34. The lake

When we got back home, Bill started cleaning the kitchen. Refusing to let me help him.

I watch him, patiently.
“All done.” He says, putting down the kitchen towel,

He leans against the counter, and I take a few more steps, until I am standing right in front of him.

He wraps his arm around my waist. Almost out of habit, I lean into him, pressing my lips to his.

He lets me, just for a moment, before he pulls away. “Sorry, this isn’t going to work.”

I look at him confused, taking a step back.
“What do you mean?”

“I think we both know what I mean.” He sighs. “We tried, Evi. It didn’t work. For many reasons. I don’t think we should pretend everything is okay and just pick up where we left off.”

“Right, uhm..” I stammer, looking at something random just to avoid his eyes. “Thanks for clearing things up.”

I feel tears stinging my eyes, so I turn away from him.

“You are the one who broke up with me, remember?”

“I remember,” I say quietly. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

“I know,” he exhales. “And I’m not pretending I didn’t play my part. I just—” He stops himself. “I don’t want us to fall back into something just because it’s comfortable.”

I swallow hard, nodding. “Yeah. God forbid we make that mistake again.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he says quickly.

“It kind of is,” I reply, finally turning back to face him. “Like you said, we tried, we failed, end of story.”

“We tried, we failed, yes.. That’s exactly why I can’t do this again.”

“So what now?” I ask softly.
“Now,” he says, stepping closer. “we go back to where it all started.”

I look at him confused. “What?”

“Let’s stop acting like we know each other the way we used to.”

“So what does that look like?” I ask.
He shrugs, a nervous half-smile tugging at his mouth. “Talking. Spending time together. Going on dates. I wanna know who you are now, not who I remember.”

I let out a slow breath. “We start as… what? Strangers?”
He shakes his head. “Not strangers. More as..” he thinks for a moment. “More as two people who just started dating.”

I nod. “Uhm, I think that sounds good.”

“So we go slow. We say whatever comes to our minds. We communicate and..” he pauses. “I think we shouldn’t have sex.”

That last sentence makes me chuckle. “No sex?”

He shakes his head. “I wanna find out if we stil have a connection and not just… while doing that,”

A grin covers my face. “So no sex but..” I step closer to him. “But can we do this?”

I rise onto my toes and press a soft, quick kiss to his lips. It lasts barely a second.

His hand lifts, stopping just short of my waist, as if reminding himself of the rules we just made.
“Yes, we can do that.”

I smile, leaning into him. Our lips catch in a slow intimate kiss.

Then he pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine, his breath warm against my skin. “If you keep kissing me like that, it will be very hard.”

I chuckle and take a step back, biting my lower lip. “So,” I exhale. “What did Tom want?”

“Tom?”
“Uhu, he called. Earlier.”
“Oh that.” Bill says. “It was nothing.”

“It did not sound like nothing. Bill.. I thought we were going to communicate?”

“Yes, you are right. Sorry.” He signs. “He needs me back in the studio. He was pretty angry.”

“Does it really matter that much?” I ask. “Does it matter that much when the next album comes out?”

He looks at me for a second, before he looks away. “Georg wants to release the album before the tour starts.”

I nod. “And when is that? When you guys start touring again?”
“We—“ before Bill can finish his sentence his phone lights up on the table. Brenda’s name showing up on the screen.

“Why is Brenda calling you?” I ask, confused. My eyes fixed on his phone.

“I don’t know.” He says quickly, declining the call.
“Bill.. Brenda is not calling you randomly.”
I look straight into his eyes. “She doesn’t even like you.”

He grins. “Yeah, she hated me.”
“Hated you? As in not anymore?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”

He pauses for a moment. “We had a really good talk, a few days ago. I think… maybe we can be friends again.”

“Oh,” I say quietly. “What did you talk about?” I ask, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.

He lets out a breath and leans against the counter. “About everything.”

“And how did this talk even happen? You just ran into her or something?”

“No. I almost hit her with my car.”

“You what?!”

“Not on purpose, obviously. It was raining, she came out of nowhere. I was upset because of our fight so she took me to the lake.”

“Lake? What lake?”

“The one just outside town, it’s kind of hidden. You can’t see it from the road.”

I shake my head. “I’ve never been there.”

“Well,” he says. “it’s kind of our spot. We used to spend a lot of time there, especially during the summer,”

I twist the cap of my bottle. “You and Brenda have a spot?”

“Don’t we all have a spot?”

“So you talked,” I say. “at the lake.”

“It’s nothing to worry about. She just made me see things differently. She said some things that made me think.”

“I just don’t understand why you would talk to Brenda. Why her? Why not literally anyone else?”

“It’s not like I called her. It just happened.”

“Why couldn’t you just talk in your car or something? Why go to your spot? And why haven’t you ever told me about that lake?”

“I just never thought about it. It’s not that important anyway.”

“It kind of sounds important, since it’s the first spot you two went to after literally not talking to each other for years.”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t mean anything. Really, don’t worry about it.” He steps closer, pressing a soft kiss on my forehead.

“Okay, if you say so.” I sigh. “I promised mom I would call her. I think I’ll do that now.”

I walk past him, out the kitchen, into the hallway and up the stairs. I close the door behind me, and sit down on the edge of my bed.

I stare at my phone for a while, before I click on Brenda’s name. She answers the call almost instantly. “Hey, Evi,” she says. “I was just about to call you.”

“Me? Or my boyfriend?” I say, standing up again.
“Your boyfriend, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “So you guys are back together?”

“I don’t know.”
“You just called him your boyfriend.”
“I know what I called him, Brenda.” I say clearly annoyed. “Why did you call him?”

“I wanted to check on him. Last time I saw him he was a mess.”

“Brenda, what’s going on with you and Bill?”

“Me and Bill?” Brenda repeats, then lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Evi, are you seriously asking me that?”

“I thought you hated him and now you are suddenly friends again?”

Brenda exhales slowly. “I didn’t hate him, Evi. I hated how things ended. That’s different.”

“That sounds like a technicality,” I say, pacing across my room. “You don’t just accidentally become friends again after years of not talking.”

“I wouldn’t really call us friends. And I didn’t plan it,” she says. “It just… happened. He almost ran me over.”

“Yeah, I heard that part,” I mutter.
“He was a mess, Evi. You should’ve seen him. I couldn’t just leave him like that.”

“So you took him to your spot? The lake.”
“The lake,” she repeats quietly.
My chest tightens. “Why there?”

“Because that’s where he always went when he didn’t know what to do with himself,” she says. “I took a guess… and it worked.”

I stop pacing. “So what are you saying? That you know him better than I do?”
“No,” she says quickly. “but the reason he was a mess was because of you. Or the situation anyway.”

“Do you still have feelings for him?” I ask.
“Evi, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?”
“You’re jealous.”
“And you are avoiding my question!”

“No, I don’t have feelings for Bill. Okay? We just talked. Mostly about you by the way.”
“I just don’t understand why he needed to talk to you about me.”

I hear her sigh, and I know exactly what face she is making right now. “You have no idea, huh?”
I frown, sitting down on the bed. “About what?”

“About how much you hurt him.” she pauses. “I’m not picking sides here, Evi. I know you are hurt to. But you are the one who left. In the middle of the night, without saying goodbye. Then you tell him you are carrying his child and that you don’t even wanna keep it. Have you even thought about how he felt for a second? At all? In L.A., have you ever asked him why he was never home? Why he spend all his time in the studio even after Tom already left? Have you talked about any of it at all? No, you make all the decisions and he just has to accept it. Well Evi, it doesn’t work like that.”

I stare in front of me, swallowing away the lump that just formed in my troat.

“What was the reason? Why he was never home?”
“Ask Bill. It’s time you guys start communicating.”
“We are working on that.” I say. “I really messed up, didn’t I?”


We hang up a few minutes later. I stare at the ceiling, replaying everything that happened the past few weeks in my head.

Then I hear his footsteps in the hallway.
A soft knock. “Evi?”
“Yeah,” I say, sitting up.
He opens the door slowly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I say, getting up from the bed.