9. A house soaked in you.
December 8, 2023 at 2:23 PM
The drive home was tensely silent. Both were thinking about something of their own, regretting something, remembering something, trying to find the right words, but nothing worthwhile could be found.
Also silently, without collusion, already at home, they sat down on the sofa side by side, leaving a symbolic distance between each other. Nemi wrapped her arms around her legs, looking somewhere through the floor. Einar tensely clenched his hands into a fist, occasionally glancing at the girl. The silence was very thin, strained, some kind of glass. Nemi felt that she had to say something, explain herself somehow, and bring some clarity, otherwise, this grinding silence could remain between them forever. Einar wanted to apologise, to say that he should not have acted so hastily, especially without getting consent first. But both of them could not get the words out of their mouths, as if any stray word released into the air could break the thread of glass silence, and everything between them would invariably change.
“I was engaged,” Nemi said quietly, still looking through the floor.
She didn’t move, just tightened the grip around her legs. Einar, who had not expected any breach of silence, much less such a confession, looked at her in a dazed way. As soon as he opened his mouth in an attempt to address this, Nemi sighed, nodding to herself, as if she had finally finished writing a long, hard story in her head:
“When I was 18 and just arrived at the Academy, I decided to move into a dorm. The family had money for a rented apartment, but it would still be quite burdensome for them, finding a good apartment near the Academy was not an easy task. I lived with two girls there, we became friends pretty quickly. Then we got to know our neighbours, they introduced us to their own, and so it went on indefinitely. I made a lot of friends, though most of them I don’t talk to now, it made the study time just not forgettable,” she smiled bitterly. “That’s how I met Hoshi. Then it turned out that he was also from Azumashiyo: Hoshi was more of a nickname, an abbreviation of his full name — Harikoshi. We were in the same company, often spent time together, walked, prepared for exams, and helped each other. Over time, we found out that we even lived in the same neighbourhood. Can you imagine?” She looked at Einar for the first time since their kiss. “But we’ve never seen each other before. It’s so weird…” Nemi rested her chin on her knees. “For some short holidays in the autumn, Hoshi and I went back home together. He met my parents, I met his. We didn’t see each other there for a couple of days, spent time with our families. And I have to be examined at least once a year, preferably once every six months. And since I was at home, I decided to go to my doctor. They take tests, and check the coagulability, so that, if anything, adjust the dose. They check the heart and see if everything is fine with the valve. I was 18 then, the valve wasn’t even 20 years old, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry, you know,” she sighed. “There, in the hospital, in the queue, I saw Hoshi. It turned out that he also had a congenital heart defect. He had only one, which, by the way, is not so common. To some extent, he was lucky. The CHD was the same as mine: aortic coarctation. So many coincidences.” She thought for a moment. “We immediately, of course, so to speak, confronted each other about why we hadn’t told each other sooner,” she smiled, looking at the floor again. “Then we discussed our diagnoses, operations, treatments, and forecasts. And started dating in, like, early December,” she paused for a while, clearly falling somewhere deep into memories. “I loved it so much. I’ve never loved anyone this much. Hoshi is such an incredible soul. I was a little sceptical about life back then, especially with the disease, and I behaved quite… shamelessly. It seemed like if something could go wrong at any moment since it was not clear how long my life would be, I could do what I wanted, and behave as I pleased. It’s not like I’ve been to the police, or broken the law. I just… Sometimes I didn’t know when to stop. And he…” she trailed off again, “…loved life so much, appreciated it. Was always so happy about little things. If a ray of sunset sunlight falls in some special way on the couch, he will immediately run to call me so that I can see it too. Or someone will say something nice to him, a compliment about his moles, he loves his moles very much, so he will then walk all day, so joyful, and radiant, also make compliments to everyone, even to strangers, and he will kiss me a hundred times in an hour, telling me how wonderful I am. If he hears my favourite song, he will immediately pull me to dance, even if we were walking in the middle of the street. I’ll give him some trifle, for example, a tiny figure of a cat that I saw in a tent on the street and immediately thought of him, and it will always stand on his table in a corner,” she sighed, trying to swallow the brewing lump in her throat. “Oh, yes, somewhere near the beginning of the second year, we moved in together. We found a cheap apartment about twenty minutes from the Academy and started renting it. It was old and dusty, but we rearranged everything in there, cleaned it up, and bought some stuff. It has become the most cosy and warm place in the whole world. And then, he proposed to me. Somehow he scraped together the money for the ring, I guess he was moonlighting. He never admitted tho, what a fool,” she smiled wistfully, barely noticeably. “We went home for the winter holidays. There we climbed the mountains, not like hiking for a few days with tents, just a hiking trail. I adore mountains, I’ve always loved them, of course, he knew that. It was also such a snowy, frosty and sunny winter. I just love this. You walk, the snowdrifts around you are like half of your body, the frost bites your nose and cheeks, there is not a cloud in the sky, it is so baby-blue, and the sun shines so bright that even glasses will not help, but it is so warm that it caresses your face and you immediately feel so good. The snow glitters, shimmers, and crunches pleasantly with each step. You walk, you trample the path, your feet get stuck, and you leave behind huge deep holes. But the snow is so soft, and sticky, in some places with a thin ice crust, it crunches so nicely. You just want to flop down in the snow and stare at this bottomless clear sky, just lie there, hug, not think about anything and live,” she looked up at the ceiling, either imagining the sky or trying to calm the tears coming. “We reached the end of the trail, took a few photos, sat there on a bench by the cliff, chatted, it felt like forever. My hands are constantly cold, even in mittens, and he is like a stove, a generator of endless heat. So we sat holding hands. And then he stood in front of me, sat down on one knee, and I just… Yes, it was so fast, but we loved so immensely. He loved me so much that I started loving myself. I thought I was going to die without him,” tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks, but her face was completely calm. “And then… about a month later, he got so sick. We just sat down to dinner and took a couple of bites. He had such a terrible pain in his stomach, he couldn’t stand, terrible weakness, he was so cold… I was so scared. Hoshi held on, and tried not to shout, so as not to scare me more. At some point he lost consciousness, I even exhaled because at least he wouldn’t suffer from pain,” she shook her head. “I already knew then what it was, I knew for sure… But I pushed any such thoughts away and tried to think of good things for him. But how I silently cursed the doctors who examined him two months ago…” Nemi leaned back, tucking her legs under herself. “It was Monday evening then, rush hour,” she paused. “The ambulance took so long, it was catastrophically long for his case… They put him in the intensive care unit, I begged for permission to sit with him, we didn’t get married, I wasn’t a relative, and I was nobody for him according to the documents. They were preparing the operating room, called the cardiologist surgeon, but… But they didn’t make it…” The tears were already joining on the chin, flowing down the neck, absorbed into the neck of the shirt. But her face was still calm. “I was sitting next to him, holding his hand when he…” she wiped the tears from her chin, unable to finish the sentence. “We didn’t even say goodbye… I saw how he died, and how his heart stopped, and the sound of these devices is still in my ears. I was screaming so hard, hugging my Hoshi, begging for help. His hands have become so cold…” Nemi paused, trying to calm the tremor in her voice. “When I came home, it was so empty, but he was everywhere. The whole house, filled with his things, soaked with him. Some notes on stickers, scattered socks, an open drying umbrella in the room, things in the laundry, his notebooks, pens, clothes on the back of a chair, slippers in the hallway, unwashed dishes that I asked a hundred times to wash after lunch, dinner leftovers on the stove, plates on the table, his favourite fork, keys on the hook in the hallway, his ring on my finger… But he was no longer there… He was everywhere, but he wasn’t there anymore…”
Then Nemi’s face lost all calm. She drowned her face in her palms and tears. Her crying was soundless. It was a dull, dry pain that could not be drowned out by screams or tantrums. This is not a momentary weakness or nerves compressed under the yoke of minor failures. Such pain remains for the rest of your life. The pain of loss will return from time to time, opening old wounds. Then leave again, letting you believe that everything is getting better, but not for long. It comes in waves at unexpected and inopportune moments: while greeting a new day, brushing your teeth in the morning; discussing the latest news with friends or having dinner; when doing work, trying to concentrate. Grief occupies all aspects of life, gradually removing the bricks of “ordinariness” from it. Sooner or later everything will fall apart, the usual life will consist only of elusive memories that can never be repeated. And, alas, this “habitual life” itself will never be from now on. This is the most terrible feeling of all possible: after going through the loss of someone dear to you, you will never be able to completely let it go. After all, the part that helped to live and prosper was torn away from you. Without it, you are not complete now.
Einar erased this symbolic distance between them and pulled Nemi to him, hugging her. Without removing her hands from her face, she snuggled into his chest. Only her shoulders rose up and down slightly as she desperately tried to breathe in as much air as possible, but there were no other signs of tears. He held her tightly, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. Gently stroked her back, trying to calm her down at least a little. And she pulled away, but didn’t move away, and he kept his hands on her shoulders.
“People never think that the hardest thing in loss is abandoned things,” Nemi began again as if nothing had happened. Only her voice was quiet, shaky, and there were traces of tears burned on her cheeks, and her breathing was a little confused. But the face itself was frighteningly calm again. “I’ve never thought about it either. But when faced with this… It was driving me crazy. I was alone… left alone, but he was in every little thing. Everywhere I looked, I saw him, us. How he hugged me from behind early in the morning when I was hastily preparing breakfast before the first class. How we hid under a tiny blanket, that he brought from his parents' house, on the sofa in winter. How we danced late at night to silly songs. How he sat intently at the table before the exam, biting on his pinky, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the habit every time, for what he threw a pillow at me because I distracted him… I had no idea what to do with his things. His parents arrived, we sorted everything out: gave something away, I kept something most dear to me, they took something for themselves, and just… threw the rest away. Threw the pieces of his life in the trash…” she shook her head. “It was unbearable for me to live there anymore, and I returned to the dorm,” she quieted down.
“I’m so sorry, Nemi,” Einar practically whispered, stroking her hand. “I’m sorry for your loss…”
“Thank you. But it’s okay, really. It’s been two years,” Nemi looked into his eyes. “I thought I had already developed immunity to this topic, but apparently not,” she tried to smile, but it didn’t come out well.
Einar looked at her hands, nervously crumpling the edge of her shirt.
“Is this the ring?” he took her hand in his to examine it.
“Ah?” she followed his gaze as if she had completely forgotten about the ring. “Yes… I couldn’t get rid of it.”
His fingers were cool, but he touched her very gently, almost weightlessly.
“After Hoshi, I was with no one… I couldn’t… We had to live our whole lives with each other, we had such life plans… We’ve been thinking so much about our future together, what we’ll do after graduation, how we’ll get married in the autumn, how we’ll buy our apartment when we get back home, but now… there’s only his grave there…”
Nemi unconsciously squeezed Einar’s thumb when he wanted to let go of her hand. He covered her fingers with his. She looked at him again.
“You were the first guy I let so close in two years. I just didn’t expect it. If I hurt you somehow, I really didn’t mean to.”
“It’s all right, Nemi. Don’t worry. I should have asked first, I don’t know what came over me.”
Nemi forced a smile, squeezing his finger harder, not taking her eyes off him. Her gaze was searching, filled with bitterness. Einar looked at her gently, barely restraining himself from touching her cheek. Nemi drew herself to him, gently covering his lips with hers. She opened them up a bit. The kiss was very delicate, and sensual, but it was soaked with the taste of tears left on her lips. Einar returned the kiss, but almost immediately gently pushed her away from him, yet touching her cheek.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he lowered his hand to her neck, behind her ear, stroking her cheek softly. “I’d really like to kiss you, but not when you’re grieving for your dead fiancé.”
“Yes… yes, you’re right, I’m sorry,” she rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Well, we’ll call it even,” she smiled weakly, putting her hands on her legs, he covered them with his own again.
“It was an aortic aneurysm—”
“We don’t have to talk about it anymore if it hurts you,” Einar interrupted.
“No, you should know about this,” she sighed. “An aneurysm can become a complication of the operation, the one that was done after I was born. The walls of the aorta are thinning and it’s expanding and becomes, like, a ticking time bomb. Then it thins so much that it begins to delaminate, and then it just breaks. The appearance of an aneurysm is extremely unlikely, but the chance can never be zero, so we are constantly being examined. But they, the doctors, either didn’t notice, or it developed very quickly during the time between examinations,” Nemi looked at Einar, slightly tilting her head to one side. “My point is that, in theory, I could die right now out of nowhere, too. Of course, everyone can have a sudden cardiac arrest at any moment, but I have a hypothetical aneurysm added to this option. Just so you know what you’re getting into.”
Einar didn’t say anything, just pulled her to him, hugging her again. This time she, too, wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.
“Do you want to get some sleep?” he asked right next to her ear.
“Yes, I guess I should.”
“Do you want, uh… sleep in my room? I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving you alone in this state.”
Nemi broke off the hug to look at him. He was completely serious.
“I don’t…” a pleasant feeling appeared in her chest from his suggestion. Rejection had become a habit in two years, but there was something different here. She wanted to fall asleep next to him. “If you won’t make a pass at me,” she smiled, not so stiffly this time.
“I give you my word,” Einar also smiled at her.
“Okay, I’m just gonna clean up.”
Nemi got up from the sofa. Her hands were shaking, her legs were weak. The corners of his eyes burned unpleasantly, face was sticky. But the heart was squeezing pleasantly in her chest. She covered the ring with her fingers and, thinking about something, went to the bathroom.
