Chapter 7: The Scream on the Cliff

Chapter 7: The Scream on the Cliff

Saturday dawned in a different light, and I decided it was time to break through the perimeter of the beach. I wanted to walk to another place, to get to know and travel through the untamed geography of Vik. I walked uphill, away from the shore, until I reached the top of one of the towering cliffs.

From up there, the view took your breath away. An intense and wild green covered the earth, extending to the very edge of the abyss, where it met with the perfect blue of the sky and the immensity of the sea. There I was. Alone in the middle of nowhere, suspended between the sky and the ocean.

I felt an unbearable pressure in my chest, a knot made up of fifteen years of renunciations, humiliations and silences. I stood firmly on the rock, took in all the air my lungs could hold, and screamed.

I screamed with all my might toward the ocean. I screamed once, twice, three times. No one would judge me up there, no one would question me, no one would tell me that I was overdoing it or that I should calm down. I let the crying flow freely and, along with the tears and screams, I physically felt a small but dense part of the bitterness coming out of my body. It was detached from my bowels and carried away by the north wind. When I finished, with empty lungs and soaked cheeks, I felt a little more alive. A clean, almost childlike laugh came from my lips spontaneously.

"I can do it, Astrid!" I said to myself aloud, pronouncing my own name with a strength I couldn't remember having.

Astrid. A name that my parents gave me and that means "divine strength and peace". For fifteen years that name had been just a tag to sign papers or for Anthony to call me from the other room. Today, facing the Norwegian Sea, my name regained its true identity. I was strength, I was peace, and I was going to recover.