The doorbell rings. She feels afraid, then angry. She’d told him not to come this week. She wants to be alone, to think and to figure everything out. It rings again. She won’t give him a key even though he keeps insisting on one. She glances around the apartment to make sure there’s nothing lying around that will trigger suspicion or accusations or fury. She presses the buzzer and stands by the open door, listening to his steps getting closer, centering herself with deep, calm breathing. She places a hand on her lower stomach as if to check the bump, still only noticeable to herself, is still there. It is – a tiny and delicious secret she’d defend with her own life.

*

For a long while afterward, they lie awake. She feels confused and tense. The familiarity of him used to feel so good, it was worth all the pain, at least she thought so, but now it feels stifling.

I think we should make a baby, he whispers. She’s speechless and turns her face away from him so he won’t see the tears that appear in her eyes. How is she going to get out of this? He is never going to let her go. Unless…

Her thoughts return to Bekkebu. To the soft glow from the fireplace and the crackle of the flames. To the imagined scene of sitting across from Kristina Moss, telling her everything. She glances over at the man beside her and feels a sharp bolt of dread in her stomach. She realizes that everything that’s happened and everything she has done could place her in danger. She needs a plan B. She closes her eyes and brings forth the images that never fail to fill her with awe – two stars colliding and bursting into mesmerizing luminous explosions, so bright they light up entire galaxies, if only for a moment in time.

25

Kristina, November 1st

I sit up fast, stabbing at the screen, waiting for the email to load. It was sent at 10.31 last night, and only a few sentences are written in the body of the email.

Why haven’t you come? I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. All I wanted was to tell you the truth. Something we have in common, you and I, is living a lie. And when you live in the shadow of one lie, you build more and more lies around that lie until nothing is true or real. If you’d come, we could have talked. I just wanted to tell you the truth. And I wanted to talk to you about Carúpano. But now – now it really is too late. Everything is lost. I wrote about you, and I wanted you to have it. I called it Supernova because that’s the word that comes to mind when it comes to you and me, it’s attached.