‘I’ll give you a minute,’ I say, stepping back out into the hallway. I go through to the bathroom and from the highest shelf behind the mirror, I retrieve a tranquilizer from an ibuprofen box. I tuck it underneath my tongue, making sure it’s covered with saliva, then swallow it dry. I lean back against the wall, wishing Idun out of my house with all my might, but my eyes fall on the black-and-white photograph on the opposite wall, taken the summer I was nineteen. I’m standing between my two best friends, grinning widely, Trine on my left, and Elisabeth beaming on my right. I force myself to stare at the photo for several long moments until our faces grow fuzzy and blurred.

‘What did she look like when you found her?’ asks Idun. I hadn’t noticed that she’d emerged from the bedroom and is standing directly beside me.

‘She looked peaceful,’ I whisper, my voice trembling. It’s a lie. But sometimes we have to lie.

22

Elisabeth, June

She wakes soaked in sweat. She sits up in bed, letting her eyes get used to the darkness, her head groggy with heavy sleep medication, before picking up her phone. It’s only 1 a.m. and she’s been asleep for less than an hour. She scrolls through Instagram and likes Kristina’s most recent post, a picture of her and Eirik posing poolside in Thailand, sipping from the same drink, a carved-out watermelon cocktail. She stares into the darkness of her room and imagines Kristina in this moment, sleeping close together with Eirik in a languidly hot bungalow, beads of sweat studding her smooth, bronzed skin, her husband’s arms flung possessively around her waist.

Elisabeth sometimes wonders whether she’ll ever again sleep next to anyone. The idea of letting someone in, all the way in, like Andreas, feels impossible and wrong. She knows she hasn’t processed his death yet, and though it’s been over five years, she doesn’t feel ready to fully take in the fact that he is gone, that he simply doesn’t exist, that it could be possible to live in a world where she keeps breathing when he’ll never take another breath. It was easier when she was out there, on the streets; at least she’d have a few hours every day when she was high, when everything just felt mellow and possible, even living without Andreas, even living with the carnage and fear of her past, which play in her mind on a never-ending hellish loop. Now, she has to stare reality in the eyes, sober.