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FiveThe Government of Norway Has Forgiven Him Now
She knew it was a mistake the second she did it. And not in theOh god, I’ve riled the beast and now he’s going to murder mesort of way. No, it was really more of aWhoops, I think maybe he wasn’t trying to chop me into pieces after allsort of thing. Mostly because his response, when the spray hit his eyes, was not to immediately attempt to stuff her into his murder sack.
No. It was to bellow like an enraged bear, and clutch his probably burning face, and gasp “Why,” in the most confused and strangely hurt voice she’d ever heard in her life. As if he genuinely had no idea how things had come to this.
He had thought she was on his side.
And now she had to somehow explain why she wasn’t. “Because I thought you were going to bloody do me in,” she burst out, before her nerve could make her not. Or at least make her be less furious about things. Then once the fury was out there, she braced herself.
Only to get an answering expression that seemed just as baffled as his one-word question had been. She could see it was, even around the streaming eyes and the fists he was trying to screw into them and his grimace of agony. Though she didn’t fully believe or understand it, until he managed to get it together enough to speak.
“You couldn’t possibly have thought that. All I did was phone you. Then be in the same restaurant as you. Then watch you from across a crowded coffee place. Then follow you down a street when it’s getting dark and there’s no one else around andoh okay right yeah I’m seeing it now yep it’s dawning on me fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuck,” he said, and honestly she did not know what to marvel over first. Because yeah, watching a realization happen to someone mid-sentence was pretty incredible.
But so was that almost musical use of the wordfuck. How he built a chain of them, each one slightly louder and more expressive than the last. And the way he added syllables to all of them, until finally, finally, he hit that last one. That three-sentence-long one, with a million sounds in the middle that didn’t belong.
Yet felt completely right, anyway.
And that was all before she even got into how he looked as he said this.
That slow collapse of his face from something like surety to complete despair.
Then the way he tried to look to the heavens for inspiration but couldn’t.
Because she’d filled his eyeballs with pepper.
It was amazing. So much so that she came very, very close to almost completely letting him off the hook. Maybe even close to apologizing tohim, as ifshewere the one who’d done something wrong here. But in the end, the several ways he’d fucked up and her thirst to know what the fuck this had all been for won out over her habit of cheerily accepting that everything was fine now. “I have to ask at this point: How did it not dawn on you before?” she asked.
Much to his very obvious discomfort.
“Because I had a very good reason for all those things.”
“Like, you have a terrible illness, and following me cures it.”
“No, because that’s completely ridiculous.”
“Well, ridiculousishow you see me. So I just thought I’d lean into it.”
She shrugged as she said it. Kind of half laughed, like she wasn’t being serious. However, he very weirdly seemed to panic the moment she did. Or at least, he panicked as much as a man like him was able. Which mostly meant a lot of angry eyebrowsand firm hand gestures and words spat out like gruff bullets. “No, don’t lean into it. Lean out of it. Then keep going until you’re on my level.”
“And what’s your level? Super smart and cool and always right about things?”
“Mabel, I’m standing here with pepper spray melting my eyeballs because I failed to grasp how following a woman home in the dark looked. Think it’s safe to say my level is several thousand fathoms below smart and cool and right.”
Okay, she wasn’t expectingthatresponse.
Though really, how could she possibly have?
He was supposed to be stabbing her by now. Or at the very least taking some kind of pop at her, for what were—by this point—numerous transgressions. But instead, he appeared to be taking a pop at himself. A hard one, that kind of made her want to be nice to him again. To tell him no, that couldn’t be true.
Then he was relieved when good sense won the day. “All right then, what fathom should I be pitching my comments at?”
“Just imagine you’re talking to an incredibly serious five-year-old.”
“That makes it sound like you think you’re a child ghost in a horror movie.”
