Work Text:
There is a disconnect between adults and their children.
Children admire confinement without knowing what it costs,
Adults admire freedom without believing it is possible.
Both are stuck.
How do you unstick?
Immediate and ferocious change.
Change your location, what you do in the mornings, change your name, change your body, and become someone else. Change is unpredictable. It makes it harder for you to stick.
Stuck is beautiful if you know what you're getting into.
The air was biting cold.
Noora stood on the steps of the school building, her fingers freezing as she scrolled through the newest poem posted on her favourite blog. She was off in her own world - the world of soft descriptors and flowing word choice.
Her hands were growing numb but, while pushing through the pain, led Noora to the discovery that this poet, wherever they were, knew her. The words they had typed onto their device and sent off onto the internet had finally reached her eyes. Noora had needed them.
That was years ago, Noora smiled, her eyes alight as she scrolled through her notifications to find the very specific one she wanted to open: Wilhelm's.
His blog had been a solace for her through her move back to Oslo and every single one of her parent’s phone calls, though everything with her friends and Eskild, who was friend-adjacent until he picked up crackers at the store. Wilhelm’s poetry had fulfilled a need she didn't even know she had.
Commenting her usual heaping of praise under the poem, Noora heard her girls approaching. She switched off her phone after pressing ‘comment’ and slid it into her pocket.
“It isn't a question, Chris.” Vilde’s voice was the first to reach Noora’s ears. “William is clearly into me. I mean, he apologised.”
Noora rolled her eyes as she recalled the thousands of texts she had been getting from the aforementioned William about that apology, asking her when she was free for that date she “owed him.” She shouldn't owe him squat, but, for Vilde, she had to.
It was Friday. Noora painted her lipstick on like battle armour. She wasn’t sure whether she would need it, but she knew that it would make her feel better. She looked at herself one more time in the mirror, and finally moved to exit the flat. She wasn’t really nervous, she thought as she made her way out of the building, because it wasn't her job to be nervous about a first date with a rich egocentric man. Speaking of said rich egocentric man, she saw that he drove to pick her up in an expensive-looking sports car that Noora might have been able to recognise if she had spent more than five seconds ever thinking about cars.
“Hi,” William said when she pulled open the door and sat down in the car. She fastened her seat belt and resolved to ignore him.
She didn't want to ask where they were going, despite knowing that William was sort of obsessed with her and going to an unknown location with someone who Noora didn't trust was probably a bad idea. But there was just something about him. Maybe it was the way he was smiling at her when he thought she couldn't see or it might have been the way he turned up the heat when he noticed her trying to warm up her chilly hands.
Either way, Noora wasn't questioning it, despite her natural instinct to question everything.
The car stopped on an outlook and, as William turned off his car and stepped out, he asked, “Are you just going to sit there and be pissed all night?”
And shit, if Noora hadn't wanted to get out before, she definitely wanted to now. But she owed him this. Noora inhaled and then tried her best to exhale her anger and frustration. It might not have worked, but she got out of the car anyway.
The view was beautiful. She took the blanket that William offered to her and then sat down on the opposite end of the bench as him, with a sour look on her face.
“I made hot cocoa,” William said, handing her a cup of the warm liquid, “If you're still cold.”
She took the drink and sat there, blowing on it occasionally to lessen the steam floating into her face.
It felt like a stalemate for who would talk first before William began. “Do you see that church over there?”
He pointed and Noora had to stop herself from craning to look.
“My grandparents lived near it in a huge creepy house. Every wall was covered in paintings and, when I was little, my brother told me that they came alive and walked around at night.”
William paused as if checking to see that Noora was listening. “The only room I liked was my Grandma’s office, she called it the blue room. Everything you could picture as being blue was blue. The vases, the ink in every pen, the chairs, even the carpets.”
“You're joking, right?” It almost felt like manipulation, feeding her stories of a sweet childhood and blue carpets.
“What?” William seemed so confused and Noora thought that maybe he had a right to be.
“You think this is going to work?” She asked, deciding that he looked just a little unlike William when confused, “The view, the cocoa, the carpet, your damn childhood story? I’m supposed to fall for that?”
The way he smiled at the caustic words flowing from her mouth was almost familiar. He was grinning, almost laughing as she got more and more upset.
“What, did you watch High School Musical and take notes on how to woo girls? Where's my song, then huh?”
William laughed slightly. “You're cold, very cold.”
“I guess I am,” Noora replied and then looked away from him. She couldn’t stand that smug look on his face any longer.
“If you don't like talking about my childhood,” William said. “What do you want to talk about?”
Noora sighed, feeling as if rolling her eyes was just a tad too much. “I don't want to talk, William. I don't want to get to know you and I definitely don't want to be here.” She gestured to him when she said that. It felt almost like psychological warfare, striking where it could hurt.
“So then why are you here?”
“For Vilde.” Noora decided to just leave it at that. What more could she have said that would have meant anything?
“For Vilde?” William asked. “I feel like I’m missing something. What does Vilde have to do with this?”
It felt like something in her exploded. Noora’s voice gained an edge that she didn't know she had as she said, “What does Vilde have to do with this? Everything. You keep pressuring me by calling her and leading her on just to get to me.”
“I wouldn't have had to if you had just answered me when I texted.”
Noora felt like the bench had just dropped out from under her. Her anger made her weightless and her frustration with William made it into her voice as she said, “I shouldn't have to answer a text message just to keep my friends.”
“What?” William said. “Does Vilde still think there is something between her and me?” Noora did not grant that a response. “You're the one who made it that way. If I hadn't apologised she might not think I care about her.”
“But she does,” Noora said. “And she cannot know that I’m here with you. You get that right? There's nothing between us but she’ll see it that way and I don't want to hurt her.” This felt like the most honest Noora had been with William, maybe ever.
“So you're lying to your friend and you want to blame me for it?” William’s voice sounded like it came from further away but when Noora turned her head to look at him again he was exactly where he had been before.
Well, he was right. In his own way. But there was no way she could let him see that. This interaction, no matter how either of them saw it, was a competition, and Noora intended to win. “The point is that I’m not interested in you, and I don't intend to ever be.”
“Well, why not?” William asked, his smug and annoying grin coming back despite the apparent frown on Noora’s face.
“You're controlling, self-centred,” Noora began before trying her best to think of a third biting thing to say, because insults come best in threes, “And cold. Like when you said that Vilde wasn’t pretty enough for you. How could you say something like that?”
William sighed, “I didn't want her to like me. You know that. And now that I apologised, because you asked me to, she likes me again.”
“You could have been nicer.”
“Why?” William said. “Why would I be nicer?”
Noora stared in astonishment. “So as not to hurt her.”
“There's no point in not hurting her. I didn't want her to like me, it's better to be clear, because now, now that I apologised, there's this thing between us that she sees as me caring for her but in reality is what you placed there to make Vilde feel better.”
That… wasn't what Noora was expecting.
She wasn't expecting him to be right. Sure, he could have been nicer but also, well, Vilde expected so much of him. Vilde expected a relationship where there wasn't any. Was William supposed to know that? Was he supposed to take that into account when it wasn't something he wanted?
Noora took a sip of the now cold hot cocoa.
“Do you want some more?” William asked, picking up the thermos.
Noora shook her head, “I like it cold, it makes it taste like chocolate milk.”
He laughed, small and breathy, and maybe he wasn't so bad. And maybe Noora should apologise for chewing him out in school that day, saying all those things about his family and his life that she didn't know jack shit about. So she opened her mouth, ready to apologise when William’s phone rang.
He stood up, making a motion for her to stay where she was as he answered the phone. He hung it up quickly after a few moments. “Sorry, we’re going to have to cut this short.”
“What’s wrong?” Noora asked as her phone buzzed. She opened the notification to see a photo of Eskild and Eva hanging out in her flat.
“Ah, I’ll drive you home,” William said, grabbing the thermos of hot cocoa and walking back to his car.
“Just so we’re clear,” Noora said before she got into the car, “I don't owe you anything, not anymore.”
“No,” William said, seeming distracted, “You don't owe me anything.”
She watched him duck into his car and shut the door behind him and, despite it all, she was concerned for him. What exactly was happening here? And did it matter to Noora? Did it need to matter to Noora?
Carpet, wall-to-wall.
I tell her about it and she laughs.
Her eyes crinkle and her mouth is open and I want to live here.
I want to live in a world where she is happy and I am happy.
I wish I could communicate.
I wish I could understand me.
Because who am I if not misunderstood?
Who am I if not a violent tidal wave being held back by the skin that hugs my body?
If only she understood.
Instead, her laughter turns to biting words and snarling teeth.
Somehow this is more beautiful.
When her face is telling the truth and my face is telling the truth and neither of us is lying.
This is more beautiful.
She is snapping and angry and her eyes are impassioned.
I am laughing and smiling and listening because who am I if not a listener?
I am a great listener.
Just like she is a great speaker.
Her laughter turns to biting words and snarling teeth and this is more beautiful than false laughter.
And what is that if not poetic?
And what is that if not poetic? Noora thinks as she reads Wilhelm's poem again. The poetic nature of juxtaposition. Laughter is the facade and anger, the truth of the matter.
Noora logged on to her WordPress account and clicked the comment button.
Namalie
What is that if not poetic? You've done it again, Wilhelm. Your poetry has hit me right in the heart. It almost feels like you write your poetry just when I need it the most. Anyway– your formatting was exactly what this piece needed and like… the repetition?!?! How… How do you do it? Natural talent I’m assuming.
She always left such gushing comments on Wilhelm's work. It wasn't uncommon for his work to hit her heart so perfectly. In fact, most of his works, as she said in the comment, were exactly what Noora needed when she read them, like the piece she had read about moving on when she had moved back to Oslo, the first of Wilhelm's works she had ever read.
The next day there was another love poem.
Have I ever seen brighter eyes?
Now Eva knew about the singular date Noora had gone on with William. Noora wasn't a very dramatic person — she left that to Eva — but it did sort of feel like the end of the world now that Eva knew how hard William was chasing her.
Every second that Eva spent in the general vicinity of Noora was accompanied by not-so-subtle winks and nudges every so often. It was hell, especially when Vilde asked what was happening and Eva couldn't think of a convincing lie so Noora had to. She felt bad, for lying to Vilde, her friend. But what else was she supposed to do?
Noora had heard about the party William was throwing. How was she supposed to forget when Eva kept texting her updates on William every four seconds? Noora didn't need to know exactly what William was drinking or which girls were hanging off his arms. She never needed to know that.
Then Eva texted, in an almost incomprehensible scramble of letters, that Vilde was talking with William.
Noora bolted up. How was she supposed to know that William wouldn't say something? He had seemed so uncaring about Vilde’s feelings despite knowing how much Noora cared. She pulled on a cardigan to combat the chill of the night air and asked Eva for her location.
There was no way William was ruining Vilde’s fragile image of herself. Not if Noora could help it.
His apartment was bright, lights flashing as Noora climbed the stairs towards the door. Quickly, at the entrance, Noora found Eva, drunk, but willing to watch Noora’s purse and coat so Noora could find William and Vilde.
The room was loud, crowded, and drunk. People pushed, jumped, crowded, and yelled. It was bright, flashing lights in blues and purples and reds. It was hard to see faces but she thought that she recognizes some people from school.
William was on the other side of the room.
Noora walked over as quickly as she could, elbowing her way through the crowd. He was leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and the living room where everyone was dancing.
“Noora, you came?” William said, his eyes wide and slightly confused, probably from the alcohol.
“What did you tell Vilde?” Noora asked, her voice loud so she could be heard over the music.
William looked confused, “Vilde? I don't even think she’s here anymore?”
Suddenly, the police showed up, tossing everyone out and, as Noora tried to find her bag, she had a sinking feeling that Eva left with it, the other girl's drunken mind probably thinking that that was a smart option.
Noora didn't stop looking for her stuff, but her heart wasn't in it. Soon, it was just her and William in the apartment.
“I think Eva left with my stuff,” Noora said as William shut the music off.
“Do you want to use my phone and call someone?”
Noora felt awkward about it but nodded all the same. She used it to call Eskild, who didn't pick up. Eskild wouldn't pick up his phone if the world depended on it, so Noora wasn't too perturbed. She handed the phone back to William after leaving a quick voice message. “Thanks.”
He nodded, pocketing the device before turning around to fiddle with the bottles of alcohol on the table. Noora felt strange just watching him, so instead, she looked around, her eyes flitting over every nook and cranny.
The walls were white, the furniture was a light grey, the counters in the kitchen that Noora could see via the open floor plan were white, and even the handrail on the stairs was pristinely white. The space felt cold.
She looked back towards William who had made his way to the other end of the table and she could see he was pouring liquor into two see-through plastic cups.
“I don't drink,” Noora said softly, after looking around to make sure he hadn't been pouring it for another straggler.
William raised an eyebrow. “Shocking,” he said, his voice lilted with sarcasm. “What do you drink?”
“Well…” She thought about it for a minute, and then remembered the warm cocoa. “I am a big fan of cocoa.”
He huffed a slight laugh and walked towards the white kitchen Noora had seen earlier. She followed.
William pulled open a cabinet and grabbed the cocoa mix, leaving it on the counter as he went to grab the milk out of the refrigerator.
Noora lifted herself onto the counter, feeling a bit juvenile but William smiled when he saw her so it must be fine.
“When do your parents get home?” Noora asked, her eyes darting over the bottles of beer, wine, and harder liquor scattered over every flat surface. “Because if it’s soon, you’d better get to cleaning.”
William poured some of the milk into a saucepan and turned to her. “You're not helping?”
Noora’s jaw clenched. “I didn't make the mess.”
His eyes wrinkled as the corners of his lips tilted up. William turned away from her before Noora could make any more deductions about his feelings from his microexpressions. “My parents don't live here.”
Well, his tone of voice was enough to lead Noora to deductions about his relationship with his parents, but she threw the thoughts out of her head.
All she could think to say was, “Oh.”
She sat in silence as he mixed the cocoa mix into the slightly warmed milk. “No siblings?” spilled out of her mouth like word vomit. Noora really needed Eskild to call back.
“A brother. He’s going to school in Stockholm.” The way his voice came down felt final.
Noora leaned away from where she had been leaning forward to try and get a good look at the cocoa. She sighed just as William reached behind her for a cup off the windowsill, where a collection of brightly coloured mugs decorated the white painted wood.
He grabbed two around her and set them down on the counter, swiftly and gently pouring the warm cocoa into the mugs and placing the dirtied saucepan in the sink. He grabbed a pink mug with the word ‘Juicy’ written on it in English and left her with the green mug with a mushroom for a handle.
Noora hopped off the counter and grabbed the mug, before following him into the living room.
“Why not warm it up for longer?” Noora said. “The instructions say 5 minutes, that was barely 3.”
William opened the window as he perched on the sill like the mugs in the other room. “You like your cocoa cold so you can pretend it's chocolate milk.”
He had remembered that tidbit from the other night.
She had maybe mentioned it in passing and he had remembered. Something about that made Noora smile, and she couldn't dismiss the flood of warmth in her body. Or maybe she could, it was definitely just the sip of warm cocoa that felt more like chocolate milk than cocoa.
William turned to stare out the window, sipping his cocoa.
Noora, despite the nice feeling, took this opportunity to snoop.
His living room had a couch which, as she had previously seen, was grey, and to the side of the couch, there was a side table. There were plastic cups stacked on top of a couple of large coffee table books. Noora moved the cups to take a good look at the books.
One was a travel guide that Noora set aside and the other was a collection of Liv Lundberg poetry. She opened it and smoothed down the pages. It was well loved, with dog-eared corners and multiple receipts thrown in to remember pages with. There were a few notes in the margins, but Noora couldn't read the handwriting.
She set it aside in favour of the last book in the stack. It was unmarked with a paper bag cover. It looked like a school textbook if someone had cut up a paper bag and folded it into a cover. Noora opened it softly and swiftly to where it was creased.
Noora stared at the page. Her eyes read over it once, twice and then a third time. She wanted to turn into a puddle of mush because puddles of mush don't have eyes or brains and they didn't have to read Wilhelm’s words in William’s notebook.
They weren't exactly the same. There were words crossed out and rewritten, stanzas highlighted or circled and arrows directing them elsewhere. It was all very much how Noora had imagined Wilhelm's writing style would look like on paper.
She probably should be feeling something right now. Something that wasn't this strange warmth in her chest and a hot lump in her throat.
Maybe it was delirium. Noora was delirious, that must be it. The fumes from the group of teenagers that had been in this room before must have done something to her head and she must be imagining all of Wilhelm’s notes in William’s book.
“Noora?” William said softly as he turned away from the window, his eyes taking in her and the book.
Delirium or not, she had to live this moment.
Her heart ached to hold the notebook forever and not let the soft words that she didn't know how to associate with William, ever touch him. Her head told her that she was holding his property with such vigour and he most likely wouldn't take kindly to that but her heart wouldn't let her put down the evidence that the man pursuing her so aggressively was also the kind poet Noora had looked up to for years.
“Noora?” William asked and she turned around, the book in her hand starting to feel like something holy, a bible in her unworthy hands. “What? What are you doing?” He stalked towards her, his eyes sharp and his strides long as he put down his mug and grabbed the book from her hands, flipping through it to make sure Noora hadn’t messed with it.
“I–” She didn't know what to say but the emotion bubbling up inside of her felt foreign and awful.
“Don't tell me you read it,” William said, his voice sounding more and more like it did that day Noora watched him let Vilde down so harshly.
Noora shook her head, “William, this can't be yours.” She gestured to the notebook. “It's just–”
“Noora–” William began but Noora was on a roll and, despite her best efforts to stop, she just couldn't.
“You can't have this. Where did you get it? There can’t– You can't just be him. There's no way.” Noora felt like she was babbling but her connection to Wilhelm just wasn't something that she took lightly, anyone who had followed someone, written poetry based on theirs and fell asleep rotating their words in their head, would feel the way she was right then.
William’s eyes were widening and his hands gripped the notebook tightly, almost as if he was afraid she'd try and take it away. “What are you saying?”
“The stars shine bright in your eyes as I fall into them, / A veritable microcosm of infinite love.” Noora’s face softened as she spoke, reciting lines she had read over and over again, ingraining them into her soul the way most people did with song lyrics. “And I remember what it felt like / To breathe without the weight / Pressing down on my chest.
Wilhelm wrote that. Not you, so why did I just read that in your notebook?”
William’s eyes gleamed with what might have been anger but Noora could feel the charge between them and it didn't feel like anger. “That’s… Noora, I wrote that.”
“No,” Noora shook her head. “I can’t believe that.” Her hands felt shaky as if all the blood in her body had pooled at the tips of her fingers and was threatening to burst out.
William’s grip loosened a bit. “You memorize fast,” he spit out, eyes staring into hers, almost as if he was afraid to look away.
“I memorized that two months ago when it was posted,” Noora argued, her eyes blown so incredibly wide with her conflicted emotions. “It was about me, wasn't it? How many of those were about me?” It felt like she might have been yelling but it was hard to tell.
He cocked an eyebrow and whereas before she found it amusing now she found it infuriating and a little ridiculous. “Exactly what are you saying here?”
“You cannot be Wilhelm. There’s no way.”
William looked confused. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice seeming grittier than usual.
Noora’s body was paused as her brain tried to think. What was she supposed to say? This didn't feel like something she could escape using a script. “When I moved to Oslo, I found this blog. It was like a breath of fresh air to me, as if someone was pulling my thoughts out and weaving them into deep words in a way no one else could have.”
The notebook fell from his slack hands and onto the carpeted floor, any sound it could have made entirely absorbed. “And you read them all?”
“Yeah,” Noora said, feeling all the words that could have come after sticking in her throat.
William stared, “You're Namalie?”
“You shouldn't know that. You shouldn't even know that name,” Noora spat out, her eyes ripping themselves from his and eyeing the notebook on the floor. She wanted to grab it and run, take Wilhem’s soft words away from the harsh angles of William’s acidic tongue.
He stepped back, his lower back tapping into the fold-up table full of liquor. “You've read it all,” William repeated, like a cornered animal.
“Every word,” Noora confirmed.
“You need to go–” William began but his phone began to ring. He answered it with a scowl that seemed more scared than angry and listened for a second before handing it to her. “It's for you.”
“Hello?”
“Noora, he sounds delightful!” Eskilds voice sounded through the phone. “Very grumpy creep-esque.”
“Are you home?”
“Yep, I’ll let you in.”
Noora nodded, glancing over at the deep frown on William’s face. “I’ll be there soon.”
She hung up and handed it to the man, who pocketed it swiftly and said, his eyes soft, “I think that’s best.”
He wasn't wrong and somehow that’s what hurt Noora the most.
At the bottom, in the cold night air, Noora Sætre took a deep breath to clear her head. It felt like a rush of free thoughts and memories flooding her body.
She turned and walked home, trying not to think about the unveiled look of loneliness William had shot towards her as she spoke to Eskild on the phone.
Every day felt like a battle against herself. Noora wanted to speak with William and try to understand exactly what was going on with him but she remembered what she had said in his house that night, how fervently she denied his truth. What kind of person did that make her? Certainly, one who didn't give him a chance to explain himself.
A week had gone by without so much as her passing him on a staircase or in the halls when laying in bed on a Monday, Noora got an email notification.
Opening it she read the preview and then clicked so hard she thought her phone might have cracked as her eyes took in every luminescent pixel.
It's never wrong to love her.
She might not love me and there is no pressure
Emotion is fickle.
She angers, she fades, and her brightness never dies.
I admire her courage.
I want her to notice how I anger and fade but my brightness never dies.
She has enough courage for me, I think.
Enough to share,
If I wanted more.
My heart is cracked and it will not heal, not until soft words mend.
Maybe I was not meant to heal.
But I was made to love.
It's never wrong to love her.
Noora’s eyes watered as she read. It was sweet, a poem that, if she closed her eyes and rotated the words in her head could have come from William. Noora immediately scrolled back, reading every single post and her responses to them and finding only one answer.
William and Wilhelm were one and the same and to deny it would be a sin.
Noora didn't quite believe in sin, but she had been baptised and further sin wouldn't be quite as fun without someone by her side.
Namalie
She notices.
Her hair tickled the back of his neck as she leaned over.
William lay on his stomach on his bed, his red pen in hand as he rearranged stanzas. Noora had been laying next to him, her eyes laser-focused on her phone, trying to convince Vilde not to date some guy or something equally as uninteresting.
Now she hovered over him, reading his unfinished poetry over his shoulder.
Was this what he expected when he began, all those years ago, to share the most intimate parts of his soul on the internet for absolutely anyone to see? No. William had expected to feel less lonely, which he supposed, he did now. He had also sort of thought it would make him friends, which he supposed it did because now, somehow, he had Eva, Vilde, and even Chris on his side if he needed it. They would side with Noora first but if William wasn't being a dick he had them.
Life was different but it was as he wrote;
Life is real,
Its claws grip you
And drag you to the surf,
Your eyes adjust to the bright light
As children scream in joy.
Salt in the air and in the sand,
Ocean all around.
A small child kicks sand at you.
It's not perfect but it's real.