Moments with Michael

Visiting home part 2

"Gry? Wake up, baby!" It's Michael.

I slowly blink my eyes, for a moment confused as to where I am and why I'm not home in my bed. And then it all returns to me, and happiness fills me at the thoughts. We're in a plane, on our way to visit my family home in Denmark. I open my eyes fully, smiling at the sight of Michael sitting beside me with a similar smile on his pretty face.

"We're almost there" He tells me. "We land in 30 minutes, you have been sleeping for nine hours!"

"Oh... wow. I must have been tired" I answer him, a bit overwhelmed. I know I went to bed late yesterday... and the day before... and the day before that... Okay maybe it's not so strange after all.

I look past Michael, and see Line sitting almost sideways in her seat, reading a seemingly very interesting book. A closer look reveals that it's Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. I smile a bit for myself. Me and my friends, including Line, watched all the Harry Potter movies together in ninth grade, right before a school trip to USA where we, among other things, visited Universal Studios and of course the Harry Potter rides. I had already read the books five times by then, and I honestly doesn't remember a thing from the movies. But it got her caught up on it, and later she bought the then brand new The Cursed Child cheap, and read it about three times before I finally got her to read the others. She have been hooked on them ever since, I think this is the fourth or fifth time she reads them. And I can still hear her gasp in surprise and fear at the scary parts.

I yawn and stretches as much as possible on the limited space in the airplane-seat. Before we took off, I found both a book, earphones and my phone, so I had something to do in the long time. Turned out I didn't need it, but I still have to get it back into the small bag I brought with me on the plane. I growl at the sight of the almost impossibly tangled up earphones, before then starting the slow process of untangling them again.

After 25 minutes of getting stuff in the bag, convincing Line to put down her book, and looking excited out of the window, the plane starts to go down. Slowly but surely we get closer to my home than I have been for the past ten months. When the plane finally hits the ground, and it's announced that we can go out, we grab our small bags (or at least me and Line does, Michael didn't feel the need to have one with him) and heads out of the door.

When we step out of the plane, both me and Lines first instinct is to close our eyes and take a deep breath of the nice May-air. It does not exactly feel warm, when you're used to California temperatures, but after Danish standard it's a very good day!

Michael giggles a bit and shakes his head, with a big smile on his lips.

"Good to be home?" He asks

"Very" is my only response, when I open my eyes and look at him, unable to hold back a big smile.

He grabs my hand, and we starts heading towards the baggage claim. After yet another journey through the jungles of security, we finally stand outside the airport, in the center of Copenhagen.

I have never been very familiar with the capital of my country, given that I lived my entire childhood in the western part of Jutland. But the two years before I moved to the USA with Michael, I lived in a suburb and took the S-train to the city every day to go to school, so it's not that I haven't been here.

Even though we are tired after the flight (or at least the others are, I feel very refreshed), we immediately heads for the train station. After long conversations and a lot of persuasion, I had finally convinced my parents, that they didn't have to meet us here, because I know that even though they don't want to admit it, they don't want to go here. None of them like big cities much, and they are absolutely horrible at finding their way in places they don't know, to tell the truth. Another thing is, that I would like to have some time to talk to Michael about my country without them. I have, of course, been talking about it non-stop since about a week before we went here, but it's different now that we're here. There's so much I want to tell him and explain to him.

We arrive at the train station to a big surprise. It's none other than Lines boyfriend, Jonas, standing a few meters away looking very confused. I see Line just freeze on the spot for a second, before running over to him. He quickly turns his head and sees her, his eyes sparkling with happiness. A second later Line reaches him and hugs him tightly, and as one of the few persons on this earth, he hugs her back just as tight. Me and Michael just stand there, a few meters away, awkwardly looking at each other. When they start kissing, we decide to go and get our tickets.

A few minutes later we've got the tickets, and they finds us again. Our train goes in twenty minutes, so until then we decides to get a sandwich at a nearby subway. Plane-food isn't exactly the best, and we could all use something to eat. Line and Jonas doesn't take their eyes off each other until we get on the train, and they keep smiling. But well, I shouldn't be one to judge. I'm pretty sure I was even worse, when I moved to California and finally saw Michael again after two years!

We sit beside each other on the train, with Line and Jonas opposite us, facing towards us. In the beginning none of us say much. When two of the four hours of the trip to the other side of our small country has passed, with people mainly just sleeping, Michael breaks the dominating, tired silence:

"Gry?"

"Yes?" I answer him

"Do your parents talk English? Or will I have to talk Danish to them?" He asks, sounding a bit concerned about the last possibility. I have been trying to teach him some Danish, but it's a hard language, and even though he's smart and surprisingly fast at learning languages, I don't think he would be able to hold a conversation in Danish.

"They talk English, don't worry" I tell him with a little giggle.

"Phew!" He responds with exaggerated relief. "I don't think it would have been a very good first impression, if I had to talk to them in Danish!"

"You would blow them away with your charm, even if they didn't have a clue what you were talking about!" I tell him with laughter in my eyes. He just rolls his at me, smiling widely.

"Yeah, sure" he says sarcastically.

I take his hand under the table, that separates our seat from Line and Jonas', and he just looks at me with love in his eyes, squeezing my hand lightly. I feel myself blushing, hardly even understanding why. He just does something to me.

"I don't think you'll ever have to worry about language barriers here, Michael." Line adds in on our conversation. "We learn English in school from first grade, and most people watch lots of English and American television too!"

"From first grade!? Then it makes better sense, why you talked so fluent English when you first started at the school!" Michael exclaims, his voice almost disbelieving.

I look at Line and we both starts laughing. Jonas just smiles at us, and Michael shakes his head slightly, with a small smile on his lips.

"What will you do when we arrive in Herning?" I ask Line and Jonas, awkwardly pronouncing the Danish city-name.

"I have my car there. I thought maybe you would need lift?" Jonas answers, and I smile thankfully.

"Thank you, that would be much appreciated. I thought we would have to take a taxi or a bus, and that would honestly be a bit inconvenient" I answer him. "Are you going to Vorgod too?"

Vorgod is the small city both me and Jonas lived in when we were younger, and both our parents still live there.

"Perfect!" I answer when he nods.

It gets quiet between us again, and it's easy to feel that people are still tired. I lay my head on Michaels shoulder, and his hand, that before held mine, lets go to wrap around my shoulders.

Silence falls among us for a long time, and Line eventually falls asleep, her head resting peacefully on the shoulder of her boyfriend. After maybe 45 minutes, Michael breaks the silence in a low voice to not disturb our sleeping friend:

"Was it this part of the country you lived in?"

"No, not exactly. We're on... well Fyn, I don't know the english name for it. One of the two big islands in Denmark, the biggest being Zealand, that we were on before. I grew up in western Jutland." I tell him.

"Okay" is his only answer, before he puts his arm around me and starts caressing my back lightly. I turn my head a bit to smile up at his irresistible, dark brown puppy eyes, only to see them coming closer as he bends down to kiss me softly, making my stomach flutter with thousands of butterflies.