Page 48 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

Chapter Thirty-Two

?sterport station is buzzing with people as Anna drags herself in with her case.

Walking the fifteen minutes from the house has been a miserable effort, to say the least. She’s taken the route through Holmens cemetery to give Vivi and Mads’ stone a stroke.

And she took a photo of that, too, so she can look at it from wherever in the world she is.

It sits, in her phone, next to the picture of the house.

The phone that now sits in the depths of her pocket, her ticket ready on the first screen.

All these small things, as well as deliberately noticing shops and signs as she passes, are about being present in the moment, engaging with her surroundings, she tells herself, and nothing at all to do with distraction and taking her mind off the horrendous way things just ended with Jamie.

How could she have said that to him? She is deeply ashamed of it, that she could even think it, but she’d been angry and stressed, and …

no, it was inexcusable. She knows that. And she should probably have hammered on the door, and begged his forgiveness.

But he’d thrown her out, of her own house, and her plane is leaving, and so she’s done as he asked and gone.

She’ll write to him from London, apologise properly and hope he accepts. She’ll feel wretched until he does.

On reaching the station, her AirPods go in, playing a podcast she keeps losing track of, hoping it will divert the hideous feeling in her.

As such, it takes her a couple of seconds to realise someone is staring at her as they come up the escalator as she steps onto hers heading down to the platform.

Ah fuck.

It’s Carl.

Not today, not now.

Her eyes shift to the passage in front of her in the hope of dashing through, but her case is big and the stairs are rammed.

Why are these people not all at home hygge-ing?

? She deliberately doesn’t look behind her, hoping he never actually saw her, but that stare was quite clear.

At the bottom, she steps off and is about to make the turn to the next escalator to take her down to the platform, when she feels a hand on her shoulder. She immediately wrenches away.

“Anna.”

His large frame crowds her backwards out of the flow of travellers. She doesn’t have time for this. Nor the emotional bandwidth. Not now. She just wants to huddle into a seat on the train and shut everything out.

“Go away,” she mutters.

Decidedly not going away, he reaches to remove an AirPod from her ear. She slaps his hand away, outraged.

“Don’t touch me.”

“You can’t hear me with those in.”

“Well done,” she says. Why can’t some men take a hint from women wearing their earphones? A neon sign with “do not speak to me” wouldn’t have any effect on those men either.

He stands resolute, between her and the escalator.

“Maiken says you saw her.”

“Not intentionally,” she snaps. “Have you followed me?” Is this why he’s here? Why and what for?

“Hardly,” he scoffs, making her feel silly. “I live near.”

“Then leave me alone. You could just walk by and ignore me.” She would have done him the same courtesy, had she seen him first.

“You did have the locket,” he says, ignoring her and with a tone which Anna can only describe as accusatory.

She squares her shoulders. “I found the locket,” she says. “Maiken is all about the drama. I found it and I returned it. I did not have it.” She almost adds, “I didn’t steal it,” but isn’t sure she’s on as solid ground there.

He rolls his eyes at her. It astounds her.

“Why is this so important to you? It’s like you want some theft story to pin on me.” Her eyes narrow as she looks him in the face. Maiken just wanted her heirloom back, but Carl’s concern is more than a lover backing his partner. This is… “You want me to look as bad as you in this, don’t you?”

“There are two sides to this, Anna,” he immediately says. “Like I said last time, things weren’t good between us.”

Anna has replayed these words, both his and Maiken’s, many times already, and she still can’t see it. “Then why didn’t you say?”

“Come on,” he huffs, “I shouldn’t have to say. You should have been able to see I wasn’t happy if you loved me—”

“Bullshit,” Anna cuts in, startling a passing couple.

Normally this would have her adjusting her volume, fearing causing a scene, but not now.

She doesn’t have the time. “I’m not a mind reader.

Nobody is a mind reader. You need to communicate and tell people what’s going on in your head if you want them to understand and respond. ”

Carl looks away, but Anna takes the opportunity to properly look at him and realises how much she misses it.

Not him, God no, not him, but loving someone.

Being someone’s person, having a person, living the same love that Vivi and Mads had had, adoring each other.

Anna misses that, so much it aches inside her.

Yet Carl had shown her how fragile it was, and temporary, and she simply cannot see how she can go there again, when the potential for hurt is now so clear.

The anger of what he has spoiled for her, surges up inside her.

“This is about you, Carl. You always want people to think you’re a good guy, but in this case you absolutely aren’t.

This thing with Maiken wasn’t a fling, a one-off drunken mistake we could maybe have worked through.

It was a long-term affair, calculated, orchestrated and deceitful.

It wasn’t discreet.” Her volume seems to be rising with each sentence, but she doesn’t care.

He wants to talk about it? Well here it is, and he should buckle up, because she’s on a deadline.

“You were totally disrespectful in your lack of discretion. Your family thought we were a throuple!” A cluster of tourists turn at that one.

“Keep your voice down,” Carl says.

“Piss off. My voice is my own, and you wanted to talk.” Something about him wanting her to tone it down makes her stand taller.

“A year, Carl. If things weren’t good then you had all that time, and more before, to say.

Instead, you’re here trying to gaslight me into thinking I was responsible and ignored all the signs you were unhappy, while you were fucking my best friend.

In our bed!” More heads turn. It’s actually quite thrilling.

Carl looks like he’s regretting his decision to follow her.

Well, good. “And it’s all to make you feel better about what you did and to ease the discomfort you feel about it.

Which is pathetic, by the way, given you could just have left at any time, been honest and not had any overlap.

How do you square that with your mother, by the way? ”

“When would we have talked?” he asked, brushing off her accusation. “You were never around. All the travel got in the way.” Still more excuses.

“It’s my job!”

“But it was never a wrench for you to leave. I never felt it was hard for you when you went away.”

“Wow? Needy much?”

He winces.

“I didn’t feel a wrench because I knew I was coming home, and I trusted you’d be waiting for me; a grown-up, who makes his needs clear, secure and with a social life of his own to keep him busy.

Clearly, I was wrong there, given Maiken turned out to be the entertainment you needed, to salve your needy soul. ”

“It wasn’t like that. I meant more to her than I did to you. That was quickly clear. I asked you so many times to marry me and you said no. Every time!”

“It was a running gag, Carl!” This one exasperates her. “We had always joked about it; you asked, I declined, we laughed. Not once did you stop and say, ‘I’m serious this time, I really mean it.’”

“You would still have said no,” he insists, which she takes as his confirmation of her point.

“But I was committed to you, Carl. If I thought you needed reassuring, if you’d been clear, I would have made sure you understood. I actually had plans in place to show you how committed I was, but you were busy screwing Maiken.”

“Like what?” he asks, surprise on his face.

“You’ll never know now. And it’s beside the point, because again you’re trying to put this on me, Carl.

This is on you. You could have ended it if you were so sad and neglected, and if you were a decent human being.

If you needed more, or something different, you should have said and given me the chance to see if I could meet your needs – the ones I didn’t know I was missing.

“Clearly, truth is very difficult for the two of you,” she goes on. “Don’t gaslight me into thinking I was responsible for your shitty behaviour. A year of cheating will always make you an arsehole and if that makes you feel uncomfortable, then tough.”

Anna grabs the handle of her suitcase and looks him right in the face.

“You know, you’ve given no indication of being sorry for what you did.

Not a hint. So there’s nothing more to say.

You need to sit with your own disgrace and shame, Carl, because it isn’t mine.

” Shoving her AirPod back in her ear, hoping her fingers aren’t trembling too much, Anna walks away from him, hopefully for the last time.

Sailing down the final escalator, face red for having drawn attention to herself, a small part of her really wishes someone has filmed it, to upload onto the socials. She wouldn’t mind that going viral.