And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice.
Start Destination: Copenhagen, Denmark
End Destination: Helsinki, Finland
Via: Copenhagen Airport
09:18AM (GMT) / 10:18AM (Local Time)
Our flight has been delayed by god knows how long and the tension between Levi and I is overwhelming.
He hasn’t talked to me at all today and I am glad that he has gone to get a coffee as it finally allows me a chance to breathe. Luckily Rosie and El have not picked up on the silence between us and seem to be carrying on their day as normal but I am still on edge. I can’t help but worry that Levi is going to tell them both about what happened between us last night and it makes my heart race just thinking about it.
But I am playing silent. If he is not mentioning it then I am not doing so either.
And so when he returns with coffees, I thank him as he hands me my drink but do not acknowledge him anymore than that. I continue to chatter with Rosie and El and hope that it doesn’t take too much more time before we can board the flight
All four of us are obviously bored. There are no seats left in our gate and so we are sat on the floor near the window hoping that we will at least be the first to see when our plane pulls up to the gate. We’re still waiting.
On the seats nearest to us a woman is arguing with her teenage daughter in rapid Danish. The two trading what sounds like insults back and forth until the daughter stands up, says one final thing and storms off. Rosie – who has also been watching them – and I look at each other with questioning expressions.
I pull my knees tighter towards my body and sigh. Today appears as if it is going to be a long day. I can only hope that it will end better than it has started.
I sip at my coffee even though it is still scalding hot and try not to gasp when I feel my tongue begin to burn. I subtly fan my mouth though and inhale and exhale perhaps a little more than is necessary.
“I’m so bored, Rosie eventually whines.
“Same,” El agrees, “I can’t actually sit still any longer. I’m going to look what time our flight is due now.”
“You checked like five minutes ago,” Rosie reminds her.
“At this point I couldn’t care less,” El replies.
“I’m coming with you,” I say, “I need to stretch my legs.”
And so El and I set off across the airport, both annoyed by the fact that there isn’t actually a board with flight times on it in the gate.
Eventually though we stumble across one in the main part of the airport – having grabbed a couple of bags of slightly dodgy looking chocolate in our anger – and head back to the siblings to relay the news.
“It’s due in like twenty minutes,” I tell them.
“Thank god,” Levi says, – it is his first acknowledgement of anything I have said today – “I’m not sure I’ve ever been more bored.”
I try not to point out that Levi once said that about El’s dance recital that I dragged him to and instead decide that agreeing with him is the safest thing to do in this situation. I do not want to make him any angrier at me.
“Tell me about it,” I agree, “I think I might actually prefer watching paint dry.”
Levi completely ignores my comment and instead begins to strike up conversation with Rosie. He is so subtle. Note the sarcasm.
El notices him blowing me off and offers me a smile.
“At least it would give us something to look at,” she jokes agreeing with me.
I nod along and laugh but out of the corner of my eye I can see Levi sat to the left of me and I am not sure that I have ever wanted to hit somebody so hard before. Oh wait, I have, Levi eight months ago. To me it seems almost as if history is repeating itself.
If so then I think we should ditch Levi now before World War Three starts.
10:01AM (GMT) / 11:02AM (Local Time)
We finally reach our seats around two hours after the time we were supposed to leave. All of the passengers seem to be as exhausted as I am, letting out sighs of relief at finally having reached the next stage of the journey.
The plane is thinner than ones I am used to. There are only four seats per row, a narrow aisle running down the middle. Seating on planes does not seem to be on my side as somehow Levi and I have found ourselves sitting next to each other and neither of us are very happy about it.
Figuring that we have a two hour journey with us that I would rather not be filled with awkwardness I decide to say something – anything – to relive some of the tension.
“It’s about time,” I mutter to him as the safety tutorial begins.
Levi nods his head, acknowledging that he has heard me, but he does not offer me a response. Instead he turns his head away from me and then – as if he is worried that isn’t going to be enough to stop me – he reaches for his earphones, sticks them inside his ears and makes a show of turning up his volume as loud as possible.
Only an idiot would not get the message and so I follow his actions and put my own earphones in hoping that the sound of Ben Howard will drown out my thoughts, if only just for a little while.
My fingers drum on my thigh and despite Levi shooting me a slightly annoyed look when my rhythm gets slightly too loud the two of us do not talk at all.
The tension is running high and I cannot think of any way to lessen it. I know of course why Levi is mad at me but by no means do I think it is entirely my fault and therefore the fact that he is ignoring me is making me angrier than it possibly should be.
I sigh and shuffle, trying to relieve some of the pain from the position I am sat in, aeroplanes have never been the comfiest of places.
Despite my best efforts, I cannot help my gaze from drifting towards Levi throughout the flight. I am almost expecting him to look panicked, he did cheat on his girlfriend after all but instead he looks calm and he closes his eyes as he listens to his music. Every so often his eyelids flutter, as if he is dreaming or something, but then he settles down once again. I want to tear my gaze away from him, so far this boy has brought me nothing but trouble after all but he is strangely mesmerising and I watch his chest fall up and down as he falls asleep.
Unfortunately he is still asleep when we land and it falls to me to wake him. I lean over him and shake his shoulder lightly, hoping he won’t hit me in response. Luckily he doesn’t, instead he groans and slowly blinks before fully opening his eyes. When his gaze falls on me, a scowl latches onto his face.
“What?” He asks me sharply.
“We’ve landed,” I reply.
I curse my voice for being so quiet. It makes me seem like I’m afraid of him. I am pissed off at Levi and I may harbour a few feelings towards him but that does not give him the right to be annoyed at me. It takes two to tango after all, and so the last thing I want to do is seem like I am giving in to him.
“Good,” Levi tells me.
With that he pushes past me, retrieves his bag from the overhead rack and proceeds to get off the plane without another word to me. It hurts, but I choose to just ignore his childlike behaviour.
The group reconvenes when we all get off the plane and Elise and Rosie seem to be completely unaware of the awkward atmosphere between Levi and me.
And as an awkward group, we begin to make our way out of the airport.
1:03PM (GMT) / 2:03PM (Local Time)
Elise has assured us that she has a surprise waiting for us when we reach wherever we’re staying for the night. I’m hoping for chocolate and a bath that doesn’t look like it’s survived several wars. What we receive is better.
When we pull up in front of a house larger than any other I have ever seen I am very confused to say the least.
“What are we doing here El?” Rosie asks voicing my thoughts.
“I may know where my Dad keeps his spare key,” she says mischievously, “and I thought it would be a nice change from those crappy hotels.”
I shake my head, after all I know nobody else who can whip a family mansion out of nowhere. I am about to say that we can’t stay there based on principle and then I think of the idea of having a private bathroom and a bed where I don’t have to worry about all the other people who’ve lain on it and I just settle on the motto ‘what the hell’.
The four of us jump out of the car and follow after El as she makes her way up the large stone front steps before fumbling in a plant near the door and unlocking the mansion before us.
As she throws open the door I can’t help but intake a large amount of oxygen in a quick gasp, this place is plush to say the least. As soon as I walk inside I have to take off my shoes, the carpet is luxurious under my feet and my toes sink into the floor as I walk.
The house is like the mansions I see in films. A large staircase is the main attraction, white and gold banisters leading up to another – no doubt as expensive looking – level. The room we enter in seems to hold no real purpose other than showing off wealth but as I walk through an arched doorway I enter into a kitchen that makes Rosie’s mouth water, it is amazing, it seems to have utensils in it than all of our kitchens put together. The whole house makes me feel like crying.
Elise quickly and silently guides us up to our rooms and I sink down onto the bed, relieved to find it is as comfortable as I had expected. I practically sink into the mattress.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I joke.
My tone is humorous but it is definitely something I am considering. Sleep seems to be eluding me slightly so far this trip and hopefully this bed can help remedy that, however I know that El and Rosie will expect us to all socialise, no matter how much Levi and I refuse.
“Come on get up,” Rosie says.
She offers me a hand and pulls me up off of the bed; we then tour the rest of the bedrooms. All the rooms are similarly furnished and as we reach each room, its future occupier lets out a satisfied sigh as they settle down on the bed.
Once we are done we settle on having a calm evening. Rosie retreats to the kitchen to make cupcakes, Levi goes to his room saying that he has to skype Gemma and Elise and I settle down in the lounge, content to waste the evening away watching re-runs of terrible TV shows.
And so that is where I stay until it is time to go to bed, before retiring to the gorgeous bedroom with the divine bed where I hope that sleep awaits me.
10:59PM (GMT) / 11:59PM (Local Time)
It does not take me long to realise that I am not going to be getting much sleep tonight. I toss and turn for around half an hour before realising that my mind is bustling with too many thoughts for me to drift off.
I once read somewhere that one of the best things to do when you can’t sleep is to walk around and so I set off, figuring that the house is big enough for me to have a wander.
Instinctively, my feet lead me towards the kitchen and I smile when I see that some of Rosie’s cupcakes are on the side. I make my way towards them, figuring if I can’t sleep then I might as well eat.
I am halfway towards my destination when the kitchen light flickers on and I jump to a standstill.
“Sorry,” Levi says, “I didn’t realise anyone else was up.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him, “I couldn’t sleep so I came to get a cupcake.”
“I’m also here for a cupcake,” Levi admits sheepishly, “I was just about to head up to bed. I just finished skyping with Gemma.”
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat when he mentions her. It is not one of jealousy or sadness but more a deep guilt about what happened last night. I’m scared to broach the subject with Levi, he seems to be trying as hard as possible to omit the night from his memory.
“Cool,” I reply, not knowing what else to say, “how is she?”
“She’s good,” Levi says, “although she’s apparently sick of her parents dragging her round museums.”
I choose not to comment on the fact that just this morning Levi was telling the group about how much Gemma loved history like him – they could have been art museums after all – and instead decide that I do not want to carry on burying the issue of last night under the surface like an elephant in the room for the rest of the trip.
“Levi we need to talk about last night,” I tell him.
“There’s not really anything to talk about,” Levi replies, “we made a mistake, we got drunk and we thought we could rekindle an old flame. I forgot about Gemma and we slept together, end of story. Please don’t make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”
“So last night didn’t mean anything to you?”
“Of course not! Why? Did it mean something to you?”
“No, it’s just... well we weren’t that drunk.”
“We must have been, no offense Jess but Gemma suits me better than you and well, we broke up for a reason after all.”
And with that Levi turns, grabs his cupcake and heads up the stairs back to his room leaving me in a state of slight confusion.
I have no problem with him wanting to forget about last night. However I cannot help but feel insulted about him called it a ‘mistake’. A setback I could understand, but mistake suggests it was something he never wanted, something that he would take back in a heartbeat if he could and that hurts. As does him reminding me that we broke up for a reason, I wouldn’t mind, if I knew the reason that is but instead Levi seems to be insisting on leaving me in the dark on the topic forcing me to blame myself for the breakup for about one hundred different reasons. So him reminding me that we broke up for a reason is not helpful, I do not know what the damn reason is.
I trek up the stairs with these thoughts still on my mind. Does Levi hate me? Does he blame me for what happened last night? I do not see why he would but he is certainly acting like he is.
Levi seems to possess the amazing ability of making me want to hit him on a regular basis. That and I know he can say the alphabet backwards even when drunk.
The room seems to be colder now for no apparent reason and I lay awake for several more hours, trying to forget about what Levi said. The last thing I want to do is keep ,myself up all night worrying about it, it’s what I did after we broke up and it’s one of the reasons that makes Rosie claims she hates her brother.
It hurts to be broken up with; it hurts even more if you don’t know why. There had been no warning signs, but rather long discussions about how we were going to make a long distance relationship work and who was going to drive down which weekends and then a garbled phone call where Levi told me he was sorry and couldn’t carry on with what we were doing and it was over.
A year and a half of trying to make the other person happy had ended in tears and unexplained apologies.
I hated it. I still do.
And so I lie in bed and try desperately not to think of Levi and why we broke up because I know that as soon as I start on that it’s a slippery slope that can only end up with me crying or me going and pestering Levi and asking him questions. I can only imagine how annoyed he would be with me if I decided to do that.
To be fair they are probably questions that I should have asked him before, but I haven’t out of fear of what the answers might be. There are some things I’ve decided I do not want to know and why Levi broke up with me is one of them, although it sits on the edge of that decision.
Because it’s one thing having someone break up with you, it is another thing knowing it was all your fault.