They could at least try! But that’s not how we humans are. And the older we get, the more we insist on our right to have our quirks and preferences left in peace.

He contemplated his mother, who had raised him all on her own with lots of discipline and not very much money. She had cared deeply, but after her long workdays at the university there hadn’t been much time and energy left for him.

In a way, he felt like he instinctively understood Oscar. Even though he had never met him, Jeppe recognized a sensitivity in the boy. As a fifteen-year-old, Jeppe Kørner had often spent hours or even entire days lying in his bed with a thick book and the curtains drawn. While his friends played soccer and got together to secretly drink beer and talk about girls, Jeppe had withdrawn from socializing and retreated into self-imposed solitude. He remembered his teenage years as the worst of his life, brimming with doubt and self-loathing, his reflection in the mirror one of chronic insecurity and weakness. It was a wonder that he had survived that period.

Jeppe looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. At dusk the search and rescue crews would suspend the search for the day. Everyone knew that passing the forty-eight-hour mark without any sign of life from Oscar likely meant that he was dead.

Where are you, Oscar? he thought, sticking his fork into his tiramisu. Where the hell are you?

Hunger has set in for real now. The boy has never tried going without food before. It frightens him, how the pain in his stomach fills his whole being. More than the cold and his fear of the sounds he hears. Rattling and footsteps around the clock, and yet no one comes. He is alone.

He is lying down now. The strength to sit or stand is no longer there, and he no longer knows if it is night or day. Here it is dark all the time. Not the kind of darkness he knows—the night sky lit with stars and the moon reflecting on the surface of the ocean—but black as if he has lost his sight.

He tries not to think about his family, but it is hard. His thoughts revolve around his siblings; they talk to him in the dark and plead with him to come home. His stomach hurts even more when he hears his little sister’s voice, and he clenches his teeth hard to force her away.

Breathe. As long as he focuses on breathing, he doesn’t think about anything, not even death. But he knows it is thinking about him.

MONDAY, APRIL 15

CHAPTER 12