Vignettes

From the age of about fourteen, Eva always thought she'd end up marrying Jonas; her curly haired, uni-browed prince on a white horse who swept her off her feet and they'd go riding off into the sunset together to live their happily ever after.

By the time she was sixteen she realized that a happily ever after probably wasn't even in the books for her after everything she did and the friendship she ruined with her selfishness and her prince charming turning out to be just a toad in disguise.

Eva had never been much for fantasy or fairytales. Cinderella was a doormat who refused to stand up to the people who walked all over her. Aurora and Snow White married the first man that looked their way before they even got to know him or the person he truly was on the inside. Ariel gave up who she was and her family and nearly sacrificed everything for man she didn't know and a world that never would have accepted her had they known what she really was.

Again and again, the fairytales ended up being a variation of the same story told over and over again and a bitter, hurt, vindictive sixteen year old Eva never wanted that to be the end of hers.

Years passed and people changed. Her friends got married and had kids of their own and Eva just watched as the progression of time passed her by and for the longest time she was more than happy to wave it as it passed with a jolly adieu. No matter how much Vilde pestered her. No matter how much Chris teased her. No matter how intense the look Sana pinned her with. No matter how happy Noora looked when she walked by with William on her arm and the baby bump under her white cotton dress. Eva was content in her life being single and independent and being able to sleep with anyone, anywhere she wanted without consequence.

As usual, Chris ended up being the wrench in her finely tuned gears.

Throughout the remainder her teens and for most of her adult life, Chris was her one constant; her most consistent relationship – if it could even be described as such.

Chris wanted what Eva wanted which was nothing more than the night they spent together and maybe a stolen kiss in a dimly lit backroom of a club. Maybe at some point he did want more, maybe he did want a girlfriend and a relationship and a wife, but he never brought up the subject and Eva was more than happy to let that particular sleeping dog lie. She was happy being oblivious and leaving the topic where it belonged: unsaid.

They'd been not-dating for almost fourteen years by that point, even ending up moving in together and living a life that involved one another, but they didn't marry; they didn't talk about marriage or children or anything beyond the life they already shared. What was the point? Eva was happy and Chris was happy. They had good, steady jobs, a beautiful apartment overlooking the city, a nice potted plant decorating the window named Albert and a long put off plan to get a cat.

Chris never asked for more and Eva never offered.

She did feel a twinge sometimes, somewhere deep in the heart she thought she'd closed off a long time ago, when she went out with her friends or met colleagues and former classmates at get-together or reunions. Watching Vilde laughing at Magnus pretending to be an elephant and chasing after their two screaming kids. Watching Sana feeding her new baby and Yousef piggy backing the other two at the same time. Watching Chris and Mahdi and their little boy playing on the monkey bars and Noora fussing over a little blonde girl who was the spitting image of her before William walked up behind them and hugged her around the waist.

In those moments, Eva would look over at Chris at her side, taking strength and comfort in the sight of his smile – the creases and smile lines around his eyes having become more prominent through the years – and the sound of him laughing at some terrible sexual joke he'd just told while at the same time asking herself why?

Why didn't she want to marry this amazing man that had been with her every step of the way? Who loved and supported her unconditionally no matter what. Why couldn't she bring herself to say those words to him even though she was able to tell him absolutely everything? Why did she not want to give him kids even though she knew that he would be an amazing father? He was an amazing person, a great boyfriend, the best partner anyone could ever ask for and the best friend Eva never thought she needed in life.

Chris was everything to her, so why couldn't she bring herself to give him everything he deserved?

Eva was thirty when she finally opened her eyes; when she could finally see what had been right in front of her the whole time.

That she couldn't live without him. That she didn't want to live without him.

So thirty-year old Eva who hated fairytales and didn't believe in happily ever after's finally admitted to herself that the only reason she felt that way was because she feared that the possibility for a fairytale ending and a happily ever after had long passed her by. That she'd done too much wrong and hurt too many people to even deserve one.

But when Chris looked at her, when he smiled at her and the look in his eyes made her feel like the luckiest, most beautiful fairytale princess in all the land; that was when Eva realized that she did deserve it. That she wanted it and she wanted it to be with him and only him.

Eva was the one who proposed, with a beautiful white gold ring engraved with their initials and a bouquet of fourteen red roses to signify the years they'd known each other. She walked up to the door of their apartment and rung the bell, dropping to one knee before Chris could even think to comment something smartass.

The look on his face made all the worry and the hesitation, all the fear and trepidation, worth it.

Eva turned thirty one a married woman.

Their wedding was small and intimate, only close friends and families in a ceremony in the countryside against a lush green backdrop with a picturesque image of snowy mountains in the distance.

Eva wore a simple lace dress that fitted all the way down to her hips before flaring out and her hair done up in loose pleats with the little blue flowers Noora's daughter had picked from the garden. Chris was dressed in a classic tuxedo, black and white and sharp and his hair combed back neatly away from his face; similar blue flowers decorating the pocket of his jacket.

In the end there was no way Eva could have picked just one flower girl, so she ended up with three; one of Sana's, one of Vilde's and Noora's little mini-me, with Sana's two boys and Vilde's remaining one working collectively as the ring bearers.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and they stayed partying and dancing long after the children were put to bed and the rest of the guests had left.

Eva turned thirty two while on her honeymoon. Instead of three weeks in Hawaii that Vilde had suggested or three weeks in Italy that Noora had suggested or three weeks in Rome that Sana had suggested, Eva put in all her unused vacation time (and then some) and all the money she'd saved up over the years and gone with Chris's suggestion, which was a year off to travel around the world.

They started in Europe and slowly made their way out. Travelling the world had never been on Eva's bucket list but it turned out to be the thing she never knew she needed to do.

She returned to Norway a brand new Eva with a terrific new tan and her relationship with Chris couldn't have been more wonderful.

Eva was thirty four when she became pregnant with Chris's first child. It was going to be a girl, she told herself. She didn't know for certain but she just had a feeling and she always knew to trust her instincts.

Nearly eight months into her pregnancy; always tired, perpetually moody and annoyed (most of the time at Chris for just breathing and being just too damn cheerful all the damn time) and too big to fit into all of her favourite clothes and shoes – came Eva and Chris's first major obstacle.

Noora was over keeping Eva company and helping to massage her swollen feet while Chris had a night out on the town with the boys – the boys being just William and his newly grown beard.

The sound of her daughter's laughter ringing merrily from the living room kept Noora's mood chipper despite Eva's continuous moping over some indistinct thing Chris had done three weeks ago that annoyed her, but other than that, it was another peaceful day in Eva's life.

Until Eva's water suddenly broke.

At first Eva wasn't sure what was even happening; she thought she'd wet herself without realizing. But then everything started going downhill and fast. It started with Eva's odd realization that she couldn't recall ever getting red tiles for her kitchen floor, until she noticed that the redness was only within the vicinity of where she was sitting, and her feet and the entire length of her pants was dripping wet and red. She realized that the baby was coming but for the life of her she couldn't even recall ever getting pregnant. She was just suddenly hit by an intense wave of exhaustion that she couldn't shake off. She wanted to tell Noora to call Chris and tell him not to forget to unplug the microwave and water Albert before he left, but it was like she'd swallowed a handful of cotton, she just wasn't able to verbalize the words.

She was just so tired.

The last thing she remembered was the sight of Noora's panicked, tearful eyes in her periphery and the sound of her daughter sobbing in the back. Eva wanted to ask them what was wrong, but she was just so tired, she just needed to close her eyes for just a second.

She blinked once and all of a sudden Noora was gone from her sight, though she was finally free of the debilitating exhaustion.

She wanted to say to Noora, 'See, nothing's wrong. I just needed to shut my eyes for a little while,' but Noora was nowhere to be found. There was only the sight of clean, blinding white ceilings in a stale smelling room that wasn't hers.

Eva tried to move but jarred whatever it was that had downed her sending her curling into herself to hold off the pain. The next minute she felt gentle hands grasping her shoulder and another circling around her back and a warm body leaning into her, careful not to put any weight on her aching, tired body.

"Chris," she croaked, hearing the sound leaving her lips before the identity of the figure could even register in her mind.

The figure moved, gently easing out of the embrace and leaning back. That was when Eva noticed his red-rimmed eyes and the tears that pooling in the corner. "Eva," he cried, "Don't ever scare me like that again."

Eva could just stare at him, her brain still trying to fully wake up from her impromptu nap, much less try and interpret whatever it was that had taken place within the couple of seconds she was out.

It took her a moment to realize that maybe she hadn't closed her eyes for just a second. It came to her about the same time she realized that she was in a hospital and Chris was by her side and he had been crying which meant that something terrible had actually happened.

"The baby," she gasped, immediately reaching down to cup her stomach only to find it gone and the feel of saggy skin under her palm where her baby used to be.

"The baby's fine. She's absolutely fine," Chris said, reaching down to grasp her hand in his, planting a kiss on the back of her knuckles, "You were the one who almost wasn't," he said. "Don't ever to that to me, Eva, please. I can't live without you," he said, a single tear breaking free, slowly beginning its descent down the side of his cheek.

Eva immediately reached up and with her thumb stopped it about halfway, letting it continue trickling down her palm before splashing onto the white sheet of the bed. "I'm so sorry," she said, cupping his cheek and watching as he gently leaned into her touch. "I'm so sorry. I won't ever leave you, I promise. I love you."

"I love you too," Chris said, grasping Eva's hand with both of his and plating another kiss right in the middle of her palm.

Chris's reaction had been devastating, but it wasn't even comparable to Noora's, who didn't even make it halfway into the room before she broke down into a sobbing mess. She had been the one to deal with Eva's water breaking and the subsequent bleeding that had followed. She was the one who caught Eva was she collapsed and the one trying to keep calm as she held her best friend bleeding in her arms while calling the ambulance and trying to calm her sobbing daughter all at the same time.

Noora had been Eva's first friend and arguably her best friend, but that moment forged in near tragedy was the thing that truly made them sisters from that point on.

Eva didn't think there was anything she could do to ever make it up to Noora, but she knew that Chris was going to spend the rest of his life trying to do just that.

"I like the name Maya," she said to Chris a few days later when it was just the two of them in the hospital holding the sleeping, wrinkly little human that they'd made together wrapped up in a bundle in Eva's arms.

"It's a perfect name," said Chris, "From a perfect mom to a perfect baby."

Eva smiled at that and even though she was only a few days old and lost in a dreamy slumber land, so did Maya.

Eva had turned thirty six when Maya had her first birthday. Chris was thirty eight and even though they were both older than their friends when they had their first child and probably older than most people with a one year old kid, Eva realized that there was nothing about her life she would have ever changed.

She needed those early years to find herself; to realize her full potential and become the Eva whose skin she was proud to wear. She needed the subsequent years to realize she loved Chris and to be sure that he was the person she wanted to share the rest of her life with.

The older she grew; when grey strands in her hair became a more difficult reality to avoid and her knees started clicking and she became slightly more winded when she climbed up a slightly higher staircase than usual. When her friends got married and started having families one by one, Eva was still perfectly content with her own life.

But at the end of the day, having Chris as part of her life and now Maya – whose toothless smile always reached her eyes and whose laughter could drag Eva out of even her darkest days – having Noora and William and their daughter living just down the street and Vilde, Sana and Chris all barely fifteen minutes away; having Isak and Even both on speed dial and ready to come over for tea any time of the day; with her mom coming over a few times a month without fail to visit and play with her first granddaughter, Eva thought her life was finally truly fulfilled.

Finally Eva felt like she'd gotten the happily ever after she always deserved.

The End.