Chapter 39: The Pact of the End of History

Chapter 39: The Pact of the End of History

My fingers flew over the keys with an urgency that burned my chest. In that blank document I began to dump, without anesthesia or filters, the truth of my own life. I wrote in detail about my suffering, about that silent agony of fifteen years where my voice was sealed, where the flower that I was was not allowed to bloom, where I was simply not allowed to be myself. My novel did not need an ensemble cast; I had only two essential characters: Ethan and me. I put our beginning on paper, what Norway meant as my black sand purgatory and what Iceland was meaning in this reconstruction. I wrote with an open soul, letting all the emotions – the contained tears, the old rage and the new freedom – go straight into my hands.

Time passed with such destructive speed that I didn't realize that the hours had spread out. Suddenly, the light from the window changed and Ethan's shadow was cast on my desk. It was already time to eat.

"Astrid, you have to stop for a moment," her hoarse voice said softly.

"I don't want to, Ethan. I feel that if I stop now, the idea will escape me," I replied, without taking my eyes off the screen.

Ethan didn't argue. He stepped forward, stretched out his large hand, and closed the lid of my laptop gently, cutting off the light on the screen. He looked me straight ahead and gave me that warm smile, full of infinite patience that disarmed me.

"He's not going anywhere, I promise," he said, his voice conveying absolute assurance. History will be here waiting for you to continue when you return.

I could only nod my head, my heart racing. I was about to ask the question that was on my mind: What about you? Will you be with me to help me finish it?. But I regretted it at the last second; The fear of vulnerability bit my tongue.

However, that man already knew me more than I knew myself. He read the hesitation in my eyes and the contained gesture of my lips. Without asking permission, he took another step, shortened the distance, and took my face between his broad, warm palms, forcing me to hold his gaze. His blue eyes flashed with overwhelming fixity.

"You're going to want me to be with you until the end, aren't you?" He asked in a direct whisper.

The words got stuck in my throat. My voice couldn't come out. Unable to speak, I nodded slowly again in his hands.

It was then that his lips met mine. We melted into a kiss in which we completely recognized each other. It was not the innocent touch of adolescence; It was a mature kiss, a loving kiss, deeply desired and desperately needed during weeks of containment. In that contact we demonstrated, without a single sound in between, how important we were to each other. It was a kiss where we said to each other with our bodies: "I see you the same way you see me." A kiss that sealed many unknowns of the past and, at the same time, opened many others to the future. We were no longer children playing lovers; We were a couple of almost forty years old, two adults hardened by the blows of life who knew perfectly well what we wanted and what we were no longer willing to tolerate.

As we slowly separated, without breaking the magnetism of the moment, Ethan wrapped his arms around me in a protective embrace and spoke firmly in my ear:

"I won't let you go, Astrid.

"And I won't leave you alone," I replied, putting my hands on the back of his neck.

This time I was the one who took the initiative. He kissed her back, a long kiss where our tongues searched for each other and said a lot and, at the same time, said nothing, definitively burying the last winters of our lives in the warmth of that small office in Akureyri