When I wake from the deepest sleep I’ve had in ages, I realise something is different. I’m warm! Actually warm! There is balmy air on the back of my neck and I feel like I’m wrapped up safe and sound in a kangaroo’s pouch. As warm as toast, hot buttered toast. I take a moment to enjoy just being here, stuck halfway in that drowsy place between vivid dreams and reality. Slowly I start to remember where I am: in a cabin in the middle of snowy Sweden. But if I am in a cabin in the middle of winter in Sweden . . . why am I so warm and cosy, like a giant hot-water bottle?
Then I realise why. Body heat! My eyes ping open like they’re about to pop out from their sockets. It’s Björn! He has his arm wrapped right over me and is curled around me like a slumbering bear.
I freeze and try and put my fuzzy brain into gear, and finally, with relief, I realise that nothing has happened. I didn’t sleep with him, not in that way. The relief is followed by a tiny bit of desire, like I’m remembering last night’s dinner all over again. I turn slowly and try and move his arm. He doesn’t wake. I look at his soft, smooth, closely shaven face and have the urge to run my finger down the side of his cheek. Almost fanciable! His expression is relaxed. I wonder what he dreams about. I wonder where he’s been away to. Where does a reindeer herder go?
I remember him holding the fork to my lips last night in the candlelight and can taste the reindeer and its sauce all over again, wrapping me in its warmth and reminding me of my trek through the forest. We have come so far. Something feels different about today, and I don’t know what it is. Is it because we’re nearly at the end of our trip? Or maybe it’s that I know what to expect from the trek today and am looking forward to saying good morning to the reindeer. Perhaps it’s just that I feel refreshed after the sauna, the lovely meal and the stargazing. Or is it that something inside me has woken up from its long winter hibernation? Whatever it is, I know this man has something to do with it.
Suddenly Björn’s eyes snap open, like he’s just been resting them, ever alert for predators. How long has he been like that? Did he know I was staring at him? I throw myself to the far side of the bed and roll quickly out from under the covers. Then, realising that I’m just in my underwear, I drop to the floor and make it to my clothes and bag on all fours.
‘Probably good if we get going,’ I say, dressing as quickly as I can in the dark to hide my blushes and shuffling into clean pants and trousers. I manage to bump into every piece of furniture in the room as I jump around pulling on my boots, trying to keep moving to avoid any awkwardness and blot out the fact that Björn has just woken to find me studying his face like a map, wondering where the lines have come from and where they go from here. But isn’t that the same as any of us? We have lines and scars telling the story of our past, but none of us really knows the way forward, no matter how hard we plot and plan it.
As I pull on my I ♥ Sweden hoodie, I feel something in the pocket. It’s my little home-made notebook. And that’s when I realise what was different about this morning. For the first time in two years, I didn’t wake up thinking about Griff, and what I had planned that could get me through the day. I feel . . . How do I feel? I feel guilty not thinking about him; thinking about someone else. Like I’ve cheated on him. Even though nothing happened, I’ve cheated on his memory.
‘What’s up?’ Björn says, pulling on his thick jumper over his broad chest. I can just see his outline in the moonlight. Stop looking at him! I tell myself. I have to do anything rather than fall for someone else. I’m not ready! I can’t leave the past behind yet. Because if I’m not that person any more, I have no idea who I am.
I hold my hands over my face. Björn comes to crouch by me.
‘Hey! What’s up? You don’t think you can do it today?’
I shake my head.
‘Come on, just one footstep in front of the other. That’s the only way to go. We all get days like this. You’ve come so far. You’ve done brilliantly.’
‘I just don’t think I can . . . I need to go back.’
‘You can’t go back! We’re over the river now. More than halfway there. The only way is forward,’ he tells me. ‘You know that. Come on. I’ll be there.’
And that, I think, is exactly what I don’t need.
‘Let’s get moving,’ I say. Keeping moving is the best thing. The last thing I want is to have to admit that time has moved on; that life has moved on while I’ve stood still. I’m not going to do that. If I keep busy, I have something to write in my travel log and my life is still as it was. And you’ll still be living in the past, says a voice in my head that I try and brush away.
Björn is still kneeling beside me. He looks at me with his ice-blue eyes, just like those of his husky dog. ‘Are you sure? We could wait here a while until you’re ready.’
‘No, I’m sure. Let’s get moving . . .’
And we pack our bags silently and step out into the newly fallen snow, like turning to a fresh page in my travel log.