I
’m going to tell you a story. A romantic story, one
including star-crossed lovers, international travel
and defying odds and cultural barriers. However, I
will warn you now, the end of this seemingly perfect story
is yet to be determined.
The scene opens on an island on the west coast of
Norway, a few hours south of Bergen, the country’s
second-largest city. An American girl arrives with four
11-year-olds in tow, nervous, but ready for the month-
long adventure she’s signed up for as a leader at a utopic
international children’s village. Romance is the last thing
on her mind. The hugs and kisses of 11-year-olds seem
like all she will ever need to feel full and loved.
Enter Fredrik. The Norwegian leader from Bergen.
The sole male leader in a group of 10 strong women. Tall,
blonde-haired, blue-eyed, great with kids — a real Prince
Charming. He meets the American girl, but it wasn’t love
at first sight. As she would later discover, he didn’t think
he’d enjoy her company at all — she seemed so American
and “too happy” (whatever that means). But isn’t that
how all good love stories go? Two totally different people
from totally different worlds, magnetized by fate despite
the odds stacked against them?
It certainly wasn’t easy for these two, this
modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Although mutual
feelings (or at least attraction) developed almost
immediately, both were drawn into the vortex of
rumors and drama that only a group of almost
50 preteens can create. She was sure that he
preferred the Brazilian leader (of course),
and he was quite positive she had her eye on
the only other adult male at camp — another
Norwegian, this one a staff member — who
the kids were already trying to couple
with our unwilling heroine. One night, in a
horrific and embarrassing twist of fate, while
the adults played a game aimed at revealing
deep, dark secrets, the girl made a costly error.
After spending a promising stomach-butterfly-
filled day walking in the mountains with the
only boy on her mind, she made a mistake
during the game that led to the widely held
belief that she had feelings for the wrong
Norwegian. She spent the rest of the night
with a pit in her stomach, telling anyone who
would listen that it was a mistake, hoping it
would make it back to Fredrik, but all in vain.
He spent the rest of the night fuming, telling
himself that he would stop his feelings for
her in their tracks.
They went on like this for many weeks, “coincidentally”
sitting next to each other at every meal, volunteering for
the same activities, the same groups. They had separately
reached the same conclusion: It simply wasn’t meant to
be.
Until Gala Night, that is. The second to last night of
camp. Everyone dressed up, the girls flaunting fancy hair
and makeup, the boys pretending to shave their baby-
smooth faces and spraying on enough cologne to drop a
horse. Fancy dinner, games, dancing. Fredrik’s station,
coincidentally, was right next to the girl’s, and they spent
all night making moon eyes at each other and wishing
they were together, knowing that their time was short.
Soon they would once again be a million miles and worlds
apart, back to their normal lives like the other had never
existed.
Later that night, with the kids put grudgingly to bed,
the leaders had a little farewell party of their own. They
took a few bottles of wine down to the rocky ledge of the
fjord, and talked and played games under the Norwegian
midnight sun, enjoying each other’s company, squeezing
as many memories as possible into their few remaining
hours.
The girl had conveniently forgotten to bring a raincoat,
and who came to her rescue? Fredrik, of course. He
offered her a seat next to him, and when it began to drizzle
allowed her to share his raincoat, protecting her from the
cold and the damp of the Norwegian summer. Their legs
pressed together under the table, their heads leaned in
towards each other ever so slightly, both hyper-aware of
the electricity moving between them, but neither willing
to believe the other was feeling the same.
The middle of the night came and went, and the
leaders made their way back to the campsite cold, wet
and just drunk enough on wine and laughter to make it
impossible to go immediately to bed. Our star-crossed
lovers sat together once more. He gathered every ounce
of bravery and drunken abandon he could muster, and he
gently took her hand under the table. Everything went
still and silent in her mind, her focus lasered in on how
his hand felt in hers. She couldn’t believe it, but it was
real. One by one the others trickled off to bed, and the
two were finally left alone.
On the morning of her last day in his country, they
woke up in each other’s arms for the very first time, not
quite able to believe what had transpired. He said, “Can
this not be awkward today?” and she responded, “ … I
sure hope so?” He laughed and clarified: “I mean, maybe
this could happen again?”
And it did happen again. After an exhausting blur of
a final day, filled with teasing, loaded eye contact, and
constant blushing, they were able to escape once more.
To be alone for a few more hours before their tearful
farewell. And it was so tearful — they both cried and
cried, and held each other so tightly before she walked
away toward a car ready to whisk her away from her fairy
tale, bound for the airport and her real life.
***
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I am the girl in the story.
(Surprised? Me too.) This is what happened next in my
personal little love saga: I went home, sad and expecting
to have to somehow forget this boy, the first to intrigue
me in a very long time, because how could anything ever
come of our short-lived international summer romance?
But then an impossible message pinged onto my
cracked iPhone screen: He didn’t want it to end, he
wanted to come visit me. And I said yes.
After months of anticipation and the horrors of long-
distance and a six-hour time difference, he was here.
Fredrik, my Norwegian fairy-tale prince, here in Ann
Arbor. Tailgating a Michigan football game decked out in
maize and blue, sitting across from me at Zingerman’s,
cooking breakfast for me in my kitchen. It was perfect,
it was a dream. Too perfect, in fact, because how is it
fair that someone who makes me so wonderfully,
blissfully, happy can also be so impossible, so
unattainable? He lives 3,714 miles away, I’ve
looked it up. How could anything ever come
of this? Is it stupid to keep investing my time
and energy, to keep trying?
I don’t have good answers for these
questions. And I’ve obviously realized
that this is not a perfect fairy tale story,
because those don’t exist in real life (at
least not mine). But I’m travelling to
Norway again this Christmas. Fredrik and
I have a Skype date every week, the most
recent lasting five perfect hours. Maybe I
am crazy, but the way I see it, relationships
at this stage in life tend to be hard and
hit barriers no matter what. Perhaps less
dramatic, concrete barriers than the Atlantic
Ocean, but college students struggle to find
what they need in a relationship, graduates
move to different parts of the country (or,
ahem, world), people find that they grow
in different directions, young professionals
find that they have different goals for their
lives than they once imagined.
The way I see it, any relationship at
this juncture, or maybe ever, is going to
be fraught with difficult decisions and uncertainty.
The future simply is uncertain for me right now. I am
careening toward graduation with very few ideas of
where I will be next, a prospect that is both intoxicatingly
exciting and completely terrifying. Nothing is out of the
realm of possibilities, so I won’t discount any possible
future, no matter how unexpected or unrealistic it may
seem at face value. It’s the same with my crazy, odds-
defying and frustrating long-distance relationship: I have
no idea where it’s going to go, if anywhere, but why reject
it as impossible when the world is only just opening up
its possibilities to me? Why end a story before it’s even
begun? My life is not a perfect fairy tale, it’s much more
exciting — anything could happen.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016 // The Statement
6B
Star-Crossed Lovers
by Emily Campbell, Copy Chief
ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA