Page 180 of Top Shelf

Chapter twenty-six

Viktor

The elevator doors close behind Heidi, and I stay where I am. For several seconds, I can hear the mechanism carrying her down through the building. Then even that disappears, and I am standing in the doorway of the apartment with my hand on the frame, staring at nothing.

She told me she loves me. She told me she does not want us to end.

I repeat both facts while I close the door, but they do very little to help.

The bedroom is worse when I walk back in. Her side of the bed is disturbed from where she pulled the suitcase out, and the empty patch on the bedside table catches my eye because the pink lamp has sat there for so long I stopped seeing it. I can still see her carrying it toward the elevator with her laptop wedged beneath her arm, trying to hold herself together until she was somewhere I could not see her cry.

Everything in me wanted to stop her, but I did not. She asked me for space, and I will give it to her. I sit on the edge of the bed for a while and eventually take out my phone. Her name is already there when I unlock it, our messages from this morning still open. My thumb hovers over the call button, but I decide on a text instead.

Me: Are you home okay?

Min fru: Yeah. Just got in.

The coil in my chest unclenches.

Me: Okay. Good.

Min fru: Lamp made it too, since I know you were worried.

My mouth pulls despite the ache sitting behind my ribs.

Me: I was worried about you.

Min fru: I know.

Min fru: I’m sorry tonight sucked.

My fingers tighten around the phone.

Me: Do not apologize, it is my fault.

Min fru: I wasn’t apologizing for needing space. Just that it sucked.

Me: I am really sorry, Heidi.

There’s a pause, and the dots jump across the screen.

Min fru: I love you

The words hit harder on a screen than they did when she stood in front of me, maybe because there is nowhere to put the feeling now. I cannot touch her. I cannot pull her against me or press my mouth into her hair until the tightness between us loosens. I can only answer.

Me: Jag älskar dig också.

I start typing something else.

I wish you were here.

Delete.

I hate this.

Delete again.

None of it would help her tonight—it would only make my loneliness another thing she has to carry when she already told me she has nothing left to give.