In the end Agnes didn't text, she rang. It was Saturday morning, she thought maybe they could go and get some lunch and spend the afternoon in the city. She was excited to get out and about with Elin, to take her to some of her favourite places and see whatever interesting things the intrepid blonde was sure to have discovered.

Agnes realised how often Elin had been in her thoughts. At first, after she had left Amal and arrived in Stockholm for university, she would often think to herself offhandedly, "Oh, Elin would like that" or "I'll have to remember to tell Elin". But she never did and the pressure and the shame grew each week until it became insurmountable. Even after that, even quite recently, she would sometimes catch herself wishing she she knew Elin's opinion: on a place or an event or an idea. Sometimes she could almost hear Elin in her head, sat at her mum's kitchen table sounding off about something or another whilst mixing yet more chocolate milk.

But in those imaginings, she now noticed, Elin had always been younger. She had never grown past the sixteen years she had when Agnes had left. Even when discussing contemporary events Elin had remained the same. Although she didn't look much different, that didn't help the separation of things in Agnes' mind. She didn't act particularly different either. Agnes had a moments waver, a moment of thinking perhaps she was going insane, had completely lost it. But no, other people had seen and interacted with Elin. Independent witnesses. Unless she was imagining that... no. If she wasn't mad before – which she wasn't, she affirmed to herself – she was likely to drive herself mad shortly.

Agnes quickly turned her attention back to the task in hand. The ringing stopped but no-one answered.

"Hello?" Agnes thought perhaps Elin had put the number in wrong. "Hello?"

"Oh, hey, Agnes."

"Elin? Are you alright?" Elin sounded odd, as in, more so than usual.

"Mm, yes, fine. Thank you. How are you?"

"I'm good. You don't sound very well."

"Well, no, I suppose not. Rough night and all that."

"Were you sleeping?"

"Yes. But it's okay. I just..." Elin trailed off. "Hang on."

Agnes could hear the phone being put down and Elin shuffling. Then there was the unmistakeably horrible sound of vomiting. She hung up the phone, picked up her coat and headed out the door to the Metro.

A bleary looking Elin answered her door sometime later. "Oh it's you," she said blithely. "I was wondering where you had gone."

"I was worried about you."

"I'm fine." Elin backed off and allowed Agnes entry.

The flat was even more of a mess than the last time Agnes had been in there the other night. Elin herself looked terrible.

"Were you sick?"

"Mm, a little. Better now though. Must have had a dodgy drink. One of the dozen or so." Elin was going for a comedy angle but Agnes wasn't feeling humorous.

"Sounds like a great night." Agnes didn't know what was happening to her. She hadn't come halfway across the city to moan at Elin.

Elin sat on the couch gingerly and sipped water from a bottle. "I'm getting too old for this," she muttered.

"For what?"

"You know, partying, drinking, getting out of it." Elin cast a glance in Agnes' direction. "Though maybe you should try it. Loosen you up a bit." She wasn't sure what she had done to deserve the morality party hassling her in her own flat. Apart from throw up whilst on the phone, but that wasn't strictly her own choice.

"You were on drugs?" Agnes accused.

"It's just a little coke. Everyone does a little coke." Elin was cheerful, dismissive.

"No, Elin, they don't."

Immediately something changed in Elin. She was nowhere near as wrecked as she allowed herself to appear. Straightening up and fixing Agnes in a steady gaze she did not waver. "I think I missed," she pontificated, "The part where you got to have any say in how I run my life."

Agnes lips curled in derision. "I don't need this." She picked up her coat and headed straight out the door.

"Nope," Elin agreed with the empty room. "And nor do I."


Feeling mildly recovered some time later around lunch Elin ventured out to the shops and the chemists for essential supplies. She stood dejectedly in the grocers, overwhelmed by the decisions she was forced to make just in order to buy some bread. Times were hard, options were everywhere. She wasn't really sure what had occurred earlier, why Agnes had felt it necessary to come over seemingly just to pick a fight. Presumably something else was going on, larger than her, she rationalised. Whatever.

She was always a target for people to vent their steam at. The fact she had an interesting but largely blameless and enjoyable life meant people with boringly self righteous surface level lives that were teeming with regret, condemnation and general ill feeling were always on to her. If that was how they coped with their own inadequacies so be it. Elin kept a healthy distance. She had no deeper levels, everything was out on display, she was just Elin.

And when she got home Agnes was sitting in her hallway.

Elin stood over her as Agnes looked up submissively.

"I'm sorry."

Elin leant back against the opposite wall.

"I am sorry. I had no right. I'm just concerned about you. And yes I realise how stupid that sounds... considering."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

Elin went to unlock her door. "Yes."

Agnes couldn't believe it. She scrambled to her feet. "Okay?"

"Yes, Agnes," Elin turned in the doorway. "What do you want me to do? Would it make you feel better if I were angry? I can't be bothered, Agnes. I don't have the energy."

"I'm sorry."

"So you keep saying."

"Well what do you want me to say?"

"Nothing. I don't want you to have to say anything. Because I just don't want you to do the things that need apologising for. You don't need to fix me, Agnes. I don't need fixing."

"I'm s-" Agnes stopped herself. "You are right. I know you are right."

"I've managed all these years."

Agnes didn't want to hear this, didn't want to know about Elin's broken heart, about all the awful things she had endured. Because of her. And that was selfish. That was bending the past to her own will and Elin deserved more than that.

"You know you were -" Elin searched for the words. "You were more than my girlfriend. You were my best friend."

That was emphatically not what Agnes had been expecting and it cut her more than anything else she could have imagined. Tears stung at her eyes.

Elin could not bear to look at her. Her gaze rested halfway down the wall. "I'm going to Amal, next weekend. You should come. It would be... cathartic."

Agnes looked up, hope filling her watery eyes. "Really?"

"Uh huh." Elin nodded, still not making eye contact.

"Thank you." Agnes knew she needed that. She needed to go back, confront some demons, before she could go forward, wherever that was to.


"Where were you this afternoon?" Kamilla's tone was of interest, not probing or accusatory.

"At work." Still Agnes could not bring herself to tell her.

"Poor baby," Kamilla muttered affectionately. "I missed you."

Agnes forced a smile. And she was most certainly not going to tell her the truth about next weekend. "I'm sorry," she said automatically. "And next weekend, I have to go away to some junket thing at the university in Uppsala."

"That sounds interesting. But we had those tickets..."

"Shit, I'm sorry." Agnes cursed the damn opera or ballet or whatever it was. "I forgot. I said I would cover it. You know, what with the boss being off."

"No, no of course. You should go. Go and make yourself indispensable." Kamilla seemed genuinely pleased for Agnes, which turned Agnes' stomach. But, there it was. The first glimmers of infidelity.

Or so Agnes thought. She realised actually that wasn't true. That had begun the first day she had met Elin again, that she did not come home and excitedly tell Kamilla about an old school friend reunited. Or even before that, when she had never really told Kamilla the fallout and guilt over her first love from all those years ago.

Then Kamilla compounded the situation. "I was worried actually, a little, that you might have been with her. With Elin."

"Oh? I haven't seen her for days." Agnes just about squeaked.

"I know, it's silly. I like her and I'd like to meet her properly, but I was afraid you – I was afraid you might fall back in love with her or something."

Agnes didn't know how to even concoct a lie to defend that. It was preposterous, she knew, because she had never fallen out of love with Elin in the first place. She still was in love.