Pelle and Amara have to answer some very important questions. When does love become toxic? At what point do you gain the courage to realize the perfect relationship has turned into a mascarade? And when exactly do you see the abuse you've put each o...
The notes in which I tell the story of our quarrel in Greece don't have any dates, though I know I had written them months after the events.
When we met, both of us were students at the Helsinki University of Technology, otherwise known as Teknillinen korkeakoulu. At that time we both knew what we wanted to do with our lives; finding each other by chance, at a party for foreign students, seemed to be a miracle.
One year after that, however, I told her I'm dropping out. For a few months, she preached about how I'm missing my best opportunity, how I'm making the biggest mistake of my life.
I knew what I was doing, though. My father had passed away a few years prior and mom had finally decided she's done with our family business. I had written down all kinds of pathetic phrases about the wonder of being the CEO of a large company and how Amara simply didn't understand me.
I know now there's no wonder in that. Amara, of course, wanted the best for me. She wanted me to finish my studies and be the intelligent person interested in Physics that she had fallen for. I too, had the best intentions. I wanted money, of course, and I wanted the best life for us both.
When we arrived in Athens, she was already somewhat unhappy and dropping all kinds of hints that I should change back to the person I was when we met. At that time I was angry at her and I was writing all kinds of degrading phrases making sure to make her look as crazy as possible.
By all means, Amara was not wrong, but I never stopped to look at myself and wonder what changed. Now, comparing the notes from 2-3 years prior with the journals from when I was 25, I know.
One year before I dropped out of the University, I remember having long talks with her about our future life, even though I never wrote them down. Neither of us imagined it would turn out the way it did.
Reading all of it now, I try to find where exactly I picked up the vodka bottle. I guess there was not a specific moment. It was a sip today, a glass tomorrow, a bottle next week, and when we landed in Athens, Amara was already afraid of what my encounter with her parents would be like.
Greeks sure know how to have fun -I'll give them that. Her father greeted me with wine, probably the best I had ever and will ever taste. Her mother gave me so much home cooked food, at some point I felt like I might collapse into my own mass and form a black hole.
The last conversation I remembered vividly about that night in my notes was about what the hell we were going to do when Amara would finish her studies. Of course, I gloated about how she doesn't need to worry, I have all this money, 'cause, you see, I am the CEO of this exquisite Swedish Company.
I think her parents didn't mean that, though. They knew how intelligent their daughter was and didn't doubt that even without me, she'd have to trouble living the finer life.
But I was from Stockholm and she was from way, way far South and of course, as all sane parents, they wanted their daughter close to their home. Or at least not that far away. I never had that, so at the time it was impossible for me to understand. I don't think that dad managed to talk to me four times by the time I turned 18 and left Sweden to study, and mom, as the busy important manager she was, made sure I had money and a babysitter.
But I guess the warmth of the South influences the hearts of people, too, because I had never seen such loving parents as my Amara's.
That night she pulled me out of their house, in the garden, and clenched her fists in my shirt. Everyone says that women are more beautiful when you are drunk. My Amara was a goddess. My Amara was Afrodite herself, with her dark curls flowing gently in the salty breeze of the Mediterranean, in the same rhythm as the olive tree's branches behind her. Oh, yes, I'll never forget their little garden in Artemida, and the way the sea sent cold shivers down my spine, such different shivers comparing to those the Swedish blizzard managed to hit me with.
''Pelle,'' her little rosy mouth whispered, and caught my head between her long fingers.
The bronze of her skin melted in the prolonged time she had spent in Scandinavia, and I was angry on the sun for not hitting her perfect skin, and on the pale tone her face had become. She was looking more Nordic now, even though she was still the most exotic person in my life, but I was starting to miss her radical Greek looks.
''I think we should come here this summer, wouldn't you love to get suntanned?'' I laughed like a donkey, and she took the bottle out of hand and threw it somewhere in the stone walls of her garden.
''Stop, that was enough.''
I stood there like a stone, ashamed and drunk, and barely keeping balance. Amara was just a little shorter than me, and her lips parted in the melodious way they always used to, and I kissed them. She was nearly disgusted, I figure now that I must have smelled like the most miserable pub in Dublin.
''I want you,'' I clenched at her hips. For some ironic reason, she was wearing a thin white dress and the cold of December was giving her goosebumps. For me, it felt like September.
''Pelle, let's get inside...''
I stopped her, and kissed her again, and for some gaodforsaken reason, she gave into me and kissed me back.
That was maybe the most beautiful of all my nights in Greece. Amara insisted on going to bed early, because I was ashaming her in front of her parents, but of course, in my clouded mind, I thought she couldn't wait for me.
I don't remember vividly -that night is like a fairy tale to me. I remember seeing the large, dark, incredibly beautiful sea out her window, and the moon reflecting in the water. I remember her hips being pushed down by my shaky white hands, and the blue veins traveling along the back of my palms, pumping alcohol, holding the sides of her thighs.
I remember her large mirror, and the way I saw myself with her, her perfectly curved silhouette rising above me like a tower, like a swift shadow, like a hollow breath. I thought we fitted like two pieces of puzzle. We used to, at least.
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''Peteris,'' she called out my full name, for the last time that I wrote that down, clenching her fists so hard in my shoulders that I had bruises for weeks.
