(Leve
DrØmet i Norge)
Tuesday
1:00 p.m., Oslo
Mark sat slumped on a long white bench, staring blankly at the large still pool of water in front of him, pulling a strand of green grass absently through his fingers. He wasn’t thinking about anything, he was deliberately not thinking about anything. He couldn’t think about anything, because every last bit of his brain was consumed with the image of the girl he loved more than anyone and the friend he hated beyond belief. They were standing there, hands all over each other, laughing at him. Laughing at him for being such an idiot and daring to hope that there might still be something left for him and Rose, laughing at him for not being able to let go of the past, and laughing at him because he was so pathetic. With his eyes open, Mark could perfectly visualise the look in Rose’s eyes as she showed him exactly what she thought of him, and when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Rose kissing Paul, a self-satisfied smile on her face, knowing how much she was hurting him.
He should hate her: thoughts like that should lessen his opinion of her dramatically, as should the little revenge games she was playing, but none of it changed anything. Of course he knew that she was only with Paul to get back at him – if Mark could see that, anyone could – but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. If anything, it hurt more, because she must really hate him to go to such lengths. But he still felt the same; no matter what she did to him, he still loved her. It was like a curse, really. He just couldn’t stop wanting her back.
Rose – Harbour
Rose was back where she’d been with Christian, Kate, Ben and Paul last night. She was sitting on the steps that led down to the slightly murky harbour water, gazing into the distance at the happy boats making their way back home. She felt horribly guilty. She felt like throwing herself into the water in front of her and just sinking to the bottom, dragged to the bottom by her own evilness. She couldn’t believe she’d been so horrible to Chloe. Sure, she’d been feeling a little put-out over the fact that Chloe did seem to be siding with Mark an awful lot, but it was all stuff she could have kept to herself until she had a chance to talk to her about it calmly. She felt like she’d had a massive reality implant and now she could see things how they actually were, whereas all that had really happened was that she’d fallen off the unreasonably high pedestal she’d put herself on and hit the ground hard. And because of how she’d been acting – walking around thinking she was just amazingly great – nobody cared that her fall had hurt. And so she was sitting here, all on her own, insides being consumed by guilt, confusion and self-hate, and she had no-one to talk to about it.
A million years ago, in the parallel universe that had been her life before she met Mark, in times like this it would be him she’d want more than anyone else. No-one else could have competed with the reassurance and relief Rose believed he’d have brought if he’d been there for her to turn to, not even Chloe, but since realising all her dreams by actually being with him, Rose had realised something else: that life isn’t a fairytale. She knew that it was her blind longing for someone she’d adapted to fit the perfect mould in her head that had put her here today, alone in a Norwegian harbour. She almost laughed – how random was that?! But random or not, it didn’t take away the Mark-shaped problem in this lonely equation. Rose couldn’t believe how much of a cow she’d been to him; for God’s sake, what had she been doing with Paul?! And there was another person she’d probably offended with her high-and-mightiness. Ohhh, she’d really messed up this holiday, hadn’t she?
Paul – Karl Johan’s Gate street café
Paul stared into the coffee he wasn’t going to drink on the table in front of him. He didn’t know why he’d bought it – to console himself, maybe. God, he felt so pathetic right now. He’d rather feel angry than feel like this, but the simple fact of the matter was that he wasn’t angry, he was just sorry, and regretful, and remorseful, and lonely, and PATHETIC! Argh, why was he like this over a girl?! It was so frustrating! And why, oh why, was he like this over a girl he couldn’t have? A girl who, according to her, he could never have. Now that had hurt. When Chloe had said that he was never going to be what she wanted, it had got Paul right in the heart. Never was such a final word. It was so… depressing. Where did you go from never? Actually, no, what had hurt Paul the most was when Chloe had said he tried to brainwash her. Now that had hurt. A lot.
Paul had done a lot of things in the last two years that, given the benefit of hindsight, he would have thought a lot harder about before doing. They weren’t necessarily things he regretted doing, but they were things that… well, maybe he shouldn’t have done, at least not how he did, anyway. Things that could have been done in a different, less detrimental way. Take sleeping with Chloe, for example – probably the most prominent example of what Paul was detailing. It wasn’t a mistake, but it shouldn’t have happened how it did. And clearly Chloe thought so too, from her earlier comments. So okay, fine, Paul held his hands up to that; things could and should have been different in that respect, and it was probably, all things considered, his fault that they hadn’t been, but brainwashing – no, that was not something Paul was going to take on lightly. He had done what he’d done for Chloe’s own good, or at least what he thought was her own good. It was true that Paul’s impression of what had happened between Chloe and Ben wasn’t entirely accurate, but he’d always been doing what he’d thought was best for Chloe; she was always his main priority. And then when he made the biggest mistake of his life by letting her go, he did it because he knew it was best for her, despite wishing that what was best for her was him. Maybe he’d changed his mind now, though. He’d only had her for a short time, but it was long enough for him to know how he felt: he loved her, and he wanted her back, screw the circumstances. He just wished he knew how she really felt.
Chloe – Palace Grounds South-East
Chloe did her best to hold back the tears as she sat in the shade under a tree on the grass to the right side of the Royal Palace. Looking around her, she wondered if there was anyone else in Oslo who fancied having a go at her. Well the ‘We hate Chloe’ count was currently at three, so she might as well try and break a record while she was being emotionally beaten to the ground. God, what a day. She was trying to convince herself that she was in shock, or something similar which meant that she “couldn’t” take in or process any of the unwanted information she’d acquired in the space of an hour, but from the millions of thoughts swirling round her head, making her feel sick, she clearly wasn’t in any kind of numbing after-state at all.
She was deeply hurt by Rose’s words, and she felt horrible about what she’d said to Paul, but it wasn’t either of those things that was making her cry – it was Ben. What Ben had said to her… She just couldn’t believe the way he’d spoken to her, the words he’d used. For the first time in a long while he’d been talking to her like she was a little child. What did he mean by saying that she didn’t know how to be in a proper relationship?! She’d made one mistake - one – and after all this time, Ben was still hanging onto that. That hurt, that really really hurt, especially as Chloe had thought that he’d put all that behind them. She was devastated that he’d said he didn’t trust her, but she was so angry as well, because she wasn’t the only one who’d made mistakes. When she thought about all the times she’d stood by him, stuck with him after he’d messed up, forgiven him, countless times, and he couldn’t even forget one stupid mistake. Coz that was all it was! It was just a mistake, and one that he wasn’t entirely blameless in either, a fact that he seemed to have conveniently forgotten. She just didn’t know what to do now. Was this just another petty argument, or was it more than that this time? Was there anything left for her and Ben now? How can you have anything if you don’t have trust?
Ben – Millennium Hotel
Ben stood in front of the long window at the end of his and Chloe’s hotel room, looking down to the street below, wondering why this was happening again. His and Chloe’s argument had brought back unwelcome memories of the days - not so long ago - when a kind word was rarely said between them; the days when they might as well have been platonic flatmates for the amount of physical contact they shared. After everything that happened, Ben hadn’t thought it would ever get like that again. They’d both learned from their mistakes, so he thought, and they wouldn’t be unintentionally heading down the same road they did last time. Except here they were again, acting out the same old story, just in a different setting.
Ben knew it was his fault last time, and he knew it was his fault this time, but that didn’t make things any clearer. Why was his and Chloe’s relationship so volatile that it blew up with one misplaced word? He’d thought they were strong now, stronger than they’d been before – wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? You break up, and then you get back together, stronger for it. Well obviously Ben and Chloe were the unhappy exception to that well-known rule, because that wasn’t what had happened. He had thought they were fine, he honestly had, but then maybe it was just easier to believe that than the fact that they were on borrowed time, just waiting for an excuse to be at each other’s throats. Ben couldn’t remember half of the things he’d said to Chloe this time – he was well aware that he tended to say things in the heat of the moment that he didn’t necessarily mean – but the words must have come from somewhere. Something wasn’t right, and they couldn’t go on like this.