Endlessly

When Essi woke up the following morning, she went out into the kitchen and found Emilia already awake and with a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked awful, her eyes were red and puffy as though she’d spent the whole night crying and she was covered in blue paint which brought about a whole other set of questions entirely. Without confirmation, Essi’s blood immediately began to boil. It had been a day since she’d warned Ville not to hurt Emilia and already she was sat at the table shedding unnecessary tears over him.

“What did he do?” Essi asked as she sat down across from Emilia, reaching for her hand.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. What did that bastard do?”

“Es, stop. He didn’t do anything, honest,” Emilia said tiredly as she grasped her sister’s hand tightly. There was a hardness lodged deep in her chest that hurt with every breath and trying to put on a brave face for her sister was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

“So you’re sitting in the kitchen, red-eyed, for no reason at all?” Essi asked with disbelief in her voice. Emilia merely shrugged.

“Not for nothing, but he didn’t do anything to me. I just…ended things before they began. I had to.”

Essi raised an eyebrow at her sister. Of all the things she’d expected to hear come out of Emilia’s mouth that had to be the last thing she’d expected. Emilia’s love for Ville was no secret. It hadn’t been a secret even when they were young, though it took long enough for the two of them to see it. And now, here she was back home and ready to act upon it and she’d thrown it away.

”Why? Essi could hardly believe she was questioning Emilia’s choice, after all – wasn’t that what she’d wanted?

Emilia spun her coffee cup around in her hands, she fumbled with things when she was edgy. “It just won’t work. They’re going to release a new album soon and go off on tour and what would I be doing? Waiting for six months or a year for him to get back?”

“So go with him.”

“You sound like him now.”

“Well that’s the logical answer to your dilemma.”

Emilia threw her hands up. “You’ve wanted me home for ten years and now I’m here and you’re suggesting that I go traipse around the world playing wife to a rock star?”

“I’m suggesting you be with the man that you are so obviously in love with, you idiot.” Essi was growing quickly tired of her sister’s personal pity party. “It’s not like you even anything to worry about here yet.”

“So just put my whole life on hold?” Emilia countered.

Osku began to holler for Essi from the other room, signaling that it was time to begin breakfast. Essi stood and began to make her way toward her son’s room but stopped and addressed her sister once more.

“Look Em, I’ve not had positive feelings toward Ville in a long time. I’m still not so sure that I trust him where you’re concerned. But I also saw the look in his eyes when he was with you yesterday. At the end of the day, I’ll accept the choices you make – but don’t hurt yourself for no reason.”

Emilia watched as her sister marched off to collect Osku and sighed heavily as she stared into her now cold coffee. When she’d gotten home, she had just sat at the table and wept silently – still wrapped up in his sweatshirt and covered in blue paint. She knew what a sight she must present now and she didn’t blame Essi for her harshness. Maybe it had been deserved.

Before Osku was to be brought in the kitchen and see his aunt in such a state, Emilia shuffled off to the bathroom and stripped off her old clothing and stepped into a hot shower. She turned the knob until the water was as hot as it would go and relished in the feeling, watching pink splotches form on her pale skin.

Emilia knew that she had done what was best for her. In the end, neither Ville nor Essi had to be in the position she would be if she decided to be with Ville. Neither of them understood her reasons behind her decision. It was the fear, the fear that someday she wouldn’t be enough for him. That the distance would be too much. That someday, someone more suited to his lifestyle would come along and she’d be left out in the cold. And what would she be left with, if those things were to happen? A life dedicated to the man she loved and she’d have nothing if he were gone.

She realized she was trembling, despite the heat of her shower. Wrapping her arms around herself and sinking to the floor, she felt sick to her stomach with the very idea of losing him forever. It had been a feeling she’d wrestled with the entire night. She’d replayed the scene a thousand times since it had happened and everything about it seemed to haunt her. The look in his eyes when she told him she couldn’t be with him; the feeling of his lips on hers; the desperation in his voice as he’d tried to change her mind. And yet she’d been the reason for all of it – she should have accepted the consequences of her choice before she’d acted upon it.

It had taken everything for her to not turn around and go back to him. To tell him she was sorry and didn’t mean it. But she had to remind herself that she’d done the right thing.

’But if it was the right thing, why does it hurt so badly?’ she thought bitterly as she tried to pick herself up off the bottom of the shower.

Essi listened at the door to her sister’s quiet sobs and sighed. If she had to choose between Emilia being in pain or being with Ville, she would always choose the latter. The kernel of an idea began to take shape within her mind. Checking to make sure that Osku was well occupied with his breakfast, Essi snuck into Emilia’s room and looked around for her cell phone.

If Emilia was going to overcomplicate her own life then it would be up to Essi to un-complicate it.

She found the coveted electronic device on the nightstand and flipped through the contacts until she found the one she was looking for. Essi pulled her own phone from her pocket and programmed the number in it and then replaced Emilia’s phone on the table.

She smiled, satisfied that phase one had been completed. Now she just needed to figure out phase two.



Ville hadn’t gone to bed, which was now starting to wear on him considering he’d barely gotten more than a nap in the past three days. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Emilia’s face as she told him that they’d never be together and it reopened a new wound each time he thought about it. He’d spent ten years without her and now it seemed he would have to get used to the idea of a lifetime without her. At least in the sense that he wanted her. He would never totally abandon her again. He didn’t have that in him. But he also didn’t know if he had it in him to watch her fall in love with someone else.

He reached over and grabbed his beer off the nightstand and took a long drink from it. Once he’d given up on sleeping he’d started drinking and had amassed quite a collection of empties in the last few hours. He added one more to his nightstand and picked up the guitar he’d been messing with and strummed absently on the strings. Somewhere around dawn he had developed the beginnings of a song and somewhere around his sixth beer he’d lost it and started playing various Black Sabbath tunes. He’d spent the last hour or so trying to pick up where he’d left off on his own song but was now failing miserably.

His phone began ringing and he decided that he was going to have to change his number and not give the new one out to certain people. He reached out and answered it, finding the usual suspect was on the other end of the line.

“Do I need to start sending smoke signals to you before you’ll answer the fucking phone?” Bam’s voice revealed his obvious irritation.

“I’ve been busy Bam,” Ville answered as he took out his pack of cigarettes and placed one between his lips.

“Yeah well maybe call back when you’re not so busy?”

“Sorry man, I haven’t really had a minute,” he answered as he lit the cigarette and took a long drag off it.

“Well you should probably find a minute and let us in. It’s fucking freezing out here.”

Ville moved his guitar aside and tried not to audibly groan. ’Count on Bam,’ he thought. He got up and looked out the bedroom window, seeing Bam and several other people standing around, bundled up, with their hands in their pockets. He contemplated leaving them outside for having shown up with no warning.

“What are you all doing here?”

“Well we were heading up to film with the Dudesons but I wanted to catch your show in two days so I swindled everyone into hanging in Helsinki for a couple of days.”

“Give me a sec.” He hung up the phone and tossed it on his bed before making his way downstairs to the front door. As soon as he opened the door, Bam’s mischievous grin was the first thing to greet him which was typically not a good sign.

“Finally!” Bam cried as he pushed his way through the door. “Do you know how cold Finland is? How do you live here?”

“It’s a great hardship but the world is severely overcrowded you know. There are only so many places left for people to live.”

Bam rolled his eyes and Ville smirked as he held the door open for the parade of people that filed in. Members of the CKY crew, the Jackass crew, and -

“Jonna?”