In my heart Chapter 4
AN: Hey people! Sorry it took a while but RL is acting bitchy with me and my muse was on a vacation. I'm trying to get on track,but it isn't that easy ;) I hope you like the chapter and I also hope it's warm where you are. -25C isn't a joke, It's freaking freezing here! Thank you to all that reviewed/alerted/favorited this story. It means a lot to me. Enjoy!
Our group was returning from Aland. We had gone swimming on a secluded beach, or at least on a place that the Finnish people call a beach. The boulders that Kökari island seemed to greatly consist of, abruptly disappeared into the deep water. The water seemed unbelievably dark and deep and it intimidated me a bit, but Sookie jumped right into the water and floated away from the group.
„Aren't there any big fish?" I asked our Swedish host.
„What?"
„Big fish. You know shark, killer whales."
„No." he laughed and popped his pipe. „no big fish."
When our group decided to leave the beach, Sokie was just a spot in the distance. I figured that she might need help swimming back and swam after her. The Baltic sea seemed strange and threatening to me. Even though the Swede had said that there are no killer whales, there could've easily been other creatures. Giant squids. Murderous octopuses. Maniac walruses.
After a while we were next to each other.
„What are you doing?" Sookkie shouted and waved her feet under the water. She took in a big breath of air and went underwater.
„I came to see if you are OK. I was afraid that you would get tired."
„Oo," Sookie laughed as if I had surprised her with a flower bouquet „You definitely get 12 points for that."
Twelve points? What was that supposed to mean? After a few months, I figured out that it might have been a reference to the Eurovision song contest, that I hadn't heard from at that time.
„Aren't you afraid to be this far from the beach?" I shouted.
"Ahhaa!" Sookie announced "If you don't fight too much, the water will take you where you need to go. The water will keep you on top! You have to trust the water."
"I didn't like the way people looked at us when we climbed out of the water. Even though we were over twenty, I felt like a third grader in the middle of all those new faces.
"So how about you and Sookie?" teased the Slovenian Matiaz.
"Shut up, Matiaz" I told him.
"Well, tell us!"
"Leave it be."
"Did you make out in the waves?"
"Leave him alone, Matiaz," said the french Florent "everyone aren't such gossipy schoolgirls like you."
…...
I was convinced that I didn't need anyone. I wanted to live as a hermit, be a music-monk. Me and my guitar against the world. But sometimes, feelings won over me, like when I watched Finnish TV in the dorm room. Every afternoon, when Buffy the vampire slayer was on, I watched the strong energetic girl and she took the pain away. I could say that I was a little bit in love with her.
"Eric, you need a girlfriend," Said the British correspondent Pam, when I was yet again watching my dear Buffy with glazed eyes.
Pam was a blonde from England and she was as straight as a circle. She was exactly as old as I was and to me, she was like a long-lost twin sister.
"I know." I sighed
"Sookie finally gave me my iPod back in Kotka town. She came after me and Jevgeni in a music store and pulled me in the middle of the classic music shelves.
"I've listened to this for days and it's really good," she said as she handed me the iPod "Just know that you are very talented." I could sense the energy radiating from her body when it neared me. I felt as if I was going to melt.
"Talented?" I said, flattered from the compliment "Thank you."
"My favorite is the song where you sing "hopelessly, helplessly" in the end"
"Yes, I couldn't decide which one to go with so I used them both." I said. That song meant the most for me too.
Jevgeni looked at us from the hip-hop shelves with a puzzled expression. "Why do you look at each other like that?" he interrupted.
"How?" I said back to him. I didn't understand what he was talking about. Sookie didn't bother to answer Jevgeni. Instead she smiled at me again and left the shop.
…...
At the beginning of the final week we flew to Lapland. From the airport, we rode a bus over rocky mountains and through forests with sweet pine smell, our guides played us the local wild music called joig.
At a bar in Inari where we were dancing with the locals, Mitch and I decided to start making toasts to each other behind a glass of whiskey.
"The only sin is not caring," Said Mitch and looked me deep inside the eye. "And missing your chances."
All of my regrets lined themselves up in my head.
"Did you just make that toast up?"
"No," Mitch answered and sipped his whiskey. "But it seems to me that it's appropriate right now."
"Why the hell did you have to say it now?" I stuttered to Mitch "are you trying to ruin my evening?"
"You see? I knew this would be a good toast." Mitch laughed proudly "It makes you think." Mitch was 34 years old, older and wiser than all of us and he was even engaged.
"Fine," I said. "Let's live so that here won't be any regrets!" I swallowed another dose of whiskey, hit the glass against the table and stepped outside. I knew that when I wouldn't find sookkie that night, I would regret it until the end of my days.
It was 11PM, but the sun was still shining in Inari. The lake filled with tens of Nordic islands, was lined with thick, gloomy trees. I saw Sookie sitting on a dock that reached far into the lake. At the end of the dock, there was a water-plane and the air was thick with fat Finnish mosquitoes.
When I neared her, I heard that high-pitched voice in my head again telling me to make babies with her. I was too into the moment to even notice it.
I sat next to Sookie. We chatted about something that I couldn't remember. I could only think of the power that pulled us closer and closer to each other.
After a while, Sookie reached towards me and pulled a small candy wrapper out of her pocket. She folded a teeny boat out of it and put it into the water from her side of the dock. The boat swam from underneath it and came out on my side so I caught it from the water.
"The most important thing is to trust the water," Sookie said in a nosy tone. "Always remember that when you're swimming, that if you trust the water, it won't ever hurt you."
I looked at the paper boat carefully for a while.
"Well, you see," she said happily "now promise that you keep this boat for the rest of your life. Promise?"
Was she kidding? In the golden dusk light of Lapland, I looked at the boat again and looked back at Sookie.
"I promise."
...
An hour later. Our tipsy journalist gang headed back to our forest house near Inari, where we were living. I was staggering on a moonlit forest trail, when Sookie ran out of the shadows.
"I think I saw a moose!" she almost screamed it and her eyes were gleaming. I couldn't understand if she was making fun of me or was she truly in trouble.
"Really?" I said shockedly. We had seen a few moose during our hikes and they seemed like big, smelly and probably very dangerous animals. I grabbed her hand "Where should we go?"
"I don't know," She said in an urgent whisper, "maybe we should hide behind these houses."
When we climbed into a bush behind one of the small houses, she put her head on my chest. "It's full moon." she sighed and started giggling.
Suddenly a crackle came from the bushes. I jumped up "What was that? Is the moose back?"
Sookie started laughing.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"You." she laughed even louder.
I looked around in the bushes. It was midnight, but the sky was light gray. But even with the extra light, I couldn't identify a pair of horns in the dim-lit forest.
"You know," I said seriously "we're sitting out here, but what if the moose comes and..."
Sookie laughed even louder "Do you want to know the secret?" she asked.
"What?"
"The secret." she laughed. "The big secret! Finally I want to share the biggest secret of the universe with you."
"Tell me. What's the secret?" I whispered and leaned over to hear better.
"The secret is...that the world is small!" Sookie laughed. "It's not big!"
"That's your big secret?" I asked stumpedly.
"Yes!"
"Really?"
Someone crackled in the bushes again.
"Hey, are you sure that there are moose there?"
"I'm pretty sure there are. Big moose with big and sharp antlers!" Sookie was writhing with laugh in the bushes.
I grabbed her hands and leaned closer. While doing that, I noticed her high cheekbones. Sookie was different, but in a good way. She was full of light and that was exactly what I needed. Yes, I had experienced a lot of new things during this trip.
AN: Thoughts? Don't hesitate to click the review button, you know you want to. What did you think of Sookie's big secret? Till the next chapter!
Abbey