The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,70
alone without her. I don’t recognise my own life any more.’
He sobs, and Minoo does the only thing she can: she puts her arms around him. From the corner of her eye, she sees the raven flap its wings and fly off into the grey-white sky.
26
VANESSA HAS BEEN standing in the darkness outside Linnéa’s door for more than an hour. Linnéa is playing hard grindcore inside her apartment. The singer is alternating between singing and screaming. Vanessa has always thought that kind of music sounds like a really bad headache, but now that she’s forced to listen to it, she gets the point of it. At first it stressed her out, but when she let go and allowed herself to be carried away by it, she found it became strangely relaxing. It’s as if all the stress and fear are transformed into rage, which the music resolves.
I shouldn’t be here, she thinks.
But she can’t leave. Not until she knows for sure.
Late last night she’d got a text message: ‘Tired as hell. Sleep well ’. When she tried calling, the phone rang but nobody answered. She didn’t sleep a wink all night.
She knew it would piss Wille off if she woke him at seven in the morning demanding he drive her to school. She had to play her full register – scornful, facetious, sexy, angry, helpless – before he gave in. And then it didn’t feel like a triumph. On the contrary. She was humiliated.
She’d thought that if she could just see him she’d know whether he’d been with Linnéa. That was why it was so important to meet him first thing in the morning. And at first Vanessa took Wille’s silence in the car as a sign that he hadn’t cheated on her. Because if he had, surely he would have tried to suck up to her. But then she wondered instead if the silence meant he was tired of her.
When they reached the school she threw open the car door and slammed it behind her. She didn’t care if people stared at her as she crossed the playground, ignored Evelina and Michelle when they called to her. As soon as she got inside, she ran to the girls’ toilets by the cafeteria.
All the cubicles were empty. Vanessa made herself invisible and began to cry quietly and furiously.
Just then Linnéa entered.
Vanessa held her breath. She hardly even dared think. But Linnéa had her mobile pressed to her ear and seemed preoccupied. She sighed deeply at whoever was talking to her. She stood in front of the mirror, ran one hand over her black hair and bared her teeth as if to check whether any food was caught in them.
‘Stop it. I can’t talk about shit like this when I’m at school,’ she said. ‘No, but I’m here now … I don’t want to know anything about it. That’s your problem. Okay … I realise that … M-hm … I don’t know … Okay … Come over tonight, then. At nine. And don’t call me again today.’
The clock on Vanessa’s mobile reads 9:34. She needs to pee. A telephone number appears on the screen. Minoo. She must have tried to call her, like, seven times already this evening, but Vanessa decides she’ll have to wait. Linnéa hasn’t rushed off to the fairground so it can’t be all that important.
At 9:46 she tells herself that if no one’s appeared by ten she’ll leave. At ten she decides to give it fifteen more minutes, even though she’s about to pee in her pants.
At 10:09 the front door to the building opens and a light comes on in the stairwell. The cables in the lift shaft creak, and Vanessa keeps her eyes fixed on the little window. The lift rises into view and stops. She glimpses a figure standing inside.
The doors open.
It’s not Wille.
It’s Jonte.
He walks up to Linnéa’s door and rings the bell.
The music cuts out in the apartment. He rings the bell again.
Linnéa opens the door. She’s not wearing any makeup and has on a pair of tracksuit shorts and a tight black T-shirt with a bat on the chest and DIR EN GREY written across it. She gives Jonte a hard look. ‘You’re late.’
‘Sorry,’ he says, but doesn’t sound as if he means it.
Linnéa steps aside to let him in.
Vanessa follows him. It just happens, without her realising. She has just enough time to press herself against the wall before Jonte closes the door and locks it.