Tonight's the night when we forget about the heartbreaks,
It's time.
Start Destination: Stockholm, Sweden
End Destination: Oslo, Norway
Via: /
7:48AM (GMT) / 8:48AM (Local Time)
As the car gently edges out of the car park I look out at the rear-view mirror, watching as we leave yet another hotel and, in turn, another city.
Levi notices my gaze, he is sat in the driver's seat next to me and he briefly diverts his eyes from the road to glance over at me. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he opens his mouth as if to say something before shutting it firmly and turning back to the road, his hands gripping the steering wheel ever so slightly tighter.
Rosie is asleep on the back seat, apparently tired from our exciting day yesterday and El has put her headphones in, apparently disgusted at Levi's taste in music.
And so it almost feels as if it is just Levi and I in the car and as he turns up the music in the car I begin to hum along before, without meaning too, breaking out into song. For a few moments Levi is silent, although the expression on his face suggests that there are plenty of things that he wants to say, and then he turns to me with a wide grin and begins to sing along with me.
It is easy and effortless to the point where I begin to wonder where everything between Levi and I went wrong. Moments like these remind me of the good times and sometimes it's easy to forget why I need to forget him. Levi is like a book that I can get caught up in who somehow manages to distract me from the real world just long enough that it's difficult to forget him. I know this, I know that enjoying time with Levi is the equivalent of lighting one more cigarette but I find that in the moment I just don't care because Levi is staring ahead with one of the widest smiles I've seen the whole trip and the two of us are both singing at the top of our lungs without a care.
"I sure hope these windows are soundproof," Levi teases, "else the locals are going to be wondering who's torturing a cat."
I decide to ignore his comment and instead twist around in my seat to ensure that we have not woken Rosie up. It appears we were not singing that loudly, El is still furiously swiping her IPod screen trying to find some specific song.
She looks up when she feels my gaze on her and offers me a small smile but says nothing. Her mind seems to be elsewhere, something I have noticed since we first woke up this morning and I am worrying about her slightly, hopefully it's nothing too serious and I know that she is aware she can talk to me about it at any time, whenever and wherever she wants to.
Levi sends me a crooked smile as he continues to drive and begins to resume his singing as the next track on the CD begins to play.
"I always forget how good your music is," Levi tells me as the instrumental begins and I try desperately to sing along.
"I can't decide whether to be insulted or think that's sweet," I tell him honestly.
"Well as I don't want you to hate me so think that's sweet," Levi replies.
"No offense Levi but you've already done several things to make me hate you."
"What... Wait no don't answer that."
And just like that I regret saying what I did. The car's silence resumes and Levi refuses to meet my gaze and the awkwardness settles in the car once again like a layer of dust coating everything within sight.
"I'm sorry," Levi murmurs quietly.
For a moment I wonder if I imagined him saying that but as he looks at me out of the corner of his eye I realise he is waiting for me to respond.
"It's okay," I tell him, "I'm over it."
Levi grins at me lopsidedly and his smile still remains even when he turns his attention back to the road. Mine does too.
2:30PM (GMT) / 3:30PM (Local Time)
The hotel is relatively quiet when we arrive; all the other residents are probably out for the day or have left or not arrived for their stay yet. And so it does not take us long to queue at reception and soon enough we are struggling to carry our bags up the several flights of stairs. Levi takes the opportunity to laugh at us, he's lanky but he's still a lot stronger than the rest of us.
I slump down on my bed dramatically as soon as I reach my room and feign exhaustion.
"Why can't they just get a lift?" I ask.
"Because they're expensive."
"I bet the amount they have to pay to clean up all the people who've fainted climbing those stairs is more."
"Shut up Jess," Rosie says and promptly a pillow hits my face.
Elise says nothing, she is still quiet and as I watch her worriedly, she gets up and begins to pace the room as if she is nervous about something. I consider my options for a few moments before calling her name.
"El," I say.
Her head turns quickly to face me and she looks so panicked that if I wasn't slightly afraid of human contact then I would hug her.
"You okay?" I ask. "You look concerned."
"I'm fine," El says far too quickly for me to believe it, "just worried that our parents might find out I guess."
Elise has never been a great liar and she has certainly not improved since she tried to convince our Nursery teacher that it was a stray dog and not her that had spilt paint all over a classmate's clothes.
Safe to say nobody believed her then, and I certainly don't believe her now.
"C'mon El," I say.
I hate pushing her, the friendship between El, Rosie and I has always consisted of us not pressuring anyone to say anything they don't want to. We've learnt not to press for information when somebody is upset, strong believers in the idea that the person will tell you what's wrong when they want to. But I can tell El wants to talk to us about whatever it is that it eating her up inside, she just seems to be scared of telling us what it is. I don't know why, it's not like we're the type of people to judge her.
Levi is settled down in a chair, but he looks up at us when he notices the tone in my voice, he knows that I'm not one for deep meaningful chats but this seems serious enough to deserve one.
"I don't know how to tell you about it," El tells me.
"I'd go straight for it," Rosie recommends, "no sugar-coating and don't forget that we'll be able to see through any bullshit."
I shoot a glare at Rosie; her words do not seem to be calming El's nerves.
Levi has sat up straighter in his seat, he can obviously sense that something interesting is about to happen. At first I think he is just watching on for the entertainment but when the two of us share a worried glance I can tell that he cares about El.
"I don't think I, uh, like guys."
"What?" Levi asks.
"I think I like girls."
"What?"
"Jesus Christ Levi, I'm gay."
The room is silent. El's breathing is ragged, as if she has been holding her breath until she told us. Levi is sat with his mouth open wide, Rosie's eyes have expanded to twice their usual size and she is spluttering as she tries to find words. I am sat very still, not entirely sure how to reply.
"Are you sure?" Rosie eventually nervously asks.
"Pretty sure."
"For how long?"
"I've thought maybe for since we were about fifteen but only definitely for about six months."
"Why didn't you tell us?" I ask.
"I was worried about how you might react."
I am about to reassure El that she had nothing to worry about but Levi quickly joins the conversation.
"There's no way you're a lesbian!" He tells El.
"I think I know Levi," El sighs.
"But," Levi splutters, "there's just no way."
"Would you like to test me out?" El deadpans.
Elise is of course joking but Levi doesn't seem to take it this way. Instead he leans in close to Elise and kisses her, he seems to be quite passionate but Elise remains stock still.
"Definitely not straight," Levi announces as he leans back wiping his lips.
"I told you."
"I just had to make sure."
Levi looks embarrassed now, he sits back down in his seat and stares at his hands as Rosie and I stare at El.
"I guess we should have known," Rosie mutters.
"How on earth could you have known?" El asks. "Heck, I didn't even know."
"You were never that into boys," Rosie explains, "I just thought nobody could live up to James."
"Yeah," Levi drawls, "if you don't like guys then how come you're always going on about how hot Blakely is?"
"Because they are hot," El replies simply, "I mean it's not like Rosie and Jess have never called Taylor Swift or Natalie Dormer hot."
"Taylor Swift is my girl crush," I sigh.
"Exactly, James Blakely is my boy crush. If I was straight, which I am not, he would be the guy I liked. Do you understand?"
El says the last sentence sharply and Levi quickly nods his head.
"Good," she says.
A silence settles and the four of us busy ourselves with other tasks. Rosie begins to unpack her handbag, ensuring she still has everything she started the day with. Elise checks that she still has all the concert tickets and counts up all the money we've spent so far. Levi buries his head in a guidebook and curls up in a corner of the room. I, however, am left without anything to do and so I twiddle my thumbs and fidget awkwardly.
"Will you stop that?" Levi asks eventually.
"I'm bored," I whine.
"Tough," Rosie tells me.
I roll my eyes and begin to hum quietly under my breath. The other three slowly all turn to look at me with expressions of contempt on their faces. I just reply with a smile and carry on humming, hopefully this way they'll realise how bored I am.
"For fuck's sake!" Levi eventually curses. "Jesus Christ Jess, what do you want to do then?"
"I don't know."
"You're kidding me right."
"No," I say slowly.
"I hate you so much right now," Levi replies although there is a small smile on his face that makes me feel like maybe everything won't be so bad now.
"You're an idiot," Elise tells me, "but how about a game or something?"
"What were you thinking?" Levi asks sceptically. "Because we're not playing shitty games, we're grown-ups."
"Levi, you ate chocolate cake for breakfast last week, there's no way you're not five years old," Rosie points out.
"I'm grown up," Levi insists, "I made a decision to have cake for breakfast based on informed facts. And I made the decision for myself, a five year old wouldn't be able to do that, their mum would tell them no."
Rosie shakes her head in disproval but does not disagree with him. Instead she turns to me with a questioning look.
"What do you want to play Jess? After all, you're the one who's bored, the rest of us are fine."
"Wait a minute," I say.
Scrambling across the room I grab my laptop out of my bag and quickly connect to the wifi. I feel Rosie, Elise and Levi's gazes upon me as they wait patiently as I quickly type what I want into Google.
After a few minutes results appear and I click on the first link before turning to face the rest of the group, angling my laptop so that they cannot see the screen.
"Right guys," I say, "how many bones are in the human head?"
Briefly they all look confused, not really understanding what I'm asking them. Then, Rosie randomly shouts out an answer.
"Forty-six!"
Levi, El and I all look at her in complete and utter shock.
"How the hell would there be forty-six bones in the human head?" Levi asks. "Like, where would they all go?"
"I don't know," Rosie replies honestly, "but at least I gave an answer."
"I don't know," Levi says turning back to the question, "like twenty-three or something?"
My mouth slips open in shock.
"Close," I tell him, "twenty-two. I'll give you a point for that."
"Wait we're playing for points?" Rosie asks me.
"Of course we are," I respond, "you asked me what game I wanted to play, so we're having a quiz."
"God you're weird," Levi mutters but he does not go back to his own room.
""Next question," I announce, "how many languages is the Bible available in?"
"2233," Elise answers straight away.
If I was shocked that Levi was close before, I am astounded that Elise has managed to get it spot on almost instantly.
"How the hell did you get that?"
I shield my computer screen more, worried that she somehow managed to see it on there.
"Just one of those things I know," Elise says shrugging.
"That's a really weird thing to just know."
"Well I still just know it."
"Okay," I says slowly, "third question I guess. When was the world's first postage stamp introduced?"
"Uhm, 1730?" Elise guesses.
"1790," Levi says.
"1830."
"All of you are wrong, it was May 1840," I tell them.
"How the hell were we supposed to know what?" Rosie says incredulously.
"You were close."
"Still, that was a really difficult question."
"Fine then," I say scrolling down the page to try to find an easier question, "how long does a housefly generally live?"
There is a brief moment of silence and then Rosie erupts.
"14 days!" She exclaims. "We did it in biology!"
She seems slightly overexcited that she has got a right answer and the mean side of me is tempted to pretend that her answer was wrong, however I'm not that horrible and so I nod in affirmation.
The game proceeds like this question after a question until we decide to take a small break. We're all starting to become bleary eyed through tiredness and I'm becoming sick of staring at a computer screen. Rosie and El have both gone on a mission to get food and Levi is currently relieving his bladder.
When he walks back in to the room, I am just about to take my top off.
"Getting changed here Levi," I tell him.
"Sorry," he says.
He turns around and stands there expectantly waiting for me to get changed.
"Can't you go out while I get changed?"
"I'm not even looking, and it's not even like it's nothing I've ever seen before."
I huff; Levi seems insistent that he will not budge and I quickly whip off my shirt and replace it with a soft jumper that I can snuggle in.
"Speaking of things I've seen before," Levi starts, "we need to talk about what happened between us."
"I have no idea what you're on about."
"Yes you do."
"Absolutely no clue," I stop and pretend to be thinking about it, "nope, no idea."
"You know..." Levi leans in closer as if someone might overhear, "that night after the club."
"Oh that," I say, "I thought there was nothing to talk about."
"I don't just want to talk about that, I feel like I owe you a proper explanation for, well, for everything. The breakup, Gemma, uhm, that night, you know I feel like we need to talk."
"We're talking now."
"Yeah and El and Rosie are going to be back in like five minutes," Levi points out, "do you want to go somewhere tomorrow?"
I deliberate for a few moments, it does not seem like a good idea but Levi seems desperate for me to agree, I watch as he looks at me with puppy dog eyes and find that it dramatically reduces my will power to refuse.
"Fine," I say, "although you can explain it to El and Rosie."
"Deal," Levi says offering me his pinky finger almost as if it is a peace offering.
"Deal," I repeat.