Bright Midnight by Halle, Karina (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

Sometimes the train speeds along rivers so opaquely turquoise it looks like God dumped watercolor paint in them. Other times we pass picturesque farms with giant red barns and white houses with dark trim and a lawn on the roof. Yes, a lawn. Everyone here has grass on their roof, everyone also seems to keep the neatest yards and houses in the history of ever. There’s not a spec of garbage anywhere, there’s no peeling paint or fading colors. Town after town, all I see are the quaintest, cutest, tidiest houses I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Even the forests here seem to be orderly, the tall stately pines all marching off in a row, flanking pristine lakes like guards at attention.

By the time the train pulls into Trondheim, I feel like I’ve drowned in visual sensations. I’m also pretty sore and tired considering that was an eight-hour ride, even though it proved to be fascinating the entire way. I’m pretty sure I’ve annoyed everyone on my Instagram with my photos, even though most people back home are still asleep. No one wants to see a million posts of blindingly green fields or alpine vistas or photos of my cider, but that doesn’t stop me. What else are you supposed to do? My journal is already full of my nonsense and my brain is getting a little tired of myself.

Plus, a part of me wants Danny to see it. After he broke up with me, I booted him off my social media and upped my privacy settings to the maximum. But Instagram is my forte and I keep that account public, so I sometimes wonder if he’s secretly following me. Though Danny doesn’t occupy my thoughts as much anymore, there’s that petty part of me that wants to prove to him how much fun I’m having, how I’m better off without him. Time only softens the sting of rejection, it never erases it completely.

When we come to a stop, I shrug on my jacket, peering out at the rain that’s just started to pelt the train station, running down the windows, and grab my backpack from the luggage rack between the cars. For some reason, when I imagine myself traveling somewhere, I always imagine the weather being sunny. I do this regardless of the season and it always comes to bite me in the ass.

This time, I booked a private room at a small hotel in Trondheim’s “old town,” and while it looked like a short walk on the map, now that the rain is falling, and my phone’s GPS is telling me it’s more like 30 minutes, I decide to stay put in the train station and hopefully wait it out. There are cabs outside, and I can’t figure out if Uber operates here, but I’ve put my mind to saving money wherever I can. Plus, it can’t rain forever and the walk will do me good to burn off those waffles with the strange brown cheese.

But when one hour turns into two and I’m getting bored and anxious waiting in the station, drinking bottles of Brus—some fizzy apple juice that’s to die for—I decide to hoof it. It’s colder up here than it was in Oslo and it really cuts through you, even in the train station.

I stand on the steps watching for cabs or cars with an Uber sign, but see nothing until a dark grey VW station wagon pulls into a parking space and a girl my age with wild red hair comes out, wrapping a mustard yellow scarf around the neck of her leather jacket and lighting up a cigarette. I can see there’s a couple of people still in the car, but they’re not getting out.

She comes up the steps until she’s beside me under the shelter of the overhang and peeks in the glass windows to the station before giving me a quick smile and saying something to me in Norwegian.

“Sorry…,” I start to say, not understanding her.

“Oh, you don’t speak Norwegian,” the girl says quickly, taking a drag of her cigarette. Like most people I’ve met here, her accent is softened when she speaks English and she speaks it perfectly. “That’s fine. I was just wondering if the train had come in.”

“I was on the one from Oslo, got in a few hours ago but that’s it.”

She frowns at me and I count a smattering of freckles across her nose. “You’ve been hanging out at the train station for hours? I’m telling you, it’s not the best that Trondheim has to offer.”

“I was waiting for the rain to let up and then walk to town, then I figured I would get a cab, but I don’t see any anymore.”

She looks up at the sky. “It isn’t letting up. There hasn’t been a lot of rain here this spring so it’s really letting loose.” She glances at me. “Where are you from? Canada?”

“New York,” I tell her.

“Cool,” she says with a nod. “My mother lives there, but I’ve never been. It’s on my bucket list, though.”

“You live in Trondheim?”

She shakes her head. “Actually, I live in Paris. I’m just visiting family, friends.” She sighs and gives me a goofy smile. “I come here a few times a year, it’s so easy with the flights. But even so, each time I come I have to do the rounds and visit everyone I ever knew. I’m picking up my friend today, then I’m heading back to see my family, and then back to Paris. One day I’ll go on vacation to actually relax.”

“Sounds busy,” I comment, grateful that this girl is so open and talkative. “I loved Paris, wish I could have stayed longer. Too expensive.”

“And yet, here you are in Norway.”

I laugh, brushing my bangs off my face and leaning further back out of the rain. “I know. The prices are killing me so far. I only got to Oslo the other