Hope you enjoy the second chapter! (Next one coming soon hopefully.)
Also I wanted to thank you for the very kind comments on the first one, they made me incredibly happy! Thank you!
The sky above London was still tainted with shades of light blu, soft pinks and yellows. He hadn't left work this early - 8 pm - in weeks.
The past nights had been grueling. Even longer hours than usual spent at the office, sitting behind the sturdy wooden desk, his father had so graciously accommodated him with. Of course he had liked it in the beginning, it had been fun and a new experience, nothing like school. But with every passing day the workload had increased and his fathers words and silent expectations had gotten harder and harder to follow.
The muscles in his back ached and the briefcase felt as heavy as a led weight in his left hand. He hadn't slept in his own bed for two nights, or maybe thee, he couldn't really remember. In fact, he hadn't seen the inside of the apartment, located in a quiet Kensington street, for multiple days, hadn't seen her for days.
As so often he swore himself to talk to his father, ease his current workload and return home when the gloomy autumn sun was still up. He sighed, as his free hand dug through his pocket for the set of keys - he could already see the distain in his fathers eyes, the disappointment in his pinched together eyebrows.
The lock clicked open and he slipped through the half opened door.
Probably as a result of the lack of sleep he had accumulated over the past week, or month, it took him several moments to realize that something was different.
Darkness, he was greeted by complete and udder darkness.
„I'm home." nothing but silence.
„Noora" nothing.
He swallowed, not sure what to make of this. Maybe she had already gone to sleep and more yelling would only wake her.
After slipping off his shoes and loosening the deep blue tie looped around his neck he quietly opened their bedroom door.
Again, it took his eyes a minute to adjust to the mute darkness hovering in the room. The outlines of the unnecessarily big bed loomed beside the window, but the sheets were smoothed perfectly over the edges and the pillows looked untouched.
The chair and dressing table were empty as well. The two or three lip sticks she normally kept their and her brush tangled with light blond here were gone. His eyes desperately scanned the room for any trace of her, for just the smallest piece of her presence; to prove that what he feared most was just a trick played by his sleep deprived mind.
She wasn't there, and he felt his mouth go dry. His right hand curled around the door handle and he was about to force it closed as if to delete the image of their empty bed from his mind. He half heartedly expected to wake up any moment and find himself still at his desk several underground stops away in the city.
„Noora" he tried again not sure if he expected an answer only certain that he needed one.
Her voice, even a mocking Willhelm, he had heard neither in too long. She had been absent and cold and he hadn't been home to notice.
„Please, Noora." his hand were reaching for the untouched sheets, drawing deep wrinkles into the soft fabric.
Only the perfume she always wore, a sweet mixture of rose and orange blossom, still lingered on the pillows and sheets. He drew them closer, desperate to catch every last breath of her, to somehow keep her close.
How pathetic he must look, nothing like the cliche boyfriend she used to mock him as. The strain of long hours set at a desk and the pain in his heart at the sight of their empty apartment had made his back crooked and his body relished the soft mattress underneath.
Somehow he didn't need to look at the rest of their appartment, he knew that she had taken everything and as there was nothing left to hold onto he clung to one of the pillows neatly propped against the head of the bed. Still dressed in his suit, it made it difficult to bend his legs comfortably but he remained on the bed, unable to accept what undoubtedly was her finally leaving him.
He had done it, finally pushed her away far enough. She had, after more than half a year, left him at last. An unpleasant heaviness filled his stomach and the images before his closed eyes were a mixture of her blond short hair and light eyes entangles with the wrinkled and expressionless face of his mother.
But she was nothing like his mother, nothing like the miserable group of people he was forced to call family. She was kind and smart and fierce; she had loved him and life had never felt so easy. Too easy, he should have known that it couldn't last, that the warm feeling in his heart was only temporary.
He pressed the pillow even closer to his chest buried his head in the silken fabric. Sleep took him only to snap back into consciousness when the phone he had still kept in his pocked rang. The noise resulted in a throbbing pain in his head and his whole body felt weirdly numb when he reached for the phone.
Dad - the caller ID did nothing to lessen the pain in his head. He rubbed his temple and awkwardly tried to turn his phone to silent. He would have to listen to his father rant about how lazy and irresponsible he was later for this but in that moment he couldn't bare hearing his disappointed voice, not now.
He couldn't have been asleep for very long judging by the weak orange line tracing along the visible horizon. The curtains still stood wide open as he had done nothing but enter the room and collapse on the mattress. Now that he unlocked his phone, the display seemed uncomfortably bright to his tired eyes and forced his eyes to blink several times.
He checks both his mail and messages, only to find no a single unread message and the one red circle indicating a missed call stemmed from his father just a minute ago. Unsure if he should feel surprised or not by her lack of communication his thumb hovered over their chat.
Anyways maybe she was just gone for the night or maybe the weekend. Had it been stupid and careless of him to assume that she would leave him for good without leaving a single note or line of text? Him jumping to premature conclusion had already caused them to break up once and he sure as hell wasn't keen on making that mistake twice.
She missed her friends, of course she would want to visit them sooner or later. Maybe she had even told him she would visit Oslo and he had simply been too absent to hear her. There was absolutely no need to think that things were over between them. This was just his mind, the always present paranoia and fear that she would leave him one day; that he was undeserving of a continuous relationship with a person, who to him couldn't be more perfect.
He rubbed his nose and brushed the long strand of hair behind his ear. Trying his best to silence the nagging doubt in the back of his mind he opened their chat and the fact that they hadn't texted in three days made him flinch. He would have to do better, try and be the boyfriend she deserved.
William knew he should write something - ask if she was ok, where she was going, when she would return - anything. But the words didn't come as easy as they once had and it was only when the phone returned to the black lock screen that he realized he hadn't moved at all.
Maybe he should apologize, promise that he would be home more, be with her more. No, that wouldn't be honest and written as a text message, a pathetic promise.
Why did you leave?
Why did you leave? I miss you!
Demanding an answer for her absence, when he only knew too well why she wasn't beside him in their bed tonight, seemed unfair.
Please come back!
Please come home, I miss you!
But was this home? An apartment in west-central London with a view over Hyde-Park - away from all their friends, her friends, her school?
Are you in Oslo?
Are you at the Kollekitv, with Eva, your friends?
Are you ok?
He groaned, this didn't feel right. Whatever he entered through the phone screen felt wrong. What scared him most was how distant they had grown in just a few months. It used to be so easy to talk to her, to text her anything and now he was scared of sending her a single text - scared that whatever he did now could push her even further away.
I miss you
No that was selfish.
I love you.
Noora, I love you.
He did, he really did - maybe even too much. Nothing had ever felt as important and as a result he had grown more and more scared of loosing that safety and comfort he had never felt with anyone else before.
So finally he settled on one word, positive that if he kept trying to find a better wording he would only overcomplicate things.
William: Noora?
After all, maybe she would be back tomorrow morning and all his worrying had been for nought.