Page 240 of These Tears

His lips touch there once before travelling up beneath the hem, where he gives a small nip at the skin.

‘Elias!’ I hiss, trying to shove him off while my body helpfully betrays me by leaning right back into him. ‘Anders will see.’

He hums, thoroughly unconcerned, until I twist around, pull my tracksuit bottoms back up and start batting sawdust from his hair.

‘You got it all over me, you menace,’ I grumble.

His smile appears against my throat. ‘Good.’

‘No, not good. Are you done with the room?’

‘Nope,’ he says and finally peels himself away as if it were the hardest thing he’d ever done.

The cold rushes into the space he leaves behind as he walks over to a cabinet by the door and hooks two fingers through the handle of a battered toolbox.

He pauses with his hand on the latch to look me over one last time – hair mussed, tracksuit still crooked – just like his grin.

I clutch the camera closer to my chest like a shield and direct one or two curses at my ovaries.

His mouth twitches as though he can hear them.

Anders calls something muffled from the room that once held chains and still seems blistered by history.

My giant bear walks backwards down the corridor, toolbox in hand, his gaze never ceasing to devour me.

‘Can I finally see what you’re doing in there?’ I ask.

His grin deepens, but he simply disappears around the corner without a word. A newly fitted lock snaps into place in response.

I stare at the empty space for another second, deliberating whether curiosity should kill this silly cat again, but ultimately, I gather my dignity and try to rein in the desire still vibrating through me.

Purpose. I need that today. Something other than thinking about my demon and the ridiculous amount of stamina he has.

Outside, I take only a handful of frames before checking the memory card. I can offload everything to the laptop and keep shooting, but without a darkroom I can’t make the prints that matter to me. If I can’t eventually hold the finished image in my hands, every photograph feels as though it has stopped one breath short of completion.

So I’m dosing myself as carefully as my own demons allow.

Lifting my chin and absorbing the coolness of the weary winter, I focus on the moment. I let it seep into my pores and fill my lungs.

Emotion hides in places like this. The lake is graphite rather than blue, reflecting a sky still uncertain of its brightness. Mist threads the mountains and softens their edges so they don’t look as harsh.

Like me, everything is caught between states: snow and water, winter and spring, silence and confession. That is where I always find the most honesty – in the instant before something has reached a point when it can no longer remain what it was.

I still want to leave; I want a road I can take without asking, a city close enough to reach before nightfall and a life that does not depend on snow depth.

What I no longer want is to leave him behind.

In that moment, the distinction frightens me enough for me to raise the camera and hide behind the viewfinder. The birches seem especially judgmental today.

I push all half-thoughts away and cling to my lens, chasing emotion the way waking rivers chase the Norwegian Sea. Because pursuit gives shape to a beautiful silence. Here, in the thaw, the world is not yet alive, not yet aware of two beings pretending things are perfect in a world that is far from it.

After all this time, I can finally admit that whatever we have has deepened. What I still can’t reconcile is the way Elias keeps preparing me for a life I haven’t agreed to live forever.

He still bullies me through homestead lessons as though civilisation has been permanently cancelled. When I ask when we might leave together, he talks about all the work that needs to be finished before summer. The answer arrives too quickly each time, polished smooth by repetition.

I turn the focus ring beneath my fingers until the distant tree line sharpens through the glass. Easier to bring a mountain into focus than whatever Elias is keeping buried.

He has made me learn how to fish – sort of – as well as dress a wound and read every type of track outdoors. He tests me on which berries and roots can or cannot be eaten, and how long the range will hold heat if the chimney blocks. One forgotten jar of honey, it seems, can become the difference between hunger and survival when winter closes the roads.