What have you done? I mouth the words in the dark. Could Leah have followed Eirik around like she followed me and found something out about him that she now wants to tell me about? She was jealous, that much is obvious. Obsessive. And yet, I felt that she and I had a good therapeutic relationship and that we made solid progress over the years she came to see me. Was it all fake? Did Leah play a role in our sessions while attempting to inch ever closer to me, motivated by obsession, or is it more complex than that? I wish I could go through to the living room and read the rest of Supernova. I have to know, but more than that, I have to tread carefully. There is something about the measured tone and the controlled patience of Leah’s revelations that make me take her extremely seriously.

I very gently run my index finger across Eirik’s thick eyebrow, smoothing the wiry hairs into place as I go. He barely stirs but purses his lips. I love you, I think. And – I need you. And – What have you done?

63

Kristina

‘Honey? Honey, wake up.’ His words reach me, but slowly and buffered through a dream. I try to open my eyes but it is as though they’ve been glued shut. ‘Krissy, can you hear me?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Wake up.’

‘Mmmm.’ My right eye cracks open. My husband is sitting on the side of the bed, eyes puffy from sleep, dark stubble chasing up his neck, face serious.

‘Jesus, Kristina. You had me really worried there. You wouldn’t wake up.’

‘Sorry. I… My head hurts. Uh. What time is it?’

‘Just gone nine. I didn’t realize it was morning; it’s almost completely dark in here. Look, sit up. Bit of a problem.’ Eirik helps me to sit up, positioning me carefully against the pillows and the wooden headboard.

‘Ow.’ The pain is significantly worse today than yesterday. It feels as though I have been pummeled and then run over by a freight train.

‘Look,’ says Eirik and points across the living room to the windows facing out to the valley and the little lake far below. But we can’t see any of that, in fact we can’t see anything at all, because we are snowed in. When I was a child, we’d stay at my grandparents’ cabin in Valdres and we’d get snowed in fairly often, waking up in a muffled, hushed cocoon. My father would have to dig us out and sometimes Camilla and I would toboggan off the roof of the cabin, which would only be a meter or so above the ground. I didn’t realize it could happen as far south as Telemark, and especially this early on in the season – it’s only just November.

‘It’s fucking crazy out there. I’ll have to dig us out.’