

I'm in Oslo.

I'll be back.

I miss you.

You're never home. I miss you.

I can't stay, you alway leave me here alone.

I miss you. I love you.

I love you.

No, that wouldn't help; neither him nor herself. A note couldn't change the fact that she left, a piece of paper wouldn't make her absence any less real.

And maybe he wouldn't mind, it might have actually been what he was waiting for. Was he too much a gentleman - or a coward - to tell her to leave himself, was this his way of pushing her away?

Her jaw tightened at the thought, he wouldn't do that, would he?

Yes, he was rarely home, only ever showed his face at the apartment when he thought her fast asleep or away visiting one of the many museums. But that was because of work, because of the long office hours and because of his always expecting father. The man demanded so much and who was she to keep him from the only sane family he had left.

Because admitting she might be the cause of his prolonged absences would hurt too much; and right now she was not gonna let herself feel anything, especially not that.

Deep down, she had of course turned it over and over in her head numerous times. How disappointed he had been at the result - or rather lack of one - from Nico's trail and the constant sadness and cold eyes he would fill their apartment with. It still haunted her, the way he would look at her when he thought she wouldn't notice. The thin line of this lips and the mix of incomprehensible emotions playing behind his empty eyes.

Did he not love her any longer and had it all been her doing?

She shook her head and the fine curtain of blond hair clouded her vision. She couldn't think like this, she shouldn't. This would lead to absolutely nothing more than further deepening the heavy guilt she already ached to shake from her body.

Everything was in order and she was only her to visit, that was what she would tell her friends and herself. Nothing had happened, this didn't mean the end of anything; this was just a little space.

The tram came to a halt at her stop and when she turned the corner into her street, the world around her seemed to make a little more sense. Something about the old houses and colourful facades made her heart beat faster and forced the wrinkled skin on her forehead smooth.

The closest feeling she had ever experienced to coming home.

And if it hadn't been for the ding-sound of her vibrating phone, the illusion of her old life might have been seamless.

William: Noora??